It feels like September tonight.

O.K. maybe that’s an exaggeration with the unseasonably chilly weather we’ve had this spring.

Tonight was the Racine Raiders semi-pro football team opening game of the season against the Columbus Fire.

A novel fact from tonight’s game is that one of the two Columbus team buses broke down on the way here, so the team made due with one busload of players.  Fifteen players suited up for game time.  I wonder if the remaining players ever made it.

It was a fun game to photograph, with lots of unpredictable action from both teams. There was good energy in the stadium tonight, and there was nice, even light from out of the west. All made for easy conditions to make good pictures.

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson/Journal Times

On Friday I went to Greek Fest to take a few photos to help our newspaper preview the event for the weekend papers. This year was the first year they started the festival on Friday during the day with a Greek luncheon.

In an exciting moment, I initially spotted two men carrying two 6-foot-long rotisserie rods loaded with seasoned whole chickens down a ramp from the back of a cooler truck.

I shadowed the two men, who led me to the festival’s cooking tent, where dozens of rotisserie chickens and lamb slowly rotated over a blistering hot bed of coals. They were all synchronized by an electric motor, propelling a custom rotisserie apparatus strung together with bicycle chains.

It was a beautiful display of outdoor cooking.

From a photographer’s standpoint, getting the right shot is a challenge. The tent is well shaded, and it’s very bright outside.  If I shoot without a flash and set my exposure for the subject in the tent, the light from outside the tent will be a major distraction in the background.

My goal is to get a good angle showing the cooking, the cook and the apparatus. My other goal is to use a flash to balance the light under the tent with the light entering from the area outside of the tent.

I set my camera exposure to slightly overexpose the outside area without making it too bright. Next, I set up the flash on my camera to bounce a full-power discharge into the white tent canopy above my head, hoping to bounce enough light onto my subject (and the delicious food) to balance it with the light outside.

The full-power discharge from my flash wasn’t quite powerful enough today to pull it off, so I held the camera aloft over my head and fired several shots blindly, hoping to get just a little more kick from the flash, and get a better angle on the subject.

I switched my camera to “Live View” which shows what I’m looking at through the lens on the preview screen on the back of the camera. Using “Live View,” I was able to catch a glimpse of what I was photographing from over my head.

After several more shots, it was all enough to get the angle I was looking for at the exposure I was hoping for.

And I didn’t get burned.

Image © 2011 The Journal Times

Our newspaper covered a sentencing hearing in court Friday, for Oscar Martinez-Gonzalez, a 22-year-old man who beat Heraclio Torres, a 41-year-old father of two so badly he fell into a coma.

In general, sentencing hearings follow a set procedure: the judge begins the hearing, the prosecution states their argument, the defense states their argument, both sides have the option to call people to testify, then the judge reads the sentencing guidelines, states his opinion and concludes by reading the sentence.

Maria Torres testified in Spanish with an interpreter speaking in English during the prosecution’s argument. Typically victims and their families stand at the bench to testify, but Maria chose to take the witness stand, right in front of the defense. She spoke with a determined voice,  and strained to complete sentences when her emotions welled up.

She spoke at such length, the judge politely asked her to quickly finish her testimony. About halfway through, her husband Heraclio Torres was wheeled into the gallery of the courtroom.

That’s when I put it together. I was at their house years ago for a story about how the family was receiving free therapy because they didn’t have insurance.

I saw the connection in images. Heraclio’s hand meeting the therapist’s, the exercise ball, the smiling children, the half-eaten cake on the dining room table, legs the diameter of arms.

I was determined to get a photo of the husband and wife together.

The hearing ended, everyone filed out of the courtroom, except Heraclio and the person who wheeled him in. The prosecution retreated into a small conference room off the gallery.

I sat in the corner of the empty courtroom, waiting.

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson/Journal Times

I am moved by the texture of broken asphalt, reflecting the purple sky at dusk.

On Monday night I was walking from my car to the Racine Labor Center to photograph an informational meeting held by area teachers about the importance of fighting for collective bargaining rights on the state level.

Head down, I’m walking with the usual thoughts: the last time I was in here I had to shoot at 6400 just to get a picture, flash was not likely going to help me in this environment, I wonder if I am going to have to fend off any people who want copies of tonight’s photographs, or anyone who thinks I’m here to expressly advocate for their cause, or anyone who is upset that I’m there, or why so many of my Facebook friends have gotten so political on their posts, and on, and on, and on.

Then it hits me: the parking lot is very beautiful tonight.

When I see this image, I see dry lakebeds, mud crackled and curled on the edges, I see children pouring water into the cracks, flushing out wolf spiders as a game, I see the pattern on a giraffe, I see giraffes necking, twisting and wrapping their necks around each other in play, I see numerous things like a backwash, flooding stillness with new thoughts, new images.

But the first moment, I’m simply in awe.

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson

The Case High School cheerleaders provide a festive backdrop to Case High School’s game versus Bradley Tech as Cedric Johnson, middle left, and Jalen Riley, right, guard Tech’s Mike Bond as he puts up a layup in the first half. The Racine Case High School boys varsity basketball team defeated Bradley Tech High School in the WIAA Division I Regional Championship game 73-49 on Saturday night, March 5, 2011 at Case High School.

When I started photographing basketball regularly as part of my career as a photojournalist, I was enamored with getting a good shot that was tight on the action.

Everything had to be photographed at the peak moment. Tight, tight, tight.

Photographing basketball became a short order menu:

1) Player dribbling past another player.

2) Player shooting/laying up ball with hand/arm/body in the way.

3) Players fighting for ball in air/ground.

4) Players jumping for ball underneath the basket.

As the years, and the photos, added up, creating image after image like this became boring, boring, boring.

Digging through our newspaper’s film archive, I found the images contained in black-and-white negative film attractive and refreshing.

There were lots of players in the photo. You could see walls, floors, ceilings, spectators, coaches and referees – sometimes all in one shot.

You could see what the uniforms looked like and what people were wearing in the stands.

The photos were interesting. They revealed people.

That’s part of what draws me to tonight’s image.

There are a lot of things wrong with it as a contemporary sports photo: it’s got a busy background, it’s not an easy read as a photo, the action is not a peak moment, the angle of view is not dramatic etc.

But there’s many things to like about this image: it has distinct layers, it has a clear graphical quality, it has a coincidental aspect that adds novelty, it shows the setting, and it shows that the game brings together different people.

There’s more going on here!

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson/Journal Times

Members of the Union Grove Yorkville Fire Department hold up a blue tarp as they remove a body from a car on Interstate-94 just south of Highway 11 in the northbound lane on Thursday night, February 24, 2011, after the driver of a vehicle veered to the side of the road while driving and crashed into a semi truck parked on the shoulder. The driver reportedly died instantly in the crash.

Thursday night a call came over the police scanner about a serious accident on Interstate-94 involving a car and a semi truck parked on the side of the road.

The car reportedly veered to the shoulder of the road, colliding with the rear of the semi trailer, shearing off the top of the car, killing its driver.

I stood in the valley between the east frontage road and the northbound side of the interstate with a 300 mm lens on my camera, mounted on a monopod, photographing the scene from a distance.

The northbound freeway lanes were completely shut down and traffic investigators brought out flood lights to help them with their investigation.

It’s startling what you can see through a camera lens, even at a distance. About ten minutes after my arrival, a County Sheriff’s Sergeant walked over to me, near a wire fence that separates the interstate from the valley I was standing in.

He asked me to hold off on taking photos while they removed the deceased person from the car, pointing out that he would appreciate it if I avoided taking photos of the various parts that may still be on the ground.

I heeded his request, and made the above photo.

This is the second fatal highway accident I have personally covered in the last week. Over the weekend, I was at the scene of an accident in which the rear wheels of a bus fell off and collided with a following car, killing its driver. I was there when a County Medical Examiner told the father that his son was deceased. I watched as the father covered his face and kneeled on the ground, doubled over in grief.

I have been asked how to personally handle witnessing scenes like these, and how to avoid bringing them home with me.

The simple answer, is that I can’t. Scenes like these travel with me wherever I go, and can be recollected at any time, triggered by any circumstance, or by nothing at all. They can be haunting.

The best way I know to continue from experiences like these is to deepen respect for the other people involved:

During the course of their jobs tonight, Police, Rescue workers and traffic investigators tended to an accident in which someone died. They were responsible for managing the scene, helping people, learning what happened and informing loved ones. Each person saw what they saw and felt how they felt.

Tonight, or early tomorrow, friends and family will learn what happened. They will grieve, come together, prepare a funeral, and bury their loved one. They will keep valued possessions, and discard others. They will mark the days. They will feel the way people feel when they lose someone.

All along, I work for a newspaper, and was asked to photograph the accident. That’s what I do.

I treat the people who are working at the scene with respect. I answer their questions, I follow their directions. When they are agitated, I talk slowly. I wave to them when I leave so they know not to look for me after I have left.

It has taken time for me to learn this.

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson/Journal Times

This week has been consumed by Wisconsin’s strenuous budget debate and numerous demonstrations throughout our community. So it’s a nice respite when an opportunity comes along to focus squarely on children and their creative ways of tackling the practical problem of spelling new and sometimes unfamiliar words.

Of all the children I photographed Tuesday at the spelling bee, Iyana Thompson caught my attention.

She did a good job spelling words, but when she felt she got lucky with a correct spelling, she’d snap her head away from the microphone and the audience and dart to the back of the line with an animated expression.

I took note of where her head ended up as soon as she snapped it away from the microphone, thinking I could get the perfect angle if she luckily spelled her way through another tough word.

The next time up, she drew the word “child.”

After getting tripped up on the spelling, she started over again, quickly finding her way through the word. There was a pause, then the okay from the judges and she darted for the back of the line.

This time I was prepared.

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson/Journal Times

Late Saturday afternoon, we get a call that people were currently protesting outside State Rep. Robin Vos’s house. Vos, a State Assembly Republican and co-chair of the legislature’s Joint Finance committee, is well-positioned to have a legitimate role in the passage of Gov. Scott Walker’s Budget Repair bill.

After receiving the tip, I drove the 40 minutes out to the west end of the county to Rep. Vos’s house. The street was quietly lined with cars, and about 30 people were milling around in front of the driveway apron to his house.

The people were not chanting or marching up and down the block like they did for Republican State Sen Van Wanggaard’s house earlier in the week. In fact, the only marching they did was around a nearby cul-de-sac just to keep warm.

The setting was quiet in many respects: The sky was clear. The neighborhood, which is somewhat under construction, is peppered with empty lots, homes under construction and surrounded by farm fields and trees. Nobody else was outside.

People talked, milled about, shivered to keep warm. One man walked up the driveway to knock on the door.

Nobody home.

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson/Journal Times

I saw a man in a wheelchair outside his apartment hacking away at a snow bank while I was driving to an assignment to cover local union members phoning their membership at the local Union Hall.

On my way out of Union Hall, a mail carrier exclaims to me how unfortunate it is that nobody is helping a man in a wheelchair dig his way through a snow bank.

I walk down the block to see Timothy Selmon and his sister Derris, who just joined him a few minutes earlier, hacking through the same snow bank. Timothy is stabbing at the snow with a shovel, Derris is swinging a carpenter’s hammer, breaking up the ice.

One way or another, they had been at it for an hour and made a small dent in the snow bank. A week earlier, a record-setting blizzard dropped nearly two feet of snow on the area. Timothy had to get out, and the only way he could do it was to cut his way through the snow.

I volunteered to help, and after twenty minutes of frenzied shoveling, we carved a path.

His ramp was three feet to our left.

We started again, moving the snow on the bank, and the snow we piled on top of it, hammering through more ice until we got to the ramp. Timothy gunned the motor on his wheel chair, sliding and skidding to a halt partially up the ramp.

We studied where his momentum carried him, where he slid to. We chiseled, hammered and shoveled away until we hit concrete. We scooped away water.

Timothy tried it once more. Sliding and drifting, he made it up the ramp. We applauded. Timothy’s girlfriend watching out the second floor window clapped an hollered out the window for us.

Now he could cross the street, go to the nearby school and to a host of stores.

Several days later, the snow all melted in the unseasonably warm weather.

This weekend we get more snow.

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson/Journal Times

Earlier in my career, I would careen toward situations where I could make a silhouette photo, but I’ve burned out on that, and now make them reluctantly. I see that names and faces are the bread and butter of what we do. Passing those up for a picture of black figures on a wall is a much tougher decision now.

I like this one, as an alternative look at a sizable demonstration outside the Racine Unified School District’s offices in town. Monday (also Valentine’s day) was the beginning of a remarkable run of demonstrations we’ve seen this week over a state proposal to remove collective bargaining rights from selected groups of people who work for the state.

In the warm light of dusk, this looks like a calm, pleasing photograph, however the issues brought to our front page each day this week are contentious and intense. To me, the image seems incongruous with its context.  It’s an optimistic look at something that figures to be an emotionally taxing taffy pull.

Image © 2011 Scott Anderson/Journal Times