As most of you will have found out by now, Alittlenews has moved to Alittlenewsphoto.com.
For any of you who may be new visitors to this site, here are some recent posts at the new blog. You should also know that all the content on this blog has been transferred there too so you won’t miss a thing.

Today, I did a post on Geometric Lighting which is a fancy way of saying to move around and vary your camera and lighting angles. Other posts from last week include: A View From The Pool, a look at a portrait by contributor Paulo Rodrigues, A New View of Lynn which details a freelance photo session with new romance novelist Lynn Raye Harris, Working Hard On The Little Things, a post about working hard on the ‘everyday’ assignments, and Feeling Like A Jerk, a post that recounts a mess I got into while covering Governor Guy Hunt’s funeral visitation.

If you have not yet made the move, come and join us.  If you are new and like the site, come on over for the fresh content.  I look forward to seeing you.

For those slackers amongst us who have not yet updated their readers to make the move to ALittleNewsPhoto, I thought I would give you some links to this weeks’ posts. Here is the most recent post on shooting receptions. It is actually better than it sounds. This post is about working freelance as an assistant to my very talented friend David Higginbotham. Read it and check out his most excellent photos on his site. Next was a post on a new site friendly to citizen photojournalists at WeSay.com. They allow and encourage reader submitted PJ images. Then there is a post about my coverage of a spelling bee and some tips on how to cover events like this and what to look for. And the first post of this week was on pleasant surprises and the value of staying visually alert.

So, please stop by the new site. It still looks the same and all the content that is here is also over there. Come on over and join the crowd!

I am noticing that a great many of you have not made the transition to ALittleNewsPhoto.com yet so this is just a post to link you to the newest post. Click here to read about making something from nothing on a photo assignment.

If you have not yet made the leap, all the content on this site is also over there. All the archives, comments and photos have been transferred so come on over and jump in. The water is fine, even for the dead of winter!

Greetings my friends.  The move is now complete.  Please visit ALittleNews at this address: http://alittlenewsphoto.com/
Thanks for catching up. If you have me linked in your blogroll I would really appreciate it if you updated so folks can just zip right over. Thank you so much. Gary

Very soon A Little News will be having a moving day.  Probably it will happen Saturday.  I am packing all the furniture now and trying to clean the dust bunnies out of the corners.  I will give you an official announcement in a day or two.  I am really excited about the move and I am doing this little heads up to make sure you guys are looking for it.  In addition to making sure I don’t miss any dust bunnies I definitely want to make sure I don’t miss any of you.  So, keep your eyes open and be ready to update your browsers.   There will be a slight name change because someone else already owned the domain name I am using on the blog.  Bummer, but it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Flames billow from a house at 1205 North St. SE in Decatur Sunday night as Decatur Firefigthers prepare to attack. The house was heavily damaged by the fire but firefighters did not think anyone was home. Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. 1/11/09

Seems like a no brainer doesn’t it?  Yet, this is exactly what almost happened to me Sunday night and this one really is one of those things they never teach you in school.  I was covering a fully involved house fire Sunday night and I very nearly stepped on the power service which had been snapped by the fire and was laying in the street.  Now, I am an old firefighter and whenever I have ever approached a fully involved structure fire as either a fireman or a photographer I have always located the power service.  Early in any fire this will still be “hot” and able to kill you quickly.

This time I didn’t look.  I was trying to hurry and get a photo because the Decatur Fire and Rescue is good and a fully involved house fire thirty seconds before I pulled up was now rapidly becoming a steaming, black pit on a very dark section of street.  My Dad used to say that God protects fools and firefighters.  It was a good thing Sunday night or I would  have stood a good chance of joining the heavenly choir in the role of fool.  I was hurrying along trying to find a better shooting angle before the flames were completely gone when I just happened to look down in mid-stride.  My foot was just about to land on the power service.  Thank God I was able to pull my foot back and move away.

Moments later, the end of the power line crackled in a huge ball sparks beside the house and I saw a firefighter go down.  I was afraid the line had gotten him.  Fortunately he was not injured and must have only been startled or something like that because he got right up.  There are many dangers out there on assignment.  Some you see, those you can usually avoid, some you don’t see, those are the dangerous ones, and some you are ignorant of and those too can get you.  Don’t get so caught up in getting that picture that you ignore the dangers of the assignment.

Over the years I have been through many things that made me grateful for my fire and EMS background.  I have been able to avoid some trouble because of it.  You may not have that background and people may not tell you about them.  Keep any eye on your surroundings and stay alive.  You may not even have to touch the danger to get whacked.  Had that power service been draped over the chain link fence surrounding the property it would have been electrified and touching it would be equally deadly.  There is just not a single photo I have ever seen that I wanted to die for.  The power service didn’t care that I am married and have eight kids to take care of.  It didn’t care that I have goals and ambitions.  Had I touched it all that would have gone away in a split second.  Like the sergeant on Hill Street Blues used to say, “Let’s be careful out there!”

Photo copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

To say I am a little juiced would be an understatement and it is not what you think by reading the headline.  By juiced, I mean excited, pumped up, psyched!  The only bummer on the whole thing is I can’t really show you the whole project yet.  I am working on a multi-media package on a family who bought an old log cabin and reconstructed it on their property.  It is going to be a very nice project and last night I put the cap on it.

I wanted to do a multi-light shot right at dusk with the owners in the photo to pull the whole project together and put a nice bow on it.  I had planned to use all my personal gear and all the company gear to set up several strobes to light the house and the people without it being over strobed.  In other words, I wanted it to look as natural as possible even though it would be lit to high heaven.  (Sorry about tossing yet another drinking reference into the post and I am not even a drinker!  I really must be psyched.)

Click on the image to see a larger version.

What I ended up with was a six light configuration and the only reason it was six lights instead of seven was I ran out of Pocket Wizards.  I could have really used one, or even two more strobes.  Still, I was so very happy with the outcome I will not get too critical of the final shot.  I arrived at 4:30 to begin my setup and the property owners had already lit the oil lamps hanging under the eaves of the porch and built a fire in the fire place.  I began by assembling my buddy David Higginbotham’s Octobank, which I have on semi-permanent loan, and then placed it on a Lumedyne head.  This would be the key light for the people.

I then began attaching Vivitar 285 HV strobes and Nikon SB800 strobes under the porch and in the dog trot so I would have my background lighting.  I then took another Lumedyne strobe and set it upstairs so I could get some light coming out the top windows.  As it turned out I would have been better served by using this strobe in one of the downstairs rooms but I didn’t realize it until it was too late.  At any rate, I used a variety of power settings on the small strobes.  The one clamped to a rafter in the dog trot was bounced off the wooden underside of the roof so I set it to 1/2 power.  The ones under the porch were set to 1/16 power.  I spaced these roughly at even intervals to cover most of the porch.

The dog trot strobe had no gel on it since it would be bounced off of wood that was roughly the color I wanted the light to be anyway.  The three strobes under the eaves of the porch all had warming gels to more closely resemble light coming from the lamps.  Here again is a small error I would fix if I could but the gels made the flash a bit more yellow than I wanted.  If I were doing it over I would go with more amber and less yellow.  Oh well, live and learn.  The Octobank was unfiltered but that did not matter because most of what it was illuminating was either wood, ground or dark green roof tin.  I also did not want too much yellow/orange lighting spilling onto the people.

So, there we have it.  I shot with my EOS 5D knowing the colors would just sing and if I needed some higher ISO numbers I could get them without grain and too much contrast buildup ruining shadow detail if I decided I needed it.  Obviously, that handsome fellow in the photo is me.  When I finished shooting, the family asked if I would like to have my photo taken and I said sure.  That is not my usual MO but in this case I thought it would make a nice photo of me.  My mom and dad still think I am handsome and want an occasional photo of me.  Go figure!  Hey, they are my parents.  When I publish the whole story in a week or two I will get back to you with the entire show and then you can see the whole deal.  I am absolutely thrilled with the way this project is turning out and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Photo copyright Gary Cosby Jr.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

The members of Flower Hill Primitive Baptist Church honored Oquilla Clay with a 100th birthday celebration Sunday, December 28 at the church in Hillsboro. Family members from all across the country along with many former pastors of the church returned to honor the Hillsboro resident. Clay sits and prays during the service Sunday. Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. 12/28/08

I plan to do one of these posts from time to time and it is especially for you who are in journalism or for those hoping to get into journalism.  Not that it won’t help the rest of your guys, it is just that our business is in a bit of a tight spot right now and becoming more valuable to your company is a good way to remain employed.  There are many ways to do this and today’s post is only one of those many ways.

I was given an assignment on a recent Sunday afternoon to shoot a birthday portrait of a lady turning 100.  Our newspaper publishes the photo of anyone under five or over ninety on their birthday and we shoot many of these.  Obviously, there are a bunch more five and unders than there are in the over ninety crowd.  These assignments are traditionally a thumb nail size photo with a bio for the babies and a bit larger one column by three inch photo with bio for the elders.  My job order said the church where this lady attended was having a special celebration honoring her so they might run a little bit larger photo if the situation merited it.

Knowing I was going to an all African American church, I wasn’t too worried about being exactly on time.  I have been in several serivces in black churches and the clock tends to be irrelevant.  I arrived just about 2:15 with an assigned time of anywhere from 2:00 to 2:3o thinking I might have to wait a few minutes to make the photo.  Upon arrival I found a church full of people and the honoree sitting in a special chair right up front.  One of the lady’s relatives escorted me down front and I realized quickly that it was going to be more than a few minutes before this service ended.  The man speaking was in the middle of a full tribute to the birthday girl and there were several others waiting to speak.

The atmosphere was relaxed so I could move about a little bit without disturbing anyone so I found a place next to the church organ and knelt down and began shooting.  As the tribute continued I realized that this needed to be way more than a birthday portrait.  The little lady in the chair had influenced several generations of family, friends and church leaders and they were singing her praises, one guy literally singing to her.  The longer I stayed the more happy I was to have the photo assignment.  Sometimes you are around great people who are famous like actors or politicians or pro athletes.  This day I realized I was around a great person whom no one knew about outside of her small community.

I shot for almost an hour before the service ended and the tributes stopped.  When I got back to the office I went immediately to the assigning editor and told them about the experience and how I felt the lady’s story needed to be told.  A week later we ran a Living centerpiece on her and it would never have happened had I only gone there and shot my portrait and left.  I was able to add value to our photo assignment and hopefully contribute to this wonderful woman’s legacy by being a little more patient than normal and by shooting a lot more than my actual assignment required.

Yeah, that is a little thing but let me tell you about little things.  Even a big building is made up of little pieces and each piece contributes to the strength and stability and even the beauty of the whole.  When you are known for contributing a lot of little things that add value to your publication you are actually making your job more and more secure and your career more and more successful.  Everyone is always looking for the big thing.  Be the guy who nails the big things but don’t ever ignore doing that little bit extra every day.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.

Christie Raney watches while Carolyn Burgess comforts Raney's mother Connie Patterson who is battling cancer. Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. 12/19/08

Okay class, this is what it is all about.  You will shoot literally thousands of assignments in your photojournalism career and your degree of success will depend on how many times you come back with “the moment” from that assignment.  And I am not just talking about the big football game or huge fire, I am talking about every day, every job getting the shot.  Sometimes that moment will not look all that dramatic and I have chosen photos for this post to illustrate that concept.  Most people will never even remember these pictures and certainly no one will remember them like they would a photo from a dramatic fire or big football game.

That said, the essence of the job is finding that definitive moment in your every day assignments.  This job was one of those you look at and think to yourself, “there may actually be something here!” The job was not a set up thing.  They were actually having a Christmas meal for a family that was struggling through some hard times.  The African American lady in the main photo is comforting a lady who is fighting through cancer.  The younger lady at left is her daughter and the story centers around them.  (That is why I didn’t crop the photo tighter.)  The moment is genuine and I had already just about given up on getting a genuine moment when this one happened.   The African American lady reached out to comfort the one suffering with cancer and there it was.  I don’t even want to think about how many photos like this I have missed over the years because I just wasn’t ready to shoot when it happened.

The family invited me to eat with them and I am always reluctant to eat on a photo assignment because of the possibility to miss a photo.  But this day there was no way to say no.  So I ate and ate as quickly as I could so I could be ready because I knew I didn’t have the moment yet.  This actually played into my hands, as well as my stomach, because eating with the family caused them to relax a bit and get used to me being there.  By the time I picked up the camera again no one was really paying attention to me and that is the situation you want.  I was able to shoot freely now with no one noticing my presence.

I also lit the room with a pair of Vivitar 285 HV strobes fired with Pocket Wizards.  I just wanted to mimic room light so they were both bounced off the ceiling.  I laid both strobes on a low freezer which was out of the frame and mostly behind me.  I used two strobes rather than one because that gave me more power with a quicker recycle time compared to using a single unit.  Now I am free from technical details and just focused on shooting.  This is really important because if you are fussing with equipment you are dealing with a distraction that can hurt your mental focus.  Staying mentally awake and free of distractions is a really important key to being able to nail the moment especially in these every day situations.  When the moment finally did happen I was ready for it and was able to get the shot.  Unfortunately that is not always the story.  You can see all the photos I turned in from this assignment in the gallery.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr., The Decatur Daily.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Today I went through the A Little News pool on Flickr and came up with some favorites from our readers.  Want to see what I liked from the pool?  Click on this photo by Kpricephotography and check it out.  I really want to use the Flickr pool more and get you guys more involved in the site.  Not too long ago I upped the limit on daily submissions to five per day.  So go check out the faves and add some photos and maybe even get bold and have a conversation about what you like, don’t like, have questions about or just about anything.  As I mentioned earlier, I want to start a photo contest and we will begin with the best from last year so this little selection of my faves is just to juice you guys up.  Go and check out the pool and you may find some really cool stuff in there.  As we grow you will find more and more stuff in there and it will get better and better.  Enjoy my pics and make a few of your own.

Photograph copyright K Price Photography.