It's a given. Our job as news photographers is to cover news both good and bad. It's what we do; what we are good at. I would stink at selling real estate, building furniture (the wood bowl I made in high school wood shop didn't look anything like a bowl) [...]
Picture this (literally) if you will, a stadium where the first game was played April 17, 1968 when 50,219 fans ushered in a new era of baseball on the opposite side of the bay. Imagine sitting in the left field nose bleed seats during the 1972 world series as the [...]
If you are out and about near sunset this evening, the Harvest Moon will be in full view. With the recent heat and dust particulates in the atmosphere the moon should appear larger than normal. The September full Moon occurs closest to the autumnal equinox. Native Americans would call it the [...]
The last breath of summer? Maybe. Whatever the case, the National Weather Service has issued an Excessive Heat Watch, which means that a prolonged period of hot temperatures is expected. The area of the watch includes the interior of the North Bay Valleys and mountains, which means Sonoma County and [...]
This can be a strange and unusual job. One day it's a wildfire, maybe a county Supervisor's meeting. The next could be a football game or a black tie event. It really never gets boring. That's why I jumped at the chance to photograph the final flight of the Shuttle [...]
Ready for this? The moisture laden remnants of an Eastern Pacific tropical system is being funneled north and will interact with a low pressure trough off the West Coast. According to a National Weather Service advisory, some of the storms will include dry lightning strikes which elevates the fire danger [...]
Code one thousand. What? Among the duties we have at the Press Democrat is to listen to police and fire dispatches on scanners while going about our daily tasks. When a code 1,000 toned out last Thursday some of us in photo uttered a collective "Huh?" Turns out that several [...]
Beside Little League Baseball, I've been shooting other assignments, including an all-day trek to Covelo to cover the North Pass fire in the Mendocino National Forest. I would've liked to have stayed longer, but my tank was running on empty due to 10 days of work. The fire, which was [...]
The kids from Petaluma brought down the house again on Sunday as an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people jammed the streets for Petaluma National Little League's trip through the Little League World Series victory parade in P-Town. From appearances, the crowd rivaled a Butter and Egg Day's Parade soiree. The [...]
I'm behind in my posts. Flying back from the Little League World Series in South Williamsport PA., our flight encountered nearly four hours of cloud cover. Being the cloud geek, I felt obligated to make a few photos from my window seat in row 5A. Have a great week. [...]
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