No, not talking about full court basketball press, it's the twelve times a day press conferences here at the Super Bowl in NOLA. Well I guess you could call them Media Conferences, but I'm a little old fashioned and to think newspapers give a little more in-depth coverage. Don't get [...]
When I made arrangements to fly into New Orleans for Super Bowl XLVII coverage between San Francisco and Baltimore, I must've been asleep. For whatever reason, maybe a brief flirtation with stupidity, I booked the flight that took off at 6am from SFO this morning (Wednesday). After a stop in Denver [...]
I said Georgia, oh Georgia No peace I find Just an old sweet song Keeps Georgia on my mind. ---The tune, first recorded in 1930, was made popular by Ray Charles in 1960 as part of the album "The Genius Hits the Road" and was made the Georgia state song [...]
I'm getting ahead of myself, but not really. I meant to post from the NFC Championship football game in Atlanta, but found that time is not my buddy anymore. I did venture outside of Atlanta to photograph the countryside and for sure the piney woods of Georgia has splendor all [...]
2012 is in the history books. Here is a photographic chronicle of Sonoma, Lake and Mendocino counties from the photo staff here at the PD; photos from John Burgess, Christopher Chung, Crista Jeremiason, Jeff Kan Lee, Kent Porter and Beth Schlanker. Photos aside... -A special shout out to photographer and [...]
Along with several assignments on Friday afternoon, I was tasked with finding a feature picture (slice of life) For Saturday's newspaper. Friday was one of those days no one goes outside, it was cold overcast and just plain ugly. Not good for me. As dusk grew ever closer I went [...]
To take your mind of the horrific shooting in Newtown Ct., last Friday, I've put together some photos that show the brighter side of life as we count down the days until the winter solstice kicks in. Have a great holiday season. [...]
True to form, the third in a series of powerful Pacific storms clobbered the North Coast early Sunday morning. The up-side to the storm was the less than predicted rainfall amounts. Good news if you live on the Russian River which is forecast to now hit 29.2 feet in Guerneville [...]
After emerging from a food coma Thursday, I was assigned to shoot shoppers tearing through the aisles at Toys "R" Us in Santa Rosa. In years past, it was a different story. Black Friday started on FRIDAY and usually started around eight in the morning. In fact, I'm not sure [...]
There I was last night, nice and comfortable watching another epic Ken Burns production on Public Television, this time on The Dust Bowl in the Southern Plains. Ken Burns is a documentary filmmaker that gets it. Burns takes an extraordinary amount of energy to put all the pieces together, painstakingly [...]
How many frames in a photojournalists life? Millions. Literally.
I’ve lost count since I started shooting photos at eight years-old with a Polaroid Land Camera (which I still own). It’s a way of life this photojournalism thing which is endlessly fascinating. The trip along the way, now in my 31st year professionally and the last 25 with the Press Democrat, has been an adventure in life. What it has to offer, ranging from implausible beauty to the utterly cruel things life randomly pitches out have shaped and molded who I am. That means I get to witness history. Pretty cool, eh? This journey has included photographing lots of inanimate objects which can be terribly boring. I’ve also borne the brunt of people unhappy to see a photographer show up to document less than pleasant circumstances. Then there’s the weather, which wreaks havoc on the human race daily. So I document the clouds. My advice for anyone having a bad day is to go outside and take a picture of those clouds once in awhile. It will do wonders for the interior beast. Unless you are using a metal tripod in an electrical storm.
-Kent Porter