Pictures of You

Magnolia moment

lcastillo — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:52:52 +0000

Whilst driving around town today, I came upon a gentleman having three trees in his yard cut down. When I stopped to chat with him, we talked about the cedars that were killing his grass and then moved on to a glorious magnolia blossom on his magnolia tree.Isn’t it beautiful? I could tell the owner, a Mr. Collins, was very excited about the blossom. He explained that he and his wife Karen planted the magnolia three years ago, and this blossom was only the fourth. This being the second this year, Mr. Collins was happy with it’s bright and shiny presence but also slightly confused it seemed. Mr. Collins said he had expected more blossoms from the tree. He said he guessed magnolias have a hard time growing here.”They do better farther south,” Mr. Collins said, citing the cold weather for their failure.Mr. Collins earnest interest it wanting to find out where the magnolia needs to be to flourish was beautiful. He didn’t blame the magnolia, Clovis or himself. He just realized it wasn’t a great fit.I found that to be a great Clovis moment.

Just keep fishing

lcastillo — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:52:39 +0000

The free fishing clinic at Ned Houk Park this past Saturday was one of those events where there were cute kids and grandparents and parents everywhere. Meaning plenty opportunities for some great photos. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t emit a long “aaawwwww” at the sight of a 3-year-old fishing with a Cars fishing pole decked out in Cars tennis shoes, a Cars t-shirt and a Cars baseball cap on his head. The little boy was fishing with his mother, father and grandfather, a first for the family, they said. The event turned out to be all families. While I was wandering through the crowd with dotted the shores of one of the lakes at Ned Houk, no one caught a fish, but I was touched by all the parents taking time to explain how to properly bait a line or pull in a line and how the parents always kindly pushed their children to keep fishing, even though they weren’t getting anything at the time. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

If you’ve seen one graduation

lcastillo — Sun, 25 May 2008 00:56:49 +0000

In my opinion, if you’ve seen one graduation, you’ve seen them all. The large number of students who graduated from my high school and college with me made the events even less memorable for me. Yeah, I had a nice meal or party after them, surrounded by family and friends, but the ceremony itself was a bunch of who-ha. I’m not much for ceremonial stuff anyway. But honestly, who wants to sit for possibly hours to hear one name called and watch one robed family member walk across a stage? And at my college graduation, we didn’t even receive a diploma! We got a letter saying “Congratulations, but the last day of school was yesterday, so we aren’t even sure you’ve passed your classes. We’ll let you know in four months.”

But all my complaining aside, the Clovis Christian School’s graduation Friday evening was actually touching. The two students who spoke, as well as the teacher, cried almost the entire way through their speeches. One of the graduates even sang a song he wrote for his classmates, and each student was mentioned. It was clear from the number of seemingly unprovoked giggles emitted from the graduates while their classmates spoke or received their (hopefully real) diplomas that the 17 graduates were actually very close. There were inside jokes everywhere. The speakers weren’t nervous because they weren’t speaking to strangers, they were speaking to friends.

Mr. Keeson Bell’s jeans and boots peeked out the bottom of his gown as he sang his song “Our Class.” It was sweet and each of the graduates smiled all the way through it.

Cristen Wofford, the class of 2008’s valedictorian, called for a standing ovation for the parents who helped them get this far. Wofford’s use of cue cards charmed the crowd.

Joel Glikas was presented his diploma by his father, who was a one of the founders of the school.

Elizabeth and Michelle Cherry smiled for photos after receiving their diplomas. The twins chatted and giggled their way through the ceremony.

We heart flags

lcastillo — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:39:36 +0000

Tony and I have noticed something in our photographs. We love flags, especially the American flag. If there’s a flag at an event, one or both of us will point our camera at it at some point. Even when it’s not going to make a great photo, or video clip. We’ve had several American flag photos published, each fulfilling the assignment, but there’s an added bonus: an American flag is in it. Maybe it’s the way it flutters in the breeze, maybe we’re both extremely patriotic and our cameras bring it out in us. We don’t know. We actually sat down and talked about this and neither one of us could come up with a reason. But after thinking about it a little bit more, I’ve come up with a theory. Perhaps it’s because an American flag is a symbol that all Americans can identify with. And that’s what we want to do. We want to connect with and identify with our readers. Maybe that’s it. Either way, I found three flag photos from the Clovis High School’s Air Force Junior ROTC change of command ceremony last week and thought they’d make a good example of our love to photograph flags.

Even though my editor pushes for faces in all photos, he said this first one was good. Of course, he saw it in the trash the day after, but at least I know I’m looking at the right things.

It’s about her, but the flag makes a great backdrop.

In this one, I was so excited about the flag, it ended up in focus and the people were blurry.

Never too big to slide

lcastillo — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:34:45 +0000

While searching for our daily dose of wild art (a photo of something that is happening in the community that will run without being connected to a story), I ran across a group of kids from Portales’ James Elementary School on an end of the year field trip to Hillcrest Park and Zoo. After asking permission from the kids teachers, I looked at the play structure and decided the only way to get a truly good photo of a child playing at a playground is to play with them. So I headed up the safest looking ladder and found myself towering over the second and third graders. I watched for a minute, realized there was a tunnel that connected the two parts of the play structure and lots of kids were going through it. I sat down at one end of the tunnel and started chatting with some of the kids. Needless to say, I got couple of photos and remembered that I couldn’t spend my whole work day at a park, so I thought about heading down. The easiest way to get down was a slide nearby. So I sat and slid for a split second, was on the ground and got up. Before I could turn and tell the children thank you, a little boy shouted “You’re too big to slide! Aren’t you?” he added as a precaution. Him being eight or nine and me being 24, I didn’t go into it with him. As I returned to my car to drive back to my office, listening to the uninhibited laughter of children at the park, I was jealous. I’ve always believed you are never too big, too grown up, too mature, to have a good, old-fashioned time at the park.

Kids always make great photos so I had several I liked and wanted to have published, but as a rule, we use candid shots. So if a kid is looking right at the camera and smiling like it’s Christmas morning, it’s not really candid, and therefore not for the paper. But it still makes a good photo.

Jocks at the Rock

lcastillo — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:39:43 +0000

The Philadelphia Eagles visited Clovis for a charity basketball game against Clovis alumni. The evening supplied a plethora of photos, but only two were destined for the paper. Here’s a couple of other photos that weren’t chosen for print.

The game was just that, a game. The Eagles used their size against the Clovis alumni when they were attempting to play a basketball game between the goofing around.

Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb decided to take a break in the middle of a quarter. He sat with some Eagles jersey clad fans and made them laugh.

Clovis’ own Hank Baskett III posed for the fans on the court floor saying “That’s my sexy face” to the fans snapping his photo in the nearby seats. View more photos at MyCapture

Photos that didn’t make the cut

lcastillo — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 06:39:32 +0000

If I were in charge of a newspaper, it would be photos galore. Pages and pages of photos. Sadly, that is not the case. From an assignment, Tony, the other photographer here at the CNJ, or Rick, our editor, and I whittle 30 photos down to one, sometimes two. Even though the three of us are photographers, we each see things in a different way and don’t always see eye to eye on which photo is the best from an assignment. But my boss is my boss for a reason, and is usually right (don’t tell him). And there’s always that space concern. So extra photos will go here. Enjoy.

Lili

The girl behind the camera