bigskysquid

Cats victorius in muddy litterbox

I had a great opportunity over the weekend to head on down to Bozeman (one of my former homes) and take some shots of this year's "Brawl of the Wild."  Saturday, was the 105th meeting of the good ol' match-up between the Montana Grizzlies and Montana State Bobcats, and it was definitely the place to be.  It was my first opportunity to be on the sidelines for something of that scale and it something to see.  The game was low-scoring and pretty uneventful, but I couldn't complain about being down in front.  Unfortunately, the Griz failed to get anything rolling and the Cat's just kept on keepin' on and the Griz lost.  I'm sure if you were interested at all you know all the highlights by now anyways.

However, some not-so-glorious highlights for me were:

• Travis Lulay kicked mud all over my camera while diving into the sidelines.
• Dan Carpenter almost kicked a ball into me when I walked too close to that net thingy he practices on.
• And finally, Governor Schweitzer almost blew my head off with that cannon deal that shoots the t-shirts into the stands.

Dang it was fun.

Flickr the Photo Editor - Update

My apologies for being a little late on the follow-up, but thank you to everyone who viewed and commented on my Flickr experiment.

Your favorite by far was the one of the gentleman with the painted face and skeleton in front of him(2 comments and 51 views).  Unfortunately, I had to turn in the one of the guy with all the stuff hanging all over him in front of the Ox.  I just didn't have the correct caption information for the most popular shot.  I did however get it two hours after deadline, but I did try.

Thanks again for your help and feedback.  It was a great opportunity for me to look at my work side by side and try and discover what it is that stands out in my photos.

Flickr the Photo Editor

Tonight was Missoula's Festival of the Dead and I, along with all my classmates, went out to shoot it.  One of the things that has fascinated about taking pictures is how what I consider a good picture sometimes isn't what someone else would.  So, I'm going to throw my own bias out the window and let everyone and anyone choose which picture I turn in.  My only stipulations are that I make sure the photo meets the assignment and can back them all up with accurate cutlines.

I have posted 12 photos in a Flickr set.  Feel free to add comments if you like.  My assignment is due Tuesday, so on Monday night I will count up comments and views.  Whichever photo is leading the pack will get turned in... hopefully for a decent grade.

So, choose your fav or favs and thanks in advance for the input.

Flash Navy Portfolio

So, if my last post didn't give it away... I was in the Navy for a little while.  Actually it was five long years that flew by.  My job was journalist but I cleaned more toilets than I wrote stories.  Actually, that sounds bad.  Truthfully, we did pretty much everything you could imagine.  I was a radio DJ, webmaster, media escort, editor, video editor... pretty much everything.  Oh, and I made a pretty mean cup of coffee. An inch deep and a mile wide... that's me.

Anyways, my last tour was with Commander U.S. Naval Forces Central Command/ Commander FIFTH Fleet in Manama, Bahrain.  In normal people terms: I worked for the public affairs people for the guy who was in charge of all the boats shooting missiles into Iraq.  I spent 1 1/2 years on the lovely desert island and these are some of the pictures I took during that last tour.  As you can imagine, there's a long story behind each one.  Next time I put together a Flash gallery I'm going to have to get some caption information up there.  Hope you enjoy.

Adobe Photoshop CS2: It's a Love Hate Thing

I love it... but at the same time I hate it.

Tonight CS2 stole my heart away from 7.  For those of you who actually know what that means you won't think me a big wierdo for explaining why.

I've had CS2 for a couple of weeks now but just haven't sat down to spend any quality time with it.  After getting my feet wet editing up some studio shots, I decided to try out the new Flash "web photo galleries."  So, I picked a couple of my images and a folder and whoosh... that was it.  I had tried 7's and Dreameweaver's galleries before and... well they were always lame.  They took more time to fix up then it took to take the pictures in the first place.

Then, there it was.  Not only is it a slick looking interface.  It's hardly buggy at all and would take me a week to do in Flash on my own.  I hate it.... no, I love it.

So, as you can see I'm confused. Check out the gallery. It real purty.

This Ain't No Rag, It's a Flag

It's not anywhere near the 4th of July, but a little refresher course on how to properly hang the American Flag never hurt anybody.  This came to my attention the other day when someone used the flag as a backdrop for a studio portrait.  As soon as I saw it I knew something wasn't right.  He had it hung vertically and backwards.  I guess if you're trying to say something anti-US or whatever (which you have a right to do) there isn't any problem with it.  But if you're planning on using the flag, do a little research first.

The most common display mistake I see is the vertical display.

When the flag is displayed in a manner other than by being flown from a staff, it should be displayed flat, whether indoors or out. When displayed either horizontally or vertically against a wall, the union should be uppermost and to the flag's own right, that is, to the observer's left. When displayed in a window it should be displayed in the same way, that is with the union or blue field to the left of the observer in the street. When festoons, rosettes or drapings are desired, bunting of blue, white and red should be used, but never the flag.
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