First Saturday and Recap of Week 1

My first Saturday is complete. After a very long 8-6 shift, I am beat. This morning started off early at the 30th Annual Youth Fishing Derby. For this assignment, I was to photograph people interacting with the fish and get a nice feature shot for the front page. So today I used something I learned from my teacher, Focus on the story. Even if the story is simply make a good picture of people fishing, I wanted to focus on one family who stuck out as interesting to me. I did a lap around the pond looking and watching families interact and kids fishing. On the second loop, I stopped at a family of six. Two little boys and one little girl (they had a baby too but babies don't fish). I was interested in the two boys and their relationship with fishing with their dad. It reminded me of the times I spent with my dad fishing when I was a little boy, so I wanted to show that bond in my images, a father to son bond. What I photographed near the end was completely unexpected, the little girl Sarah caught her first fish of the whole day. She was quite excited and I instantly changed gears to photograph her emotions. After evaluating all of my images, I thought her image came across as raw emotion and someone who was really curious and excited to catch a fish that day. So I chose that image for this assignment.

After the derby, I had another photography assignment which I will explain later next week when it is all finished. I had to photograph a Young Chef Academy opening at Great Lakes Mall today.

After that shoot, I went over to photograph Ted Strickland's appearance at Mentor's Democrat Headquarters. Today, Strickland was kicking off the 2010 Democratic Campaign in Ohio and did a tour of Northeast OH and stopped in Mentor. I got the typical shots for something like this and didn't feel like I could do much.

Since the reporter and I were not quite happy after Ted Strickland's appearance, the best thing to happen next... a working fire? My #2 to be exact. A vehicle repair shop went up in flames in the rear of the building today in Mentor. No one was inside the building when the fire started. Firefighters had to saw open the roof because the fire was passing into the lower section of the two panel roof and spreading quickly. Cars were damaged, section of the roof collapsed, but I got my first real fire with flames!

And a recap of my first week... Well, I can say I am thoroughly beat. This job takes a ton of stamina and devotion to continue to do every day. I have learned this first hand, it takes a certain person to do this and I like the challenge a daily newspaper brings me. Another thing I have noticed is local papers are really welcomed in the community. Every time I say, Chris Langer from the News Herald, everyone immediately accepts me and lets me photograph easily. I have noticed just working in a small community, everyone knows the paper and the community accepts the newspaper kindly. Because we are a suburban newspaper, we do lots of local events. I really enjoy doing this right now. It gives me a chance to go out and talk to new people. I find it interesting to learn from others and to be able to photograph their experiences happening at that moment. That point alone makes me interested in this job and continuing to photograph this summer and many summers to come. I also find spending more time invested in an assignment usually means better pictures. I spent a hour and a half with my family this morning fishing and thought the images I made where a good representation of what was happening at this event for this family. I also am finding it easier to talk to people as I work on more and more assignments and the ability to go up and ask them for their name and picture is becoming easier each day. Finally, I get to experience working fires. These are so cool and I got two in my first week here! Definitely excited to continue to photograph more working fires in the future.

Some of my favorite assignments this past week have been:
Regina High School Closing
Youth Fishing Derby

Chris Langer/CLanger@News-Herald.com

Sarah Bernardo, age 2 from Painesville, caught her first fish at the 30th Annual Youth Fishing Day on Saturday at the Kiwanis Recreation Park Fishing Pond. The City of Painesville Recreation Division and the Northeast Ohio Walleye Association presented the event where kids of different age groups compete for the biggest and most fish caught at the Youth Fishing Derby.