Tag Archives: NIBJ

Day 34

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 33

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This morning I had a long drive ahead of me for a fun photo opp at a Rathdrum elementary school. Mr. X a math magician did an assembly for students to bring the wonder back to math. Next there was a chance to go out and photograph a couple hotels in the area that have recently changed hands for a NIBJ story. Then, later on in the evening, Jeff, the reporter that was working on the fireplace regulations story, set up a tour for me to go to a wood stove manufacturer so I could get a better photo than just the wood pile! Thank goodness.

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 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 14

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Today got me started at a nice pace! I got a call from Tess around 9 am, she had an appointment at 10 in Rathdrum that she wasn’t going to be able to make because she was off to Bayview to get some photos of police investigating some found human remains. So this was one more photo assignment than yesterday! Emma came along too because I had to go straight there, it was nice to give her a little taste of what I get to do most days.

The assignment was for a story going in the North Idaho Business Journal on a company called Heater Craft. The company was commissioned by the USA Center of Military History Museum Division to build a bunch of aluminum storage cases to aid in the preservation of Revolutionary War era memorabilia, but they do a crazy amount of stuff there, it was really fun to go see.

I got back to the press around 11 and after Shawn got out of a meeting he came in and let me know that the construction guys next door were pouring concrete with a huge pump truck and he wanted me to grab some photos and a little video of that. Shooting the construction is fun especially since I am pretty much the only one who has done it so far; I feel like I get to have more of a connection to this assignment than the normal day to day. It’s nice.

Lastly I finished out my day with another check passer. Today was an answer to a prayer. I love staying busy because it gives me more of an opportunity to improve.

Day 3

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I was mistaken in thinking that yesterday was a trial by fire… when I got to the Press today I got an email from my mentor saying that he was having flu-like symptoms and that he wouldn’t be coming in today! I slightly panicked. But looking at the schedule I relaxed a little because there was no photo requests yet. The other photographer that works at the Press came in not too long after me which was good because I had a lot of questions I wanted to ask her. First was, what do we do on a day where there aren’t any photo requests; she then reminded me about what they call at the paper “stand-alone” photos. She then told me about a great place to look for stand alone-shots, on the CDA Press website there is a calendar of events going on in the city and the surrounding areas. So we started looking there.

I found a few events that I wanted to go to and see if I could get some shots there, one was an event at the city library called Tales for Two’s and Three’s where there would be stories read to children and activities for them to do. Once I was done there I went next door to the news room where there is construction being done on a new building for everyone. The boss wanted us photographers to get some photos and video to document the construction because when it is all done and they move in he wants to run a special about it.

Next I went to another event that I found on the calendar of events, a senior hula dancing class. Yes, I admit, there are a lot of assignments that aren’t very glamorous but I’ve got to tell you, these ladies were a riot! When I finished at the luau, I discovered that I had missed a text from the other photographer on staff asking me to go to an interview for a feature story with one of the reporters at 2pm, it was 1:59pm…Oi. So I rushed back to the news room to figure out where all of this was happening and thankfully it was just down the street. I didn’t get there too late so I didn’t need to worry, unlike most photo ops, feature stories usually just have a single portrait of the interviewee (at least in this paper). So that concluded my busy day. A great learning experience and also like yesterday and everyday full of prayers.

PS: Today was the day that the North Idaho Business Journal was published! This is another one of the many publications that the Coeur d’Alene Press operates and about two weeks ago I second shot with my mentor on a story about the Litehouse Foods company. That was my first big publish.