Kitsap Frames

Thankfully (because it might start to give me a complex) it’s not just my photos that end up on the cutting room floor after being stuck on the board for weeks.

In hopes that the mother of this youngster sees this (because Larry said she was so excited that her son was going to be in the paper) I’m posting this photo of Larry’s from October 6, 2009.

Benjamyn Isakson,2, of Port Orchard draws in the sand at Bay Street and Mitchell Ave. in Port Orchard as he was on a family beach outing. His mom Tena said she loves the beach and water, and it was a beautiful day to go. LARRY STEAGALL  |  KITSAP SUN

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While meeting a friend for lunch in Poulsbo on November 1st. I happened upon Michael Raley playing his concertina outside of Cups Espresso. It was a beautiful sunny day and his wonderfully happy tunes were making those who passed him smile.

His music even brought out an impromtu dance by a man (who would only give me the name Casper) who was wearing a full kilt ensemble and just happened to be passing by.

But the photo never ran in the paper so publishing it here will have to do.

Dressed in a kilt, a man only going by the name of Casper performs an impromptu dance while Michael Raley plays his concertina outside of Cups Espresso in downtown Poulsbo. MEEGAN M. REID |  KITSAP SUN

~ Meegan M. Reid

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Have you noticed how fantastic our photo galleries look with our new kitsapsun.com design?

I realize I am a little biased about it but we in the Photo Department are ecstatic that we are now able to showcase our work in the new design.

But we’re not through just yet, coming soon we will have a much improved reprint ordering system where you will be able to browse through and order photos without the hassles and the “hit and miss” of the prior system. So keep your peepers peeled and you will be able to hang Larry Steagall originals like this snowy mountain beauty in your living room hopefully in time for Christmas.

The first significant snow blankets  the Olympic Mountain Range early Wednesday. The clouds parted for a little while to reveal the snow.

LARRY STEAGALL  |  KITSAP SUN

~ Meegan M. Reid

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Let me take you back in time to the mystical year of 1996. The Mariners were 12 months removed from actually refusing to lose, and almost all of us had to endure the discordant squawk of a dial-up modem before hearing the soothing voice of the AOL guy. “You’ve got mail.”

A few of you maybe even came here, to the Kitsapsun.com. Except back then we were just The Sun, and the website was thesunlink.com.

Yesterday we launched our new site design, and we’ve gotten a lot of feedback.

I made a trip through the Wayback Machine to get a snapshot of old Kitsap Sun homepages of the past. If nothing else, it shows you how quickly standards really change on the Web. Click the photo above to see a gallery of old homepages.

And if you’re unhappy with the new design, that’s OK. Just be glad we didn’t go back to 1996.

- Derek Sheppard

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Telling a story in video, in a couple minutes, about a meeting that lasts an hour or more, is hard. When you’re a reporter, you sign up for a life of late nights covering government meetings, and you quickly learn how to crank out a story that summarizes the evening on short order.

In a sense, we reporters are the line cooks of the writing world when we’re cranking out breaking news from government meetings.

When you’ve got to learn how to do the same with video, you definitely feel like you’re in someone else’s kitchen, to continue mixing metaphors.

That’s what I ran into Tuesday night when I accompanied reporter Josh Farley to what was sure to be a contentious meeting about a house with multiple sex offenders in the 900 block of Washington Avenue in Bremerton.

Here’s the result, which I hoped would give viewers a general sense of the tone of the meeting that lasted a little over an hour.

Now we’ve got a way to very easily stream live video over the Web, and I suspect that as we get more adept at delivering that service – and you get used to watching them – you’ll see more meetings covered live, in their entirety.

In fact, we’ve done it before. Like HERE.

What do you think? Are you interested in watching certain meetings or events broadcast live online? Do you prefer the approach above, where it’s distilled into a couple minutes? A little a, a little b? Discuss.

- Derek Sheppard

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While I appreciate everyone (and i do mean EVERYONE) warning me that it rains here and it will continue to rain here trust me I get it.

Sure I might have spent the past 5 years at a newspaper in Utah, but it was located in the mountains of NORTHERN Utah. Yes it was considered to be the High Mountain Desert, but it did rain there. Not usually in the summer but we got our fair share of rain and snow those other seasons. Prior to that I spent 20+ years in Northern Michigan, a mitten-shaped state with every kind of weather imaginable.

And it’s cloudy all the time in Michigan and in Utah during the winters so while I appreciate everyone worrying that I might go all S.A.D on them- trust me I can take it.

I will say that it seems like I have shot more assignments in the rain here this past month than I have in maybe my whole photojournalism career. I’m not complaining, I think that it is all part of the beauty and adventure of moving to a totally new place. Yet keeping the camera gear dry is a bit of headache.

Some of you might be wondering how we keep our camera gear dry, and I’m here to tell you that even though that is a closely guarded and expensive secret you too can keep your gear dry just like the “pros”.

In this photo taken by freelancer Jesse Beals, we see Sun photographer Larry Steagall  at a football game in the pouring rain. Notice how dry his gear looks under the trash bags. That’s right a couple of trash bags and rubber bands and ta da camera rain gear.

Now you know one the many closely guarded secrets of newspaper photographers: trash bags + rubber bands = cheap rain gear.

~ Meegan M. Reid

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MSNBC.com runs a Week in Pictures feature, and you, fair reader, are asked to vote for your favorite.

The photo above by our own Larry Steagall is one of the choices. He certainly captured an emotional moment.

He’s currently 6th place.

- Derek Sheppard

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Just recently Larry and I were talking about how happy we get when we shoot a “layered photo”. For those not in the business it’s really just what it sounds like- a photo with layers that fill the frame and tell the story perfectly-it’s the type of photo you always see in National Geographic.

This phenomenon seems to usually occurs when photographing a monotonous assignment when the photographer is least expecting to pull out a great layered photo. But when viewing said photo on the back of the camera, the photographer basically loses all interest in shooting any other photos at that assignment because well IT’S A LAYERED PHOTO IT’S PERFECT!

Here are a pair of layered photos shot by Larry and I recently. They both have the theme of “people carrying stuff” in them.

~ Meegan M. Reid

AmeriCorps volunteer Jen Pino, left, carries split firewood to be loaded into a van at the Illahee Nature Preserve on October 15, 2009. The firewood, taken from downed trees on the county property, was delivered to needy Kitsap families.(LARRY STEAGALL | KITSAP SUN)

West Sound Tech students (left to right) Matthew McMoore, 18, Ryan Rodman, 17, Lucas Dorman, 16 and Elysa Romans, 17, gather pumpkins to load into their catapult during the Pumpkin Catapult Competition at Hunter Farms in Union on October 31, 2009. (MEEGAN M. REID |  KITSAP SUN)

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Today, as you hopefully know, is election day. Which means most of the newsroom comes in pretty late. As soon as I walked in today, my task was to edit down an interview reporter Ed Friedrich had this morning with three of five protesters arrested Monday after breaking into the Bangor submarine base. Here’s a few minutes of the interview, and the story’s getting a lot of comments if you want to read that, too. We should have an updated story up later today.

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The day started early for Larry and Josh, out chasing wildlife agents who nabbed the elusive Mama Bear (I’m making her a proper name.) in West Bremerton.

KIRO 7 was kind enough to provide some aerial footage from this morning’s capture, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife gave us footage of Mama Bear being released in Mason County, where they previously released her two cubs. Let’s hope they have a happy reunion.

Also, notice how fast Mama Bear runs. This is why they tell you not to try and outrun a bear. You will lose.

The KIRO footage is further proof that we need a Kitsap Sun chopper. I won’t hold my breath that it makes it into the budget.

- Derek Sheppard

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I’ve got two stories about yesterday’s devastating house fire in South Kitsap. One is serious. The other is a little more academic, though that’s not really the right word.

Larry and I rushed out to the fire yesterday, with him on photos, me reporting and doing video. I spent a couple years doing the cops/courts beat exclusively, which means I’ve been to lots of house fires. Larry’s been working about as long as I’ve been alive, which means he’s been to thousands of fires.

What’s especially tough for journalists is balancing your job to tell the story of a tragedy – whether it’s photos, video or a written – versus respecting the dignity of the victims.

In this case, the family was there, near where Larry and I were shooting, watching their beloved house – and all of the memories it contained – burn to the ground. It was emotional. When you’ve been to enough of these, you get a sense for who to talk to, and who to give their space. We opted to leave some space. I gave a sheriff’s deputy my information to pass to the family, and later ran into a young man who lived there, and gave him a cell number I’d forgotten to write down earlier. It was the best way I could think to satisfy my job, as a reporter, and their privacy. Maybe it wasn’t the right choice, but it’s what I came up with. People often accuse us of being heartless vultures, but I assure you, Larry and I tried our best to be respectful yesterday.

Now, to a side story.

This is an illustration I’ll call “The Fold.” If you get the dead-tree version of the Kitsap Sun, this is the photo you saw when the paper was neatly folded on your breakfast table:

This is the whole picture, as seen when the paper was folded out.

In the picture, you see firefighters bringing out belongings to the homeowner, Judi Premble. It was a touching moment, and I can imagine it was a service that the firefighters didn’t have to perform, but did. Notice, they’re still very much fighting back hot spots while they were in looking for her belongings.

But the turkey adds an element that, to me, tells another part of the story. This house was in a gorgeous neighborhood, nestled into the hillside with a view of Sinclair Inlet. It was pastoral. Quaint. There were fruit trees and open space. And a turkey. It’s a small detail, but gives you a sense of the place.

In fact, you can hear the turkey in the video while I’m interviewing the fire captain.

- Derek Sheppard

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