It's Turkey Time

Every November since 2001 I have been photographing turkeys on a farm as a Thanksgiving feature. Today was my day to head up to Sonoma County to visit my feathered friends.

When I arrive I notice that the birds aren’t outside today. It’s supposed to rain later and the worker told me that they usually keep them inside before a rain. Kind of a bummer, they usually do some funny stuff when they are out on their little pasture. I can hear them gobble gobbling inside the barn as I put on my dirty boots. I sneak around the side to look at them through the chicken wire. They spot me. In unison, all their necks extend up.
As I slide open the big wooden door I am hit with a heavy ammonia smell. It takes my breath away. The turkeys all stop to stare. They’re confused. As I enter the barn they all move backwards with my every forward step. There are hundreds, if not thousands of turkeys in this barn. But there is still plenty of room for them to move about.

The dirt floor is thick with turkey poop. Thankfully, the smell is subsiding. I’ve only walked about 15 feet into the barn and the bottoms of my boots are caked with the poop. The birds are back to gobble gobbling and its pretty loud. They are funny little creatures, very curious and skittish at the same time. I imagine they aren’t very trusting since they are constantly watching their buddies get whacked. They definitely aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.
I have found over the past seven years that you can make some funny shots of these guys with remotes. If you set up a remote on the ground and go to a different part of the barn, they will create a huge circle around the camera and stare at it. One brave guy will eventually get closer and all of his comrades will follow. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Today was not a very successful day. But, it’s the only way to get really close to them without using a long lens. You can also stand very still in one spot and have them gather around, but they usually keep their distance. They’re really dumb, just not that dumb. The turkeys make a circle around the remote camera

before moving in to check it out

The shot from the floor remote.

One got pretty close to me today and pecked my foot. Another was pecking away at the Pocket Wizard on the remote camera while his buddy pecked food off of his back.

I spent close to two hours with the turkeys today. It gets harder and harder to shoot these little guys, especially when they are inside. It is challenging on many fronts. The light is sometimes pretty bad and it is increasingly difficult to do something different from last time. I mean, they’re just turkeys they don’t do much other than stand around, eat, poop and gobble gobble. Nevertheless, I love coming up and hanging with them and then eating one of their cousins a few days later.

Two Days In Rio

At first glance, it is just like any other small town in America and for the most part, it is. But, Rio Vista, California has fallen on hard times and like many cities and towns across the country, they are on the brink of filing for bankruptcy.
I’ve been in Rio Vista for the last two days. What a cool little town. Situated on the Sacramento River in the California Delta with a population just under 8,000 (up almost 60 percent since 2000) the town is as Americana as it gets. There is a little downtown main street with cool old signs, coffee shops and of course, American flags. The people are really nice, very proud hard working people. I even met the police chief over at Raul’s Striper coffee shop – a very bass fishing oriented establishment. I went up to the chief, cameras dangling off my shoulders and introduced myself as a photographer. He immediately asked “are you sure?” Wise ass.
I spent most of the first day checking things out, trying to figure out how to illustrate a story about a town that is going bankrupt. A few of the contributing factors to the town’s demise was an enormous increase in foreclosures and a proposed 750 home housing development that was to be built by homebuilder Shea, but they pulled the plug on it due to lack of interest.
The Shea housing development was very surreal. It is a very big piece of property that has streets, sidewalks, street lamps and stop signs – but only 10 vacant houses. I would guess that the property had to be at least a half mile square. Empty. It was a little creepy. It was hard to really get the full perspective of it from the ground, so I hired a guy named Ira with a little Cesna to take me up for a better look.
Ira is a retired Army pilot who now teaches people how to fly at the Rio Vista airport. He took me up in his tiny little two-seater plane that he says he bought on eBay for $18000. It was a quick half hour flight that set me back a whopping $50. Fifty bucks! Totally unheard of. I gave him ten extra because I have never hired an aircraft that cost less than at least $275.
On the second day out I found one of the coolest bars that I have ever been to. I had passed by Foster’s Bighorn several times the day before, but from the outside it just looked like any old bar. I probably would have never gone in if I hadn’t run into Contra Costa Times photographer Dan Rosenstrauch who was outside talking to the manager. Dan was in town doing the same thing I was doing, trying to figure out how to make a picture for this story. After chit chatting outside, the manager invited us inside. Wow. I had no idea. This place was way cool. A total retro bar that had over 300 taxidermy animals and animal heads. It was unreal. They had every kind of animal imaginable. There was even an Elephant and a Giraffe. I’m not a hunter nor do I think about killing animals, but this place was pretty damn amazing. You had a weird feeling with all those animals looking down on you. I need to go back and have a bison burger and a brew. Even if you are a vegetarian and don’t like hunting, check this place out. It’s like a museum with beer.

Protesting Prop 8

Opponents of Prop 8 have been protesting in the streets since the measure passed in last week’s general election. Saturday was a big day of protests throughout the Bay Area and the United States. I covered the big rally in San Francisco that drew thousands to San Francisco City Hall. It was a gorgeous day in the City with temperatures nearing 80 degrees. Is this really the middle of November?It’s amazing that so many people from all over the world have come out to support this cause. Although, I’m not sure how much it will help in the end. One thing for sure, there will certainly be a long and arduous court battle over this which means I will be covering many days of court hearings in the coming months. As Rodney King once said “can’t we all get along?”

The Choo Choo

Driving around the Chicago suburbs, Des Plaines to be exact, looking for signs to take pictures of, I passed by a cool looking hamburger stand. If you know me, you know I love hamburgers. I am also a fan of cool retro burger joints. I made note of the location to return later for lunch.

I made it back to the Choo Choo, Burgers on Wheels, at about 2:30. When I had passed by it earlier in the day, I thought it was kind of cool that it had a railroad theme. One thing I didn’t think of was that kids like trains. Well, when I walked in I realized that this place was like a 1950’s version of Chuck E. Cheese, sans the life sized rodents walking around.
I decided to suck it up and have lunch there even though there was a birthday party going on for an eight year-old. The kids seemed all hyped up on sugar or something. They were running around, blowing train whistles and playing on a mechanical train in the corner. There were probably 20 people in the small restaurant, 4 were adults.
The food was simple, burgers and fries. The quality was similar to what you would get at the county fair, nothing special. Your order arrives via the electric train that loops between the kitchen and the counter. The train stops right in front of you but I could not see anyone controlling it. How do they do it? The kiddie party started getting a little raucous when the train delivered cupcakes with train whistles on top for the birthday boy. The waitress plugged in a CD that sang happy birthday. While the song played, the staff rang bells and tooted bigger train whistles. What the hell am I doing here?
I tried to eat as fast as possible. I am not in my element. What I thought was going to be a cool experience is turning into a nightmare. More cupcakes are coming down the rails, just what these kids need, more sugar. A mob is climbing on the mechanical train ride thing despite the notice above it that says “only two people at a time.” The moms are not happy as they extract three kids from the train. I need to get out of here, the shrieking is hurting my ears.

If you have kids that like trains and you are ever in Des Plaines, Illinois, check out the Choo Choo. If you don’t fit that profile, you might want to reevaluate your options.

A First Time For Everything

After two days of closed meetings, President-elect Obama made his first appearance. His highly anticipated first official press conference since being elected would follow a meeting with his economic advisory board. Finally, a chance to get a decent photo of this guy. We had been staking out his office for a couple of days with little luck.

The presser was being held in the basement of the Hilton Hotel, which is conveniently located across the street from where I am staying. An easy commute. The place was packed when I got there. There had to be a couple hundred people jammed into the room with many that couldn’t get in. There was media from all over the world, I heard French, Japanese and Spanish being spoken.

A podium was set up in front of flags with a placard that said “The Office of the President Elect”. Of course, everyone posed for pictures in front of that, including me. I’m such a dork.

It was a simple setup, main riser and a cut. I got the cut and Scott took the main. I set up a remote, which of course didn’t work very well. There was one good frame that would have been great if it was actually in focus.
Obama seemed surprised when the press corp came to their feet when he arrived at the press conference. I guess he was used to the press conferences on the trail where the press didn’t show that kind of respect. Biden and Rahm Emanuel were with him along with a dozen of his economic advisors. Biden didn’t say a word during the presser. I’m sure if Palin had been there she would have asked to give a speech, just like she asked to do before McCain gave his concession speech on Tuesday. Is she really that clueless or is that just the cowardly gotcha elite media makin stuff up again. Before taking a few questions from the press, Obama made a statement that he read directly from notes. It wasn’t like his stump speeches that he could rattle off from memory. It wasn’t the most eloquent of speeches. But, I don’t think anyone was expecting a great moment in presidential (elect) speeches. Maybe they were, what do I know?
The Q&A session was brief, nine questions in all. All of the questions were on important topics like the war and the economy. All except one which was about what kind of dog the first family was going to get. Forget about all those daunting issues that he faces, lets talk puppies. That’s when Obama called himself a mutt when referring to adopting a dog from the pound. And with that, 19 minutes after he started the presser, it was over.

History

I witnessed history last night. Barack Obama became the first African American to become President of the United States. It was one of the most amazing events that I have ever had the privilege of seeing with my own eyes – or in my case, through a lens. By far, the best part of my job is all the historic things I have been able to see. I feel very lucky.

I was one of 7 Getty photographers covering the election night party in Chicago. My day started out before the sun came up as me and my co-worker Scott Olson went to the polling site where Obama would be voting. Upon returning to the hotel, me and the rest of the team gathered our equipment and walked over to the site. We did final tweaking on our remotes and did final tests. And then we waited. We were hoping that we wouldn’t have a repeat of 2004 when we waited until 4:00 am only to be told that the election was too close to call and the event was canceled.

The day could not have been more perfect. A balmy seventy degree day cooled off to a comfortable evening. No freezing cold wind or rain. Were we really in Chicago? An estimated 240,000 filled Grant Park and the surrounding streets.
My position was a floor position, which meant I was shooting from the middle of the crowd at Grant Park. The small number of photographers that were given floor passes had to move fast to stake out positions as the general public flooded in. Me and my pals Shannon Stapleton (Reuters) and David Guttenfelder (AP) staked out a few spots and let the crowd fill in around us. We all had turtle stools so we stood a little taller than the crowd. The people were incredibly cool with us being there. We had feared an angry backlash and were pleasantly surprised with how accommodating people were.
I teetered on small platform of that turtle stool from about 6:30 p.m. until Obama came on stage at 11:00 p.m. My legs and knees started to hurt after the fourth hour. The weight of my cameras was brutal on my back. I couldn’t move with the crowd so tight. We watched election results roll in on a live feed of CNN. The crowd alternated between boos when McCain would win a state and thunderous cheers when Obama would win. Even though my body was aching, I was energized. This was a very cool moment in time.
It was a surprise to everyone in the crowd when CNN projected that Obama had won the election. It was close at that point and nobody was expecting it to be called to soon. The emotion that followed that announcement was unlike anything I had ever seen. People Cheered. People cried. They hugged each other and laughed. There wasn’t a face in the crowd that didn’t have a smile on it. One woman who had traveled from Columbia to be at the event stood there with tears running down her face saying “that’s my president, that’s our president.” Yes we can was being chanted and was soon changed to “Yes we did.”
Obama took to the stage at exactly 11 p.m. Barack was introduced with the new First Family. He and Michelle walked out with their two daughters to greet the crowd. It was a surreal moment. There was no music, just cheering. I kept expecting music to start blaring over the loudspeakers. It never did. Shooting from our position proved challenging as we were blocked by the thousands of small American flags that were passed out just prior to the speech. We knew this would be a tough spot to shoot from, but it all worked out in the end. It was amazing how fast the crowd thinned out once the short speech was over. Some stayed behind and danced in groups and waved campaign posters. It was like a scene out of the sixties. It is a day I will never forget.