Tight fit

San Antonio Express-News photographer Edward Ornelas took this photo of emergency crews working to free a driver from a sport utility vehicle that became wedged between the Interstate-35 and Interstate-37 interchange in San Antonio, Friday, May 11, 2007. The vehicle was reported stolen in Corpus Christi and the driver crashed the SUV when he tried to elude police in a chase. The driver was not seriously injured. Talk about a bad day.

Even politics can be fun

Here's a funny picture taken by Associated Press photographer Mark Humphrey from the state legislature in Nashville, Tenn. The captions reads: Jon Bauman, right, also knows as "Bowzer" from the doo-wap group Sha Na Na, strikes his stage pose during a House session in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, May 10, 2007. Bauman has been lobbying states on behalf of the Vocal Group Hall of Fame for laws to prevent musical acts from passing themselves off as something they're not -- mainly '50s acts like the Platters, the Coasters and the Drifters.

So you want to be Jimmy Olsen

Gazette photographer Kevin Kreck showed me a fun game on the internet. It's a promo for the Superman movie. You play the role of Planet photojournalist Jimmy Olsen and try to capture a front-page photo of Superman. Try out your luck. By the way, neither Kevin nor I did very well. The game's website is http://hk.promo.yahoo.com/movie/superman/Stop_Press_Game. Good Luck.

Photography's role in capturing history

Last weekend was the 70th anniversary of the Hindenburg crash. The photo of it in flames started me thinking about how photographs help us remember events in our lives. Since the birth of photography 150 years ago photographs have etched memories in our minds from major events even if we weren't there or not even born yet. When I think of the Civil War I see Matthew Brady's images of dead soldiers lying on the battlefield. When I think of the Vietnam War I see Eddie Adam's picture of police chief General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner on a Saigon street in 1968 during the opening stages of the Tet Offensive. Or on a lighter note, when I think of my Seattle Mariners defeating the New York Yankees in the 1995 playoffs, I think of the photo with Ken Griffey, Jr., poking his smiling face out of a pile of happy Mariners.
We all have similar images from these events because photos have taken us there. I bet we all have different images in our minds of Lewis and Clark's journey across the West or Christopher Columbus "discovering" America because photographers weren't there to capture those events.

Cool picture

I found this picture yesterday while editing the photo wire at work. Associated Press photographer Gregory Bull shot it in Havana during a baseball game. The photo may not have any "news value," but it's a really nice graphic shot of Cuba. Sometimes good photos just entertain us or make us smile. Nothing wrong with that.

Thicker than water

Gazette photographer Kirk Speer and reporter Dave Philipps traveled to the San Luis Valley to report on the 155-year tradition of cleaning the community's irrigation ditch. The water right for the hand-dug ditch is the oldest in Colorado. See Sunday's Gazette for the print story or visit http://www.gazette.com/interactives/ditch for the online audio/slideshow.

Shooting beyond the obvious

Associated Press photographer Maxime Jegat shot the torn electoral posters for the two French presidential candidates, with Segolene Royal, top, and Nicolas Sarkozy on a wall in Lyon, central France, to tell the story of the close French presidential election. Both candidates proclaimed their impending victory after a fiery, combative TV debate in the run-up to Sunday's vote. Jegat's picture illustrates the story through a eye-grabbing image.