Living The Promise

Being an event photographer often means being front row and center to a special occasion. Usually this means a ticketed or invitation event. This time it was the inauguration ceremony for the University of California Riverside's new chancellor Timothy P. White. Appointed by the Regents of the University of California in May 2008, White was inaugurated March 17, 2009. The event was aptly themed Living The Promise.

This was my second chancellor inauguration, having covered Francis Cordova's crowning in 2002. These events are not unlike a graduation ceremony. There is music, there are speeches, there is pomp and there is circumstance.

As The Academics marched single file through the crowd up the center aisle, one could not only see their distinction, but feel it. The Academics are separated from everyone else with their caps and gowns of various colors. They look distinguished because they are. They are the top of their fields, scholastic experts everyone.

Yet what I noticed right away was that the man of the hour Mr. White was also set apart. Distinguished among the distinguished.

Firstly, despite his academic excellence, this man was not afraid to
show his happiness. The glee was apparent on his face, like a boy in a candy store. He simply beemed with delight.

Later his cap came off during the invocation, and I took the moment to capture the visual of his cap in his large and stoic hands.

When he came forward to receive his medallion during the Ceremony of Investiture, there was a brief moment where the future Chancellor just paused before the logo of the Chancellor's Medal hanging on the curtain behind him. (see top photo)
It was a nice moment. I had decided to gamble away the "safe" front and center angle where he would be receiving the medallion from President of the University of California Mark G. Yudof. I went instead for an angle that had the large emblem in the background. Later, during editing, I saw that I was glad that I took the risk. I had made the better choice to not stay obvious. While this new angle was not good for faces during the Investiture, it was this moment of pause just before that I was most proud of.

Later during his speech, Chancellor White paused briefly and looked up towards heaven where he reflected on the sacrifice of two loving parents. For when we shed the robes, and status, we who are parents who are also sons and daughters know that we live to give our kids a life full of opportunity. Chancellor White's pride was not in himself, but in being able to live his parents' promise to him.

Here was a man of humility.

Here was a man of class.

And it was these moments by Chancellor White that made this event of pomp and circumstance both different and special.


Living the promise indeed.

Let It Snow

One of the most dreaded things a newspaper photographer can hear is "Get me a weather shot!"

Yes, the dreaded weather photo. Sometimes we get the task of getting the weather photo whether there is weather or not.

It's something that can take you half a day to execute if the odds are against you , and less than an hour if all the cards are stacked in your favor.

Our current arrangement in cold weather situations is that we will drive up to the chain requirement in the local mountains and no further. Which suits me fine. So on this partly cloudy Saturday, I made my way up to Oak Glen where I would find mostly clear roads and no chain requirement. I like Oak Glen, as it provides me with a fertile landscape that really doesn't look like Southern California but some place else, far away.

I often love to shoot snow because of the potential to capture what amounts to a thickly painted oil painting filled with Titanium White and Payne's Grey. I can't resist finding the dormant trees contrasting to the white sheets of non-color. Today my inclinations were satisfied and I quickly found an apple orchard that seemed to be in some kind of snow apocalypse. It took a few frames, but finally a slow moving car made my photo complete as I weighted my composition to exploit the bleakness of the snow.

I next made my way to the Oak Tree Village where I found a lady digging out her business associate on her way into work. As I talked to the ladies, after some Good Samaritans dug out the driver, I found out that it was the first time Oak Glen had been snowed-in in about 35 years. A little news hook was helping my weather hunting right along.

But I still needed a lead shot with a real human element. As I walked around the Village I saw a man in Western gear make his way across the main drag of the Village. He provided a nice scene setter photo with his overcoat, cowboy hat, and boots. "This could work," I thought. He looked like he was out of some kind of rare Western movie where the director had ordered frozen tundras instead red and yellow open plains.



It was then that I decided to make my way across the street where I had seen families doing some sledding with their kids. Its always nice to explore all your options before you leave a scene and this would be my last look at this situation before I made my way back to San Bernardino. As luck would have it I found plenty of families to choose from: a man and his wife, a group of friends, a young couple with their infant boy.

Then I spied them. My shot of the day: a father and his three boys sledding away. I quickly introduced myself during a break, got a quick okay from dad and prepared myself for their next run down the slopes. As the boys dog-piled on their father's back, I knew if this worked out I would have a Page One photo.

Nothing tells a story like the faces of human emotion.
In an instant my cowboy, my digging out shot, and my frozen apple orchard all fell to second place to the dad seizing the day with his sons. What a perfect way to capture the mood of probable Inland Empire readers who were ready and waiting for a break in the rain and snow.

It was as if the photo was saying, "It's okay to come out and play!" "Its not so bad!" "You don't need to stay locked up in your house!"

It was a nice reminder that sometimes the forecast can be bright and sunny even on a cloudy winter's day.