Fall football in Florida is a soupy mess

Fall football has started in Southwest Florida. That means long Friday nights and bruised shoulders from carrying a 400mm lens up and down the sidelines. It also means waiting through lightning delays and shooting in the rain, at least until October. I should really buy stock in plastic trash bags. By the end of the night, Friday, I looked like a drowned rat and had blown the shutter on one of my cameras. Despite all that seeming negativity, I don’t mind shooting in the rain. It makes everything kinda shiny and pretty.

From the archive — July 4th

On July 4th I wandered around taking pics at the beach in Naples as Greg Kahn was on assignment for the paper. Making pictures for fun is just that… fun. It’s nice to shoot with no pressure of publication or deadline.

Pilgrimage to Publix

Last week, the Naples Daily News published a story previewing a bike ride from Collier County to the Publix Supermarkets corporate office in Lakeland, Fla. This Saturday, members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida will make the 200-mile ride to raise awareness for the “penny a pound” petition.

“CIW is organizing the ride, which will last until Labor Day, as part of its campaign to raise the wages of field workers by encouraging increased pay from the top-down. If Publix were to accept the conditions, the Florida-based company would pay 1 cent per pound purchased from growers.”

I photographed a handful of members as they rode from Ave Maria to Naples for a press conference to be held about the event.

Kai — ready for the world

On Monday, one of my dearest friends, Dianna Wu, and her husband, Zhi, welcomed their son, Kai, in to the world. I had the privilege of being there to document the occasion. This is the fourth birth I’ve photographed. The second for Dianna and Zhi. I was there when their daughter, Mei, was born almost two years ago. I photographed my friend Sarah Dussault’s two children, Rebekah and Alex, making their grand entries, as well. I’m so lucky to have friends who want these moments to remember in pictures and even more lucky that they have chosen me to capture it. I’m honored. Each time, my mind is blown. Birth is an unbelievable thing to watch. Beautiful and intense. Thank you, Dianna and Zhi for trusting me to be there with you. I love you both and this amazing little boy. Congratulations!

 

 

Whirlwind performance

Last week I shot Alegria, a Cirque du Soleil show, in Estero. Unfortunately, I was only given access to the performance (pretty much stuck in one of two spots) and no backstage stuff, but, it was still fun. I came away liking this shot. This clown was in a simulated storm made of tissue paper confetti. The wind and confetti blew out in to the crowd so you really felt like you were in it.

From the Archive: Hip to be square

After sitting on the desk most of the week, there’s not much for me to report visually. But, in an effort to keep the blog fresh, here’s a couple pictures from the archive — Corkscrew Curliques Square Dance Club in Estero, Fla. 

A dizzying swirl of red and white fills the floor at the Corkscrew Curliques Christmas party. It’s hard to keep up with whose partner is whose. And sometimes even the dancers lose track.

“It takes a lot of practice to mess up this bad,” a man’s voice can be heard as he gets tangled up with one of the seven others he’s dancing with.

The Corkscrew Curliques Square Dance Club meets every Friday night at Corkscrew Woodlands Park clubhouse off Corkscrew Road in Estero. On a recent Friday evening, petticoats fly high as five groups of eight people move to the melodic calls made by Howard Cole, 70, a caller for the past 45 years.

“Girls run around the boys. Touch a quarter. Boys run around the girls. Load the boat. And a right and a left through and turn the girls. Allemande left. Promenade her home.”

If you’ve never taken a square dance lesson, the calls sound like Greek, although Estero resident Dale Anders swears many of them are self-explanatory. Anders and his wife have been square dancing for the past 10 years.

“There are 56 calls, or basic movements, in mainstream square dance,” said Sandra Anders, Dale Anders’ wife. “They’re very simple, but you do need to take lessons to learn them.”

The couple travels the country during the summer months in a motor home and find square dance clubs whereever they go, dancing in more than 25 states.

Needless to say, you have to be a social person to dance with eight people at one time. The Anderses have made several friends dancing their way across the country.

Some dancers have not only met friends, but boyfriends.

Naples resident June McCandless, 77, and her boyfriend George Seroka, 88, met on a blind date seven years ago at a square dance. Seroka’s wife had died and mutual friends thought the pair would be a good match.

“It was heaven to dance with her the first time,” said Seroka, a Lehigh Acres resident who started dancing in 1960.

The two sit together during a break in coordinated outfits: Seroka in red pants, a white shirt and green bolo tie; McCandless in a white shirt with green flowers and a white skirt. They giggle like schoolchildren as they flirt with each other.

“(Dancing) takes years off of you,” McCandless said. “I don’t feel my age at all.”

Seroka stands up and says “watch this.” He takes his lady by the hand and gives her a twirl. Her white skirt swooshes around, revealing her green, ruffled pettipants underneath.

“She’s 77. Look at those legs,” he said.

They aren’t the only ones at the party who have found love on the dance floor.

Bonita Springs residents Herbert Reitzel, 86, and his wife Katherine, 76, do-si-doed into each other’s lives after both of their spouses died.

“Neither of us had a partner,” Herbert Reitzel says of their meeting at a square dance at a Fort Myers campground seven years ago. “They put us together and we never parted.”

Reitzel had one of his lungs removed a couple of years ago and doesn’t have the capacity to dance anymore. So, he watches from the sidelines as Katherine moves to the calls from Cole and the dance comes to a close.

“Bow to the partner, the corners all, and wave to the pretty one across that hall.”

 

Procrastination is not your friend

While driving to an assignment a few months ago, I saw some kids playing soccer in an alley in Golden Gate. I really wanted to stop, but I had no time and needed to get to where I was going. I noted the area and tried going back weeks later to see if they happened to be out there again. To my surprise, they were. Turns out they are on a futsal (indoor soccer) team and practiced Tuesday and Thursday evenings behind their coach’s home. I didn’t note the day I had seen them the first time. I just got lucky that I happened to go by when they were there. I took some pictures that day and I kind of liked the stuff I shot, but, I knew the pictures could be better if I came back another time. If I came back just an hour earlier, I could get a little more of that monkey light. (Our former intern, Jakob Schiller, explained to me the term monkey light. Photogs know monkey light. It’s that light that makes you say “ooh oooh ooh.” Much like the term chimping.)

Some time went by (too much time, really) before I went back. I went on vacation, went out of town briefly to shoot a wedding, got caught up saying goodbye to friends who were leaving Naples. All kinds of reasons to not go shoot pictures after my shift was already over. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Last week I needed to find a photo column to run in the Our World section of the paper. I decided I needed to go back to the soccer kids. I only hoped their season hadn’t ended and I hadn’t missed the opportunity. Last Thursday I drove by and there they were. It was their final practice before they played in their championship game. I got lucky. Again.

How does the saying go? “If it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done.”

Sometimes, luck is your friend, but procrastination never is.

Below are some pictures and the story I wrote:

Warm light peeks through the branches of a nearby tree, causing the shadows of five teenage boys to lengthen behind them. Their once-crisp shirts grow heavier with each step — steps they hope will lead them to a championship.

“Fuerte! Rapido! Rapido! Rapido!” their coach, Francisco De Paz, yells as they each pick up their pace, running back and forth between two weathered cones.

Twice a week for the past four months, the alley behind De Paz’s home in Golden Gate City is where the Huracanes, or Hurricanes, have honed their futsal skills. Sunday, they planned to prove it had all been worth it when they played in the Naples Futsal League final game at the Golden Gate Community Center.

Futsal is game of five-on-five indoor soccer, and the Huracanes are the youngest in their division. In the championship they will be playing men averaging twice their age. Last season they earned their way out of the youth league in to the lower division of the adult league. At press time, the Huracanes had not yet played their game, but if they won, they would qualify to play in highest division of Naples Futsal.

Jesus Martinez is only 14. They call him the “Freshman,” although, he sports more facial hair than anyone else on his team. He’s the backup goalie when their regular goalie doesn’t show up — which is more often than not. He’s nervous, but last week he blocked a penalty kick and his pride shows through his face when he mentions it. He likes their chances.

They all do.

“We’re not the favorite team, but we play a good game and we play hard,” said team co-captain Jose Torres, 17. “We gotta show them we can do it.”

There are no frills. No fancy goals or nets. The soccer balls they use are frayed and missing fabric. But, that’s not what’s important. Practice, De Paz says, is important.

De Paz tethers a ball to his wrist with a bungee cord and kicks it away from himself. Jonnatan Cruz, 17, runs down the alley toward De Paz and kicks the ball as hard and as accurately as possible. Just as fast as it shot out, the ball springs back. Cruz heads to the back of the line, and De Paz starts over with the next player.

As they catch their breath between drills, the boys chat about who has taken the SAT or ACT. But, the conversation quickly returns to soccer. Or rather, about how “fine” one of the players is on the French Women’s World Cup team.

They have paid close attention to the Women’s World Cup and are inspired by the U.S. Women’s National team making it all the way to the final.

Talking doesn’t last long before they are on to the next drill.

As the sun fades and the sky turns the shade of a deeply dejected lover, the breeze dies and the mosquitoes come alive. But the boys continue to work. The silhouette of a rat can be seen scurrying the length of a power line above their heads. None of it fazes them.

De Paz is a very serious coach, yet benevolent. He works them hard for two hours with drills to help them with agility, footwork, endurance. They are drills he learned growing up playing and coaching the game in Mexico.

The boys say they owe their quick success to him.

“He’s the one who taught us a lot,” says co-captain Torres. “Everything we know is from him — he saw the potential in us.”

UPDATE: Sunday, July 31, 2011: I was contacted by the coordinator of the league and told the Huracanes won the championship game. 

 

Final Countdown

I haven’t blogged in a REALLY long time. I don’t know what happened. I think I was tired of hearing myself say nothing in particular. But, I also knew that I had hit a plateau (again) and really needed to figure out what the hell I was doing personally and professionally. I won’t pretend to know anything more than I knew then. But, I think I’m ready to start putting myself and my photos back out there. Sometimes you just need a hiatus and some time to rebuild.

This is my new blog. I nearly gave up on it because I find WordPress infuriating and have very little patience for anything technical. But, with the help of Greg Kahn, I’m back in the virtual world. I hope you enjoy the stuff I put out here.

My first post is from the final Space Shuttle launch in Titusville, Fla. This assignment just reminded AGAIN how frickin’ awesome my job is. This was one of those situations where I realized that I was documenting history. But, it’s also one of those times I know my pictures will never live up to what I felt while there. I had an opportunity to be inside the Kennedy Space Center, but I was glad my editors decided to keep me outside in the town with the people. It definitely would have been cool to feel the shuttle or hear the sound louder than I did, but I would not give up the experience of being on top of the Max Brewer Memorial Parkway bridge for anything. And when people began cheering as the shuttle went into the clouds, chills literally went up my legs. I wish I could say looking at my photos made me relive it. But, I don’t know if anything but another shuttle launch could do that.

My good friend and colleague Tristan Spinski drove up and back to Titusville with me. As we were talking on the way back, I told him I realized while shooting I was looking for pictures that would feel like those historical photos from previous launches. But, in the end, I had to view this event as I see it now — not how people saw it then. Only time and perspective will allow us to look at THESE photos with nostalgic eyes. I hope that makes sense. It made sense when I talked about it, but it’s a lot harder to write.