Tag Archives: feature

The Romance Theater Book

THE INTRODUCTION:

Starting out, I struggled to find the best way to show the need for continued support of the Romance.

I thought that I should find and photograph every flaw, every chipped wall, every broken fixture and appeal to viewers with guilt. This would not have been the best approach.

Although I did not try to aggrandize the theater by avoiding every flaw, my thought was to show the greatness of its history, the progress of its present and the hope for its future.

The Romance, although not in its prime, still means something and has great importance for the city and the people of Rexburg.

Its beauty has captivated the hearts of young and old. I wanted to convey that by telling some of those stories with this book.

Although I only focus on a few, I know you are reading this book because the theater has touched you in some way and you have a story of your own.

Yes, it is expensive to sustain a 100 year-old building like the Romance, but these buildings and their stories are important for the future, our future.

I hope that in some way this book helps you to see that this theater has come a long way after being saved, and yet, it still has a long way to go.

With your support by donations of money and service, the Romance Theater will once again be the jewel of Rexburg.

To Purchase This Book Visit THIS LINK

Day 43

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Today was short but sweet, it was time for another in person portrait. This is Jim Brannon, and he is the Kootenai County Clerk.

Day 40

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Today was a pretty slow day. I went out and took some stand alone photos that we didn’t really need but I had to do something. And then at 4pm there was an appointment at the senior center in Post Falls where a little girl wanted to give back to the community. She got her whole class to color pictures of flowers and spring things to bring spring inside for the seniors and they were giving them out at that time. That was pretty much it for today.

Day 37

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Today started out with a trip to Hauser. A local lady just recently purchased a restaurant that is a local landmark and has gone under a few different times; she had some new ideas about how to get it to be a successful place so we did a story on her. Next was a photo from a location in Athol near Silverwood Theme Park which is being debated over to be subdivided for over 80 homes. There is a big fuss over it though because it is a plot of land which is zoned as rural and it could have a big impact on the wild life especially the elk in the area.

Day 36

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So it was my first time back in a few days… and I’ve been loving the little break. My day started out with a stand alone nightmare! I went to a middle school activity where I took photo of a 3D printer demonstration. The nightmare was that in checking the names to see who could be published, almost none of them were able to be published! That was a new experience. Next I went to a staff vs. staff basketball game from a couple of the local middle schools; it was so funny.

Day 35

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Usually I start my day at 10am but today there was a feature story going on in Moscow at the University of Idaho campus so it was an early day, 8:15… oi. The story was about a fair going on at U of I called Invent Idaho. There were elementary, middle, and high school kids from all over the state competing against each other with their inventions, practical and not but all very very creative! That was pretty much all we had for the day, but later on I was asked to take a photo of a different hotel for that same NIBJ story because the reporter was only able to contact this particular hotel. And now, for an extended weekend!

Day 34

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There was another long drive first thing this morning, out to a place called Careywood. Careywood is in danger of loosing their Post Office because it is such a tiny town. We were doing a feature story on that. Then, on the way back we went into Hayden and took a photo for a NIBJ story about a man who went from being a volunteer employee at a boat dealer to being their business manager.

Then there was a stand alone opportunity with a non-profit called Wings of Rescue where animal shelter dogs are flown here from California to be cared for by other non-profits, however after being there for about 15 minutes still waiting for the plane to get there I was called out to a 50 acre grass fire in Athol and that took first priority. It was also pretty fun being with the fire fighters, they were all cool with me being there. That was today, pretty exciting!

Day 31

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Today started out with an in-person portrait of a member of the GOP community in Coeur d’Alene. That took all of 2 minutes. There was some good news afterwards, I’m going to be reimbursed the miles that I’ve driven since Tess left and from now on! That was really exciting to hear! So I started work on calculating my past miles and in the middle of doing that, one of the reporters asked if I could get a few shots for him. The first set would be a story that he was doing about a housing developer that is selling a lot of lots in our area, and the last photo was for a story he was doing about a new Tesla Motors supercharging station that was recently built near Hayden. He’s having a really hard time getting info on them which is strange, it’s like they want to keep them a secret when they are so blatantly public.

Day 30

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Today was another low key Saturday. My day started off with a feature story about a therapeutic ranch that rescues and trains horses, it was a challenging experience because it was new however it was really fun and a great change in scenery. The kids that I was working with in these photos were a hoot, totally okay with the camera and really fun to work with. I’ve found that I really like working with kids because they are usually less camera shy than adults especially when they have their friends around; and when they hear you are from the paper all they want is to be in that photo. Maybe it’s just my inner kid feeling at home. Maureen wanted me to get 5 shots to go with the story since it would be running Monday and that is usually a pretty thin paper.

Next, and still in Hayden, there was a Girl Scout’s automotive 101 class that we were doing a story about. It was less about the class and more about the girls in the scout troop… these were all older girls, high school juniors and seniors who had been in this troop since kindergarten and elementary school.

Lastly, there was a GOP Lincoln day dinner going on at the resort. This was fun, but it ended up being a waiting game because our information was wrong. I was told that the keynote speaker was going to be going on at 6pm, when in reality the dinner started at 6 and the keynote speaker didn’t get up to speak until 9:15pm… it was kind of a fun party though. There was a lot of auction items and raffle items, mainly a gun raffle, I thought that was a little stereotypical of them, but it made me laugh anyway.

Day 28

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Shawn was off today and so I had a long day ahead of me. There was a keynote speaker that I needed to get at the resort but first, Emma has had me printing out photos of the cities that we’ve lived in or visited that I’d taken; so I went up on top of the parking structure at the resort and got some shots of the city for the set that I’m printing. After the keynote speaker I went on a tour with one of our reporters to Titan Spring. Some students with the STEM after school program took a tour to see the facility and get information about possible jobs and internships. They needed a couple for daily and then a couple for the NIBJ. And yet again, there was basketball.

Day 25

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It was the first Saturday that I’ve worked here at the Press and it started out really weird! When I walked in the employee entrance all the lights were off, I was expecting it to be a joke! There was no one working, so I got to my desk and thank goodness there is a window in my cubicle because I didn’t know where the light switch was. A little bit later I got a text from the reporter that was working and she asked if I was on my way to the legislative meeting down at the library… I was never told a time so I wasn’t on my way, but it was just down the street and I figured I’d go a few minutes early so I could walk. It was a legislative meeting alright.

Next on the agenda was a gymnastics event happening down at the resort, apparently there were athletes from 11 states and also a bunch of locations in Canada. That was really fun to see, but gymnastics photos are tricky to take! Very different from the other sports that I’ve shot. I went yesterday too and determined to go back because I didn’t like any of my photos. This time I got some that I liked alright.

Thinking that since Shawn was still gone and it was still only me taking photos, I went to look for a stand alone after the gymnastics thing. It was a really sunny day and so I went down by the beach and the City Park to look for people. I found this guy with a metal detector and a go-pro on his head looking for stuff in the park and so I got a photo of him, he was actually pretty nice.

Day 22

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It was a really busy day! On the bright side though, I got a free printer! A Canon Pixma Pro-100! There were two that came free with the new 1Dx cameras that the news room purchased, they wanted to reserve one for a photo contest but Shawn and Mike gave me the other for the good work. I was so stoked! I’m excited I get to print more now!

The first stop was a safety fair; this was a double assignment. The first assignment was to get a shot of this enthusiastic instructor teaching about combustable dust safety. This was for the North Idaho Business Journal. I also had to get two other shots for the daily paper which was nice, I learned a lot about combustable dust and overhead utilities! Next I had an “In Person” appointment with a pastor of a local church. Then there was a request for a photo at McEuen Park for the story that was being written about the parks reclamation. Last but not least, I was getting ready to go home and Mike comes in and asks if I can go to a bridal expo and bring back four photos to do a spread on the event… I had never needed to bring back that many before! That was nice and then, I finally got to head home… it was a long day but a good one, I learned so much and saw improvement.

Day 19

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Woah, today was a really busy day for a change! Crazy busy in fact, but it was a good change, that morning meeting business is working out. Shawn said that he would rather have too much and not need it all than have too little and have to run file photos. I agree. My day started out with a feature portrait for the NIBJ of the KTEC (Kootenai Technical Education Campus) student of the month, this was about an hour earlier than I usually start, which was fine, and Emma got to come with me because we had to go straight to the location; she’s such a champ for putting up with me!

After the portrait, I was walking from the parking lot to the front doors of the Press and I heard a jackhammer next door at the construction site so I went over for a second and got a photo of him. When I got in, I was given another assignment to go follow up on a story that was written for the business section and take a few photos of the location putting up their sign, this is for a super uppity car wash going in off of US-95, that was pretty cool to see, it gave me a mild heart attack though when I got there because I thought I had missed it. I saw their electronic display was already up and I thought that was the sign Shawn was talking about; thank goodness I was wrong.

Next I was off to look for a few things, either a city cop pulling someone over, parking on the side of the road to radar, or a busy street. I first had lunch with Emma like I do every day but this time she came with me on a “ride along,” it was really nice having her with me! During lunch though, Shawn called and let me know of another assignment to check up on before 3pm, it was 1pm. There is some possibly changing legislature regarding the concealed carry laws in Idaho and he told me to see if I could schedule something with the sheriff’s office to get a photo… I called, they forwarded me to the lieutenant and he wasn’t there so I left a message (so did Shawn) and he never got back to us. I guess that happens sometimes though. So back to the traffic or the cop, I figured that the chances of me finding a cop pulling someone over were going to be pretty lean, so I got the busy street first and then figured we could look around for police.

Time got away from me and it ended up being time for a “sportrait” that I had scheduled for a feature regarding brothers on the same basketball team. That was tricky without lighting, we are awaiting the go-ahead to get some lighting for the press and it, i guess, has been a long time coming, regardless, it will be nice when it gets here.

I resolved that we’d just head back to the Press but in driving back I still wanted to keep my eyes out for police, amongst silent prayers that I would be able to find something, I spotted some police lights… a lot of police lights. Emma and I drove over to see what was going on and there were probably eight squad cars, police and sheriff, police boats (it was over at the marina), a fire truck and a crowd of people. I pulled up right behind Shawn’s car and I was glad that the situation was already being covered however I couldn’t resist taking a few photos of my own. Apparently some guy decided he didn’t want to live anymore and so he was trying to freeze himself to death in the lake, he had been there for over an hour; he had to have had some mental disorder or maybe he was on some crazy drug because he was raging and twitching, just freaking out. It was crazy to witness, but not long after I got there the police got him out. I hope he recovers.

Also, kind of big news, AP wanted a couple of the photos that I took for the LGBT weddings story that we did back on the 30th. Cool! They will be using them in a weekend story that they will be doing on the chapel. this hasn’t ever happened before so I’m not sure what to expect but I still think that it is pretty cool.

Day 16

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Today started in a way that I wasn’t expecting. We heard on the scanner about some sort of accident down on the reservation, police were going down a ravine by a bridge and we thought that would make a pretty good story so myself and a reporter went down to check it out. When we finally got out there we saw the police parked by the bridge and so we started walking down the middle portion of the bridge that separates north bound and south bound traffic. When we got a little way down I saw a few firemen and policemen down by the river, and then one of the tribal police officers told us to get back to the road. It appeared to be a suicide and we don’t report on those.

After getting back to the Press, Shawn went off to cover a couple stories and I drove around looking for stand alone photos. During my driving around I got a call asking me to look out for guys with food trucks and to get a photo if I could. It turned out that just before I got the call I passed a guy waving a sign for his food truck and so I went back up the street and got the photo I needed. I still hadn’t gotten a stand alone photo that I liked though, so I drove around a little more and I saw an older lady walking with a broken umbrella and I thought that would be perfect, I parked shot the photo and got her name so we could use it it was just the image I was hoping to get too! I took another image like it as well, just of a different person and when I got back to the press, she had emailed and revoked her permission for me to use her photo, that had never happened before… but she sounded like she was in a bad mood when I talked to her so maybe she was just having a bad day.

After I got the call from Shawn about the lady and her photo, I was asked by a reporter if I could take a photo for another In Person story, and that he would be there any minute. I was a little on the spot but I made due and it didn’t look too shabby. Over all, today was a good day.

Day 6

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Today my mentor came back to work! Also, the other press photographer had recovered from her 24 hour bug and she was back too! Today was a low key day, nothing too crazy happened. I started out the day taking a photo of a “check passer,” this is what we call it when one group or individual donates money to an organization or business in the community. The next assignment was a feature story about a high school senior who was just named Youth of the Year at the boys and girls club of Kootenai County. And that was pretty much it for today… except for when I forgot one of my lenses at the check passing and didn’t realized I’d left it there until I was on my way to the second shoot 3 hours later… it was still there thank goodness.