Rock racing

Gazette photo intern Todd Spoth spent Saturday covering the national rock racing championships east of town. What a cool event to shoot. Check out the audio slideshow he produced at http://www.gazette.com/interactives/rockracing.

Fire on the mountain

The fire next to the incline in Manitou Springs made some good pictures today. Gazette Photographer David Bitton took the top picture of a tree going up in flames and I shot the overall picture from the fifth floor of St. Francis Health Center in Colorado Springs with a 400 mm lens. To see a slideshow of the fire with photos from Bitton, myself and freelancer Joe Martelli visit http://www.gazette.com/interactives/inclinefire

Colorful Colorado

The aspens are turning near Victor, Colo., as Gazette photographer Carol Lawrence found today. This weekend could be the time to hit the Colorado mountains to shoot the fall colors.

Global favorites

Rocky Mountain News photographer Chris Schneider's photo Friday from the Columbine Memorial in Littleton, Colo., is one of my favorite wire photos this week. The child with the single flower against the hard shadows of the crowd shows a personal moment of grieving in a very public event. Below are two more of my favorites.



Visitors try to control their umbrellas against strong wind Wednesday at the Bund, one of the most famous tourist attractions in Shanghai, China. Typhoon Wipha flooded streets and prompted mass evacuations. Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/The Associated Press



Bob Roberts, the pilot of a small plane that crashed onto Interstate 95 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., sits in the remains of his plane, waiting for emergency officials to take him to the hospital for treatment, Friday, Sept. 21, 2007. The plane crashed shortly after take off. Photo by R.C. White/The Associated Press

Who needs professional sports?

Gazette photographer David Bitton covered the six-man football game between Hilltop Baptist and Edison today and captured this great shot of Hilltop defenders Matthew Hine, middle, and Jacob Pennington trying to bring down Edison's Josh Doak. It's an example of how great sport photos can be found at any level from Little League to professional. And the best thing about amateur sports is you don't have to fight 50 other photographers for a good position on the sidelines.

Katrina through the eyes of TP photographers

Time-Picayune photographers tell their stories of covering Hurricane Katrina through a 24-minute video. It's moving and really reminds me of why as photojournalists we do what we do. I spent three days down there covering the aftermath of the storm, but can only imagine what the local photographers went through. I returned to a nice dry home in Colorado. Please check it out at http://blog.nola.com/tpvideo/2007/09/eyes_of_the_storm_tp_photograp.html

Making the team

Gazette sports reporter Kate Crandall and photo intern Todd Spoth followed former Colorado College hockey player and Colorado Springs native Brandon Straub as he battles for a spot on the Colorado Avalanche. Check out the audio slideshow at http://www.gazette.com/interactives/straub.

Portraits from a town's past

Check out this Sunday's Life section of The Gazette for a story about Crested Butte writer and photographer Sandy Cortner. She published the book "Crested Butte Stories...Through My Lens" about the old timers of the Colorado town who were still there when she arrived in the 1960s. She has some great portraits of them and the tales they tell are priceless. Gazette.com will feature an audio clip of Cortner reading from her book. Cortner is a great lady and without her effort much of Crested Butte's history would have been buried with the pioneers. The picture above is one I took of Cortner visiting with old-timer Josephine Stajduhar. Stajduhar still lives in the same house she did 40 years ago. The picture below Cortner took and it's in the book.

A photo with personality

Saturday's Gazette features a story about Palmer High School's Garrett Prather who plays on the junior varsity football team and sews. In fact he's the state fair sewing champion. Gazette photographer Kevin Kreck shot this photo that really captures Prather's personality.

An American hero

Gazette photographer David Bitton produced two videos Thursday on Lt. Col. (Ret.) Bill Sheaves Jr. who was shot down over Paris, France, on his 14th mission aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber nicknamed Tar Fly on Sept. 9, 1943. Thursday, Nearly 64 years later, Sheaves took to the air again, this time in a B-17 called the Liberty Belle. Check out the two videos at
http://www.gazette.com/interactives/B17/B17_Video2_fnl.mov
and http://www.gazette.com/interactives/B17/Ball_Turret_fnl.mov.

New Nikon D3

Nikon introduced its latest professional digital camera last week. The 12.1 effective megapixel D3 features Nikon’s new FX-format CMOS sensor, measuring 23.9 x 36mm, which is nearly identical to the size of 35mm film. With the fastest startup time, shortest viewfinder blackout time, and shortest shutter lag of any digital SLR camera as well as the capability to shoot up to nine frames per second at full FX-format resolution.
The D3 also features an entirely new 51-point auto focus system with Nikon’s 3D Focus Tracking feature and two new LiveView shooting modes that allow photographers to frame a photograph using the camera’s high-resolution LCD monitor. The D3 uses the world’s first Scene Recognition System to greatly enhance the accuracy of auto focus, auto exposure and auto white balance detection in the camera by recognizing the subject or scene being photographed and applying this information to the calculations for the three functions.
The D3 is expected to for sale later this fall for around $5,000.

Colorado Balloon Classic Video

We have been experimenting with other forms of content for the newspaper's website. Here is a video shot and produced by Gazette photographer David Bitton.

http://www.gazette.com/attachments/1188717481-balloon.fnl.mov

Colorado Balloon Classic

Low winds and sunny skies this weekend at the Colorado Balloon Classic made for some great balloon pictures by The Gazette photo staff. Check out the online slideshow at http://www.gazette.com/interactives/2007balloons.
If you took some nice picture of the balloons and want to share them, email me at christian.murdock@gazette.com and I'll try to post some on this blog.

Air Force football slideshow

The 2007 Air Force football season began today with a 34-3 win over South Carolina State. Check out The Gazette's audio slideshow of today's action from Falcon Stadium at http://www.gazette.com/interactives/afaFB/2007/0902
Gazette photographer Kevin Kreck shot the game today and every Air Force and Broncos game this season will feature an audio slideshow on www.gazette.com.