through the wind, through the rain, through the snow.

i was sent out to western nebraska to put myself smack in the middle of a snowstorm.



unfortunately for me... not much snow.

i woke up thirsty the day I died.

my friend sarah tells me this is a swan. i am taking her word for it... shot this back in july when they were draining the olympic trial pool water into this pond. this was better than any other image i took that day. doesn't say much, eh?

all tomorrow's parties.

i am trying to catch up, people (well, the five people who look at this)...
these are back during my trip to rapid city to visit the soderlins. ryan cooked up this huge hunk of beef, which should surprise no one who knows him...

it turned out fantastic, which should also not surprise a soul.




also, ryan surprised me by pulling out "beer christ," which was my graduation present to him back in the last millennium, circa 1997, i think. this was shortly after "piss christ" got some headlines. to me, this summed up parts of ryan's personality. i spent a number of hours on it, actually. glad i did. it has aged well (it pry helps that ryan keeps it in a closet, which is truly where it belongs).

i got a union card and a wedding coat.

worst-ever parade? the labor day parade. also what made it worse is a spent 45 minutes on that assignment and four hours on a labor day birth shoot, which was supposed to go display. i bet all you newspaper photogs out there know how that turned out in the morning paper...

i thought this shot was kinda funny, though. you would think someone would have noted this before the parade started:

roll me away.

on the way to the husker game.

i will fix your rack if you'll take old jack, my dog.

i am sure if robbie robertson would have met mona the cat, he would have written about her instead of a dog...

my friends ryan and julie picked up this cat at the shelter. worst cat ever. not only does she pick fights with the other cat and keep me up at night, she steals money.


on the other hand, i did get to spend a day with my favorite dog, babe. she has gotten a little bit more gray then the last time i saw her, but still a pretty dog.

her brother baron, is a heckuva guy, too, but not pictured.

it was a night like this forty million years ago...

when i was visiting ryan and barb in rapid city, i made ryan go up to dinosaur park to take my picture on the mountain. i went there when i was a little kid. still pretty cool, man...


photo by ryan soderlin

and eyes like a showroom.

headed down to lincoln last night for my friend andrea's opening at the burkholder during first friday in lincoln. she sold a few pieces and really seemed to enjoy the evening, as well she should. it was deserved.

it's cloudy out in pittsburgh, it's raining in saigon.

i am a little behind on updates... went up to burwell to shoot the rodeo. unfortunately for me, it was cloudy again for two days that i was there (just like last year). on the plus side, shooting that rodeo in the dark sure beats shooting in omaha.

i'm going to see the folks I dig...

headed up to sodak this weekend for a miller family reunion. good time. i don't get to see that side as much as i like... many are from minneapolis. saw them all quite a bit when i lived in rochester. they were just kids then. all my little cousins are growing up. heck, i did not even recognize daniel. i like them all quite a lot.

they have a pretty good sense of humor, too.



olivia, maddie and daniel.

they were down near the water in a stone mud fight.

my friend dan took this shot of me from the olympic swim trials. it was a good time. a nice change of pace from baseball. if you have not seen anything i did, you can check out my sportsshooter page (if you check before i update).



also, my apologies to co-worker rebecca gratz, who took the shot of the fans with the sign in the previous post. sorry, rg!

I try to tell it like it is and keep away from pranks.

man, it's getting so i can't even go outside anymore.
it's nice to have fans and all... but why not some girls every once in a while?

it ain't my cup of meat.

we had a big storm last week. something like a category two hurricane-equivalent... i rode it out in a company car. the hail was nuts. better to be in a company car than my own. the power was knocked out for quite a while, so my buddy mike had me over for a steak. a long day, but not too shabby of an evening. not too shabby at all!

gonna get birth naked and bury my old soul.

you should all be happy this is the only photo from the scene that i am sharing...

grandmaster flash.

i actually have some pictures to post... lucky you.



we all got a good laugh out of this guy last night at the game. might have been the highlight of the night. for those non-photo people out there, the flash on the top of the camera is pointed up to "bounce" off a ceiling or wall and then illuminate the subject. near as we could tell, he was trying to bounce off the sky. you can safely assume his flash did not reach the ozone. kinda like trying to lasso the moon.

he was a credentialed professional, too.

in candy's room...

well, had the exhibit opening a few weeks ago. a lot of family made the trip to sioux city, so that was nice. a decent turnout for a nice day, i think.
pretty cool to see all the images together in frames.
a few of the people in the photographs came, so that was a highlight for me.

if you are passing through sioux city, you should stop on by. it's free and just off the hamilton exit on interstate 29.

pictures are few and far-between, this one is courtesy of alyssa.

women don't get wooly. women get weary.

hey, dumbass, haven't you ever seen "bull durham?"
stupid pitcher

you can send me dead flowers every morning.

for those who don't know, i will be having a photo exhibit at the lewis & clark museum in sioux city. the work will primarily focus on the highway 20 project i did for the paper. the museum did have me go shoot for a few days in iowa.



this was taken at a small cafe. if you want to see more, come to the opening on june 8 at 2p. if you can't make that, it will be there all summer. and it's free. so you got that going for you, which is nice.

someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny.

this photo has been sitting on my desktop for months... saw this sign when i was checking out this abandoned dance/dinner club in the middle of nowhere. looked like it had been closed for years. can only guess who or what this sign was really intended for.

do it like they do on the... home and garden channel?

whoa... i know i have been absent. just waiting for something good enough to post... here it is:
just try to picture it (nice mugshot, too).

i can't feed on the powerless when my cup's already overfilled.

someone will have to explain to me what big dogs have to do with drinking responsibly. and do you think that the guy with the lousy job of cleaning up the mess also has the lousy job of trying to get that person to pay?

this was from the avoca quack-off. i swear the event used to have better pictures.

also, for those keeping score at home (wild bill), i got sick last week for the first time in a number of years. it had nothing to do with drinking, either. a shame, really.

i am the iceman, fightin' for the right to live.

a few weeks ago we were supposed to get a bunch of snow overnight, so i set my alarm early. sometimes the best way to feature hunt in the snow is on foot. not this morning, though. pretty much came back home empty-handed. we did not get the snowfall that was predicted, and i did not find a cool feature. heck, i was a better picture than anything else i saw.

one coworker likes to say nice light follows me around. well, he is not with me on mornings like this when i get nothing.



for those wondering: the beard was usually was not so unkempt-looking. like i said, i just rolled out of bed. and it is back short again (wishful thinking for spring).

did you hear about the midnight rambler?

shot this at the zoo a while ago while doing something on other cats. how scary would it be to be camped out somewhere in south america and just see the eyes of this jaguar in the night?

somewhere, he lost it in a turn.

there are things you have said. raise the boat and raise the dead.

had a long day of obama yesterday. i think i did ok, though, which is nice. shot a free concert by bright eyes at the end of the day. jim james and m. ward showed up, too, which is nice.

i should have made the red galoshes more prominent, still kinda fun, right?

and i was a kaleidoscope...

i went on a tour of the gallup headquarters yesterday. this may have been my best frame... i like to take the easy pictures.

Oh, i've never met anyone quite like you before.

i am a lousy blogger. and my editing and cropping skills are arguable, as well.

the last waltz.

went out and partied like it was 1999 last night. only i am not 23, anymore. those 2.5 white russians in the middle of the beer likely did not help.

had a decent time (for me at a dance party). since it was not a theme party, there were not as many "interesting" looking people there.






(i do not know this woman. nor do i think i kissed her... but i don't remember taking this frame, either.)

i try to tell it like it is and keep away from pranks.

a lot of covering major sports is not really about shooting, it is dealing with problems: hassles, no-shows, nay-sayers, people in the way, no-men. it drains energy and creativity.

one of my favorite people in big red country is butch hug. he is basically in charge of every events that happens at the school. he even runs the starter pistol at state high school track.

he is direct. he is friendly. he does his job well and lets you do yours. if he says, "no," he has a good reason behind it. it is always nice when i see him at an event because i know that means things will go smoothly.

anyway, wild bill and i were walking around the stadium before a high school final football game in search of edible food. i saw butch watching the crowd spill in from one of the empty portions of the stadium...

meet me in the dream of this hard land.

a friend and mentor, jeff haller, spent a good chunk of last year in red cloud, neb., documenting his hometown. i probably spend as much time as anyone driving around this state trying to capture life in the rural midwest. he showed me how to do it well.

so, grab a cup of coffee, beer or whatever you like to drink. get comfortable. and watch this.

and then do jeff a favor a buy a print or two from him.

with your feet in the air and your head on the ground.

i did not notice this until i was in the office this morning. i either need more sleep or more coffee.

thought you'd never miss me til i got that phat city address.

i wonder if this guy counts as well as he spells.

you made me forget myself.

mother nature is making me her bitch on this trip west.

a very nice man lent me his cabin in a scenic part of nebraska (yes, they exist). i was intending to get some nice nature shots... too bad it rained. at least i was able to start a fire to fend off the cold while i read.

all the players came from far and wide.

i had an assignment to shoot a wide shot of the coliseum in lincoln for husker volleyball. volleyball tickets are much much harder to get than football -- they will have their 99th straight sell-out next weekend. i have shot a ton of wide shots in the past, so i tried to do something different. michael from the lincoln journal star had the same idea-- put a few pictures together to make a panoramic shot. he is good at that stuff, and he spent a fair amount of time on it. i look forward to his image. this was mine...



unfortunately, in the paper, it was cropped to just the team. so it goes.

the hardness of this world slowly grinds your dreams away.

so a less-funny post than normal...

in the spring, i was sent to take pictures at arlington national cemetary for the paper's memorial day package. i spent about half the day in the section where soldiers from iraq and afghanistan were killed. i left feeling heavy. i wrote a little but decided not to post it. a number of wives, children and parents came to visit the graves. i talked to one. but mostly just walked around, reading the notes. looking at the mementos left.






later that day, i took an impromptu portrait of a young nebraska vet, 24, who was at walter reed. he always wanted to be a marine. they would not take him. so he joined the guard instead. got hit three times in one month. he thought he was fine. he was not. head trauma.




then last week, i went into d.c. early in the morning. since the museum i wanted to see did not open until 10a, i got coffee and walked around the mall. i drank coffee. listened to the national. mermaid avenue. springsteen. i walked up and down the mall. sat the the ww2 memorial for a while. then walked up to the wall. i have been there twice. in fifth grade we took a family trip, and in college i went with the husker fb team when they met president clinton. anyway, i had not spent much time there before.

the names on the wall are in the order of death, but there are alphabetical books to help you find certain people. the last name "miller" took four pages up four pages. my uncle was in vietnam, but we were lucky- his name is not in the book. neither is my dad's. apparently, he had a really low number (if i understand it correctly) when the u.s. started to pull out.

since it was early, the memorial was pretty well empty. some workers were doing some maintenance on the wall. some asian tourists were taking pictures. one man took a hat from the ground, put it on and posed for a photo.





near the end of the wall, one man was kneeling with his head down.

i gave him some space (much like i did this spring at the cemetary). i took some pictures of other stuff. he came and asked me to take some photos of him next to his buddy's name. i shot some pics with his rebel and iphone. he thanked me, then started talking. his best friend growing up was killed. apparently, he saved some lives. the man told me how he had a tour, as well. i took a photo of his friend's name, and he asked if he could take my picture. anyway, i am not nearly eloquent enough to share what he told me or how he talked or looked. as we parted, i heard him start talking to his buddy's mother on the phone.

i googled the name and found this:

"Let us not forget Specialist Four Richard Steve Pennamon, casualty of the Vietnam War. As a member of the Army, SP4 Pennamon served our country until April 19th, 1968 in Quang, South Vietnam. He was 20 years old and was not married. Richard died from multiple fragmentation wounds/mine. His body was recovered. Richard was born on December 13th, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois.

SP4 Pennamon is on panel 50E, line 052 of the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C. He served our country for one year."



now back to our regularly-scheduled posts.

i stood stone-like at midnight.

spent a long weekend in d.c. and baltimore. one highlight was the national museum. mostly went to check out the edward hopper exhibit. pretty cool. buzzed through most of the rest of the museum, as well. for some reason, i liked this guy taking a shot of the nude statue, kinda like jock sturges.



more photos in the next few days.

buffalo gals won't you come out tonight.

sometimes, photos don't need commentary.

i'm going down to alphabet street.

i don't know what they did with all the books. apparently, reading is uncool in rushville.



in other news rushville news, the american legion will likely stop offering shrimp at their monthly steak and shrimp dinner because the shrimp is getting too expensive. a small* steak and a skewer of shrimp was 12 bucks.

*their word, not mine. i would call it "large."

cat knows kitty's been untrue and she left him for a city dude.

i went to this hipster dance party last week. can't say it was my scene, but i had fun taking pictures for an hour or two.

call me. call me. any, anytime.

and the good times keep on rolling:

sunday message:


it looks like the voice mail cut him off at the end.

your voice across the line gives me a strange sensation.

ok... after some debate (ok, just a little), i have decided to post and ask for help...

a man called the paper a couple months ago asking when his photo would be published. he left a message at my desk. since i did not remember taking his photo, i searched the archive and could find nothing. as i was headed out to an assignment, i just called him back from my cellular telephone, or mobile (as the kids call it these days). he was not there, so i just left a message and told him our library may be able to help him out.

days pass...

i got another call from him on my mobile. he spoke with familiarity. i was vague. he may have asked to hang out (i can't remember all the details). i just mentioned that i had to go out of town, which was the truth.

a week later, another call. 1130p. "did i wake you up?"
"no." it was a lie, but only after i hung up did i realize i was asleep. he wanted me
to come hang with a few buds at a park. seymour smith park, as i recall. i have shot high school baseball there. heckuva nice park.

on the road again... another call. (a smarter man would have programmed the number in by then.) i was a little ill. said sorry, i was busy.

there were a couple messages sprinkled in there... in the middle of this, i started to figure out that he thinks we went to high school together. but, the calls stopped for a bit. some friends also suggested that at this point, i should just ignore and hope it goes away. they said it would serve no purpose to make him feel dumb at this point...

well, i recognize the number now. he has called three times this week and is now programmed it the phone. how should i handle this? should i just keep collecting the voice mails?

help a brother out here, people...

tuesday's message:


thursday's message:


friday's message:

southern trees bear strange fruit.

it is now open windows season. my favorite time of year. i will miss how good gin and tonics taste on a hot day. another thing i will miss is all the good the produce.

good thing for south american imports...

forget the flowers.

a light test for a food shot. i think this photo may be better than my actual food shot.

a public service announcement followed me home the other day.

a comment we photographers hear quite a bit is, "don't take my picture. it will break your camera." not a threat, but usually said in a self-depreciating sort-of-way.

well, it finally happened...



... or maybe my pliers and my lens got into a disagreement in the trunk.