Election Season

 I've been keeping busy photographing political sign wavers and meetings of the Shelton School District Board of Education.

Wen. October 8th a man holds up signs during rush hour
at First and Railroad in Downtown Shelton

Wen. October 8th two women hold signs in the rain during rush hour
at First and Railroad in Downtown Shelton

The Board of Education Melts Down and I Captured it on Video

School Board President and Chairperson  Brenda Hirschi faces a mixed crowd at the
Shelton School Board meeting on October 9th

The meeting begins to get rowdy, Jim Carnahan says he is 
offended, Brenda Hirschi tries to maintain order

 at the Shelton Washington school board meeting on October 9th

A friend tipped me that that school board meeting this week might be an interesting one, so I went to it.  My friend was right.

The meeting was loud and unruly and it ultimately led to the resignation of school board vice president Jim Carnahan.  When the meeting started to get loud I stopped taking stills and I shot a shaky video instead.  The video had thousands of views and the next week the vice president of the school board resigned.  Are the two related?  I don't know, but I must remember that images and video have power.

 A local radio station picked up and shared a link to my video, they also took one of my still pictures and put it on their website.  I sent them an invoice when I saw that they had used my photo, they did not respond to my invoice, but they took my photo down and gave me credit for my video.  

My photo on the local radio station website  It's such a bad photo that I hesitate to even post it here 
 (It is a screen grab of my video that grabbed and  posted to Facebook) 

The next week the local newspaper listed a link to my video in a print article and on their website. 
My video and pictures generated a lot of interest, but I was unable to make any money.

The board room at Choice High school was filled to capacity for the 
Shelton School Board meeting on October 9th 

I have two D90 cameras now.  I equipped one with a 18-200 mm 3.5-5.6 zoom lens and the other with a 50mm 1.8 prime lens.   I only used my zoom lens when I needed a wide angle.  My faster prime lens was best in this low light situation.  I mostly used aperture priority for my 50mm lens and shutter priority for my zoom lens.

Here is the video I took.  It's poor quality but it's getting hundreds of views.  If I had kept shooting stills instead of switching to video I could have taken some really dramatic photos.   If I had a tripod with me I could have done video with one camera and stills with the other camera.  This video was done with my 50mm prime lens.





The next school board meeting I went to was much more subdued and the entire audience consisted of just myself and a newspaper reporter, but the lighting was beautiful so I still had fun. I chose to render my photos in black and white to take advantage of the shadows created by the window blinds.

Interim superintendent Dr. Art Jarvis at the Shelton school board meeting on  Tuesday Oct. 14th

Empty chairs at the Shelton school board meeting on  

Tuesday Oct. 14th

Dr. Micheal Boring of McPherson & Jacobson LLC came to speak
 about the process of hiring a new superintendent at the Shelton school board meeting on
Tuesday Oct. 14th.  The board decided 3-2 to wait until later to begin the process

Board members Jim Carnahan and Sandy Tarzwell at the Shelton
school board meeting on  Tuesday Oct. 14th

Lastly I'm going to post a picture of a bicycle I found in the city limits,
 it's part of my multi year long personal project.  Potential future employers,
please feel free to ignore this picture. :)

The contrast between the brightly colored bike and
 the monotone alley caught my eye