Larry St. John, 8, shoots hoops for 30 seconds, timed by Upward coach Brad Rikel at the league’s player evaluations Saturday at Central Baptist Church. St. John, who tried out for his third year with the league, said his favorite part of basketball is “to shoot and make points.” Upward basketball league, a ministry of Central Baptist Church, focuses on fundamental basketball.
Linda Harrison of the Clovis-Carver Public Library prepares gift bags for Santa to give to children Tuesday at the library’s annual Christmas open house. Harrison said the open house will provide families with entertainment, as well as displays of Christmas around the world.
Fog settled on Clovis’ downtown early Friday morning, nearly obstructing Hotel Clovis’ sign from view.
Ty Caffrey and her son Jacob played their trumpets while collecting donations for the Salvation Army Friday in front of Wal-Mart in Clovis. To view a video of their performance, click here.
Kindergartner Amya Hernandez waits backstage with her fellow cherubs for their scene Thursday during the Arts Academy at Bella Vista’s dress rehearsal for their production of The Nutcracker.
Today, I was out chasing airplanes. Literally. Because of Cannon’s transition, there has been an increase in aircraft flying above and around Clovis. So we want photos, naturally. Well, I was out looking for wildart (the big photo on our front page that is called a stand-alone, meaning it is not connected to a story) and happen to see a big plane as I’m driving down 21st street so I started chasing it. It seemed after a while that the plane knew I wanted to take a photo because it kept disappearing. So I’d give up and start heading back to the office and then I’d see it again for a few seconds and before I could park, it’d be gone again. Well, I guess everything happens for a reason because I decided to park at Potter Park and wait for it and what did I find? The cutest little four-year-old practicing baseball with his granddad. So I didn’t get plane wildart, but I got very cute family moment wildart.
And my esteemed colleague Dianna pointed out that wildart, a main image on our physical paper, is nowhere in our online version. So, from now on, the wildarts that I shoot will be here.
Adrian Talamentes, 4, prepares to swing at a ball thrown to him from his grandfather, Bryan Strang, Tuesday at Potter Park. Strang said he and his grandson spend each Tuesday together either bowling on Cannon Air Force Base or practicing baseball. Strang also said they had to move their pitching party out of the backyard because the 4-year-old was sending the balls flying into his neighbors backyards.
I’ve always enjoyed the moon. It’s pretty, no matter what color it might be on a particular night. On this night, I was driving back from shooting a Melrose volleyball game. It was dark, there were few cars on the road and there was a train rumbling by. But all I could look at was the harvest moon. I pulled over, used my car in leiu of a tripod and took some shots. It’s not difficult to get photos of the moon, but it’s not exactly easy to get a photo that shows the detail on the surface of the moon. I guess I got lucky being on a dark highway alone on the night that the harvest moon was out.
Homecoming is a big deal. I’ve mentioned previously that I’m not much for ceremonial stuff, but homecoming is usually fun. We in the newsroom elected Moby as our homecoming king. He works very hard and makes our days go smoothly. He deserves this. He loves football (as you know, he’s a Packers fan) so we took him to the Wildcats homecoming game. He decided to dress up for the occasion.
If you haven’t met Moby, click here
Dear CHS band members, faculty, family and friends,
I’m sorry that we teased photos on MyCapture in our paper from the band night, but didn’t have them up. In all honesty, I was just busy and didn’t get around to it. It was in no way done intentionally. Well, my procrastination came back to bite me (as it always does), because when I was ready to post the photos, I couldn’t find the memory card the photos are saved on. I still can’t find it. Tony always says that I don’t lose things, I misplace them. But so far, it hasn’t surfaced. So, I lost all the photos I took from that night. However, I had saved the ones intended for publication and have posted those on MyCapture. I wish I had the rest of them, I really do. But I hope some is better than none.
To see the photos, click here.
Here are two of my favorites. Shooting the band is always fun because everything is shiny. 
I learned about a plant called a butterfly bush. They are usually found in pink and purple but the one I found is yellow, which is very rare, its owner Linda Brown told me. Linda said, and she’s right, you are never too old to learn. And fluttering around the honeysuckle-look-alike were about 30 butterflies. Landing on a blossom, and taking off, hovering for a moment, looking for it’s next landing spot, and landing again.
I was captivated by the beautiful little butterflies and the fact that I didn’t even know the plant existed. My boss occasionally accuses me of narcissism when I’m shocked that I don’t know something. But it’s not that. It’s just a lovely thing that I stumbled upon and happened to have my camera.
It’s that time again. Sports. Hurrah! Today was the season opener for the Clovis Wildcat soccer team. I’ve always enjoyed shooting sports. It’s always interesting to see how a team works together. And trying to capture that wherein lies the challenge. I don’t just want to get a soccer photo. I want to get a soccer photo that shows the intensity of the players or perhaps the tone of the game. Saturday’s game was a struggle. The photo depicts that in a small way.
It’s also enjoyable just to take photos of people at their physical best. And athletes are focused. Rarely are they paying attention to a camera, even if a bright flash goes off. That always helps.
