I’ve moved to a hosted wordpress blog. if you find this, go to karenwink.com.

Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. – George Eastman

I own 4 external hard drives. All are full of photos. In the process of updating my website, I have been filing through all of them. This is no easy task, since some weeks I can shoot over 2000 photos. Needless to say updating is going to take many of my “weekends” to finish. No rush since I’ll be in LC for a while. I am rushing to make prints of my favorites along the way.

Prints are one of the things I miss about film. With film, you had to makes prints or at least a contact sheet. A photo needs to be touched and seen without the flicking of a monitor. I also have a fear that a photo not printed could eventually disappear despite all the efforts made to back up of digital files.

Kodak has a new “silk” paper that I am trying out this order with some of my black & whites. Also have several cold toned photos that I can’t wait to see on Kodak’s Metallic paper. I’m giddy with anticipation!

“One is responsible for one’s own life. Passivity provides no protection”.~ Madeleine Kunin

One year has passed since I ventured back into photojournalism. This has been one crazy year. It started slow but then I relocated to Southwest Louisiana. Hurricanes, helicopters, air boats, and lots of sports– I have relished all of it. My skills have been honed and I continue to learn more multi-media and writing to enhance my photography.

The work is great and I still retain my optimistic attitude about life and people, this in spite of the negativity that exists in journalism and journalists in general. The change in print to net is nothing but exciting to me. (most people don’t deal well with change.) I hope to be well positioned when the switch is pulled and the economy starts to kick again.

Below are  my two most recent slideshows:

Yes, I have been very distracted with work, life, twitter, facebook, etc… but mostly work and life. Since January, I have relocated the remainder of my life from Mississippi to Louisiana. Also, basketball season coincides with Mardi Gras which made work super busy. All these excuses are valid reason for letting my blog and website slide. However, I am hopeful that my routine will afford me the time to update soon. Professionally it is not wise to let my website to remain static so I need to plant myself in front of my desktop. I have big plans to do just that. Keep a candle lit for me.
Here’s my favorite audio slideshow of the year thus far.

Well, I really did not slack on anything except my personal blog posts.

The holiday season was long and a little boring to be quite frank. I worked Christmas and trying to find feature photos on a rainy Christmas is almost impossible. My attitude was admittedly bad but it was my first time to ever work on Christmas and my first time to be alone on the holiday.  I manage to get over that quickly once I walk into Abraham’s Tent (LC’s soup kitchen). My spoiled pride just left me. I gave thanks for how blessed I am. I have a job that I love. I have people that love me. I have a roof over my head. I have many cameras. I was happy to see several local families spend their Christmas serving and handing out necessities to the needy at Abraham’s tent before they celebrate together. Really, the season is and should always be about sharing joy and love.

Christmas day also yielded another photo package in the Metro Section of the American Press. I had the pleasure of interviewing 2 members of the Lake Charles Model Railroad Club. These folks are detailed oriented craftsman with a love for modeling and railroads. I gather almost 2 hours of audio and was thankful I had a week to widdle it into a descent story. My writing is improving but I still have not found my voice in the words. Guess that will come will time.

Click to the image on the right to view the audio slide-show. Click here to see a larger tear sheet.

 
Marcy Tweed emits a perimeter of joy around herself and her vehicle. It is not just Christmas joy but she does use Christmas as an excuse to spread some of her joy around the town of Lake Charles. 

Tweed first started decorating her vehicle for the City of Lake Charles Christmas Parade  six years ago. She started small but continued collecting toys and other Christmas decorations from second-hand stores. This year she had so many toys that she convinced her husband to build a top deck for her SUV.

Tweed has won best decorated vehicle in the LC Christmas Parade for 4 years running. She loves seeing the joy her adorned SUV brings to children and the elderly. Her goal is to win a trophy for each of her 7 grandchildren.

View the audio slide-show here.

Last week, I was asked to help a colleague with our Sunday Talk Section’s “On the street.”  It may seem like a simple task to ask one question to passersby, but I viewed it as an opportunity to get to know a community and the people in it. Also, I think it begged to be transformed into web content.

View the audio slide-show.

Last Friday, I covered my last prep football game of the season, Westlake versus Cecilia. Our region had only two teams in the semifinals, Westlake and Barbe. Westlake was undefeated until Friday but they lost knocking them out of the playoffs and knocked me out of covering any more football in 2008.

During the regular season, I would cover 2 games on Friday and one on Thursday. This was the first time to have the “luxury” of covering just one prep game. It gave me the opportunity to stay until the end and witness my favorite thing about prep sports, the emotions of competition.

The logistics of sending from location in a prep football situation can be unusual. I arrived early to Cecilia, LA (google it) to test my connection speed with my wireless modem. I had one bar at that time (but I was in the middle of small town coonass-ville). I shot until halftime then huffed it back to my car to send photos. Bingo, the nightfall gave me 2 more bars. Thank goodness! I was able to send our sports guys 5 photos and get back on the field before the end of the third quarter.

View the slide show here.

Thomas Breaux of Lake Charles pick a rather unusual project for his quest to become an Eagle Scout. It was unusual for two reasons: 1) Lake Charles is “drill baby drill” country; and 2) Solar energy is still not cheap. Breaux’s project was provide enough solar energy to make at least one classroom at his school a “Net Zero” classroom. Breaux learned about the benefits of solar and how responsibility for our environment falls on all our shoulders from his middle school science teacher, Judy Reeves. Her classroom would end up as Breaux’s Net Zero Lab.

Watch the Audio Slideshow Here

Writing does not come easy for me. However (in my opinion) the changing shape of media will require all journalists to write a coherent story.  Recently, I have jumped into the practice of writing beyond a simple narrative for 2 assignments for our art & entertainment section, “The Marquee“. Both pieces do accompany audio slideshows. The first piece is about a local Elvis impersonator. The second will run on Friday.  I feel my writing is rather plain and frankly quite boring but I am hoping practice will make prefect just like my mama said. Thankfully, my photography will make up for my writing.

See the Elvis slideshow here: http://www.americanpress.com/lc/blogs/wpphotos/?p=30