alittlenews

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. The 2nd Ave Street Scape work began Monday with a bit of decoration and traffic management changes. Daniel Massey, from Decatur Parks and Recreation Department, hangs a banner proclaiming the area "Dig Town."

After writing about check presentations and ribbon cuttings I had an epiphany.  People tell me all the time what a great job I have.  Most people think my job is great because I get to shoot college football and national championship games.  Some might even think it is cool to shoot stuff like fires and tornadoes.  What most people don’t realize is those are infrequent events that make up only the smallest percentage of my job.

The bulk of my job is in covering the community, the annual events, the city council or county commission meetings, the school events, plays, birthdays, funerals, retirements, and all the sundry stories on people who have done stuff or are doing stuff.  I can’t imagine anyone who thinks my job is cool when they see photos from those events.  Lots of people volunteer to carry my gear at Alabama or Auburn games.  I have never had a single person say they would like to carry my gear while I cover Depot Days or The Spirit of America Festival.

If you really want to know the truth of the matter the “glamor” assignments are very rare.  You may get only a few of them in a year.  Some years you don’t get any.  So what do you do when, as many of us complain, “these assignments stink!”  If you are saying that right now about your photo assignments you need to slap yourself.  I would do it but a cyber slap just doesn’t have the impact of a good, old-fashioned, whap across the face.

The reason you get those really good assignments is because you have worked hard on assignments that most of us complain about.  Really.  I do my fair share of complaining, to be sure, but I don’t let my complaints keep me from giving my best effort on every job I shoot.  Believe me, at a community newspaper you are going to shoot a bunch of jobs that have the potential to make a yawner of a photo.  It is completely up to you what you do with those jobs.  When you do well and bring back a pleasant surprise you get brownie points with the boss.  You turn a few sow’s ears into silk purses and before you know it the boss is tossing you some silk to start with.

If you are a young gun right now you are ready to go, ready to get out there and shoot anything.  Those of you jaded old dogs, and you know who you are, are busy finding another blog to read.  But wait one minute.  Have you ever heard the old saying, “Practice makes perfect?”  The old saying is not accurate.  The correct version of is, “Perfect practice makes perfect.”

The way you work on those boring assignments you have shot a hundred times really determines how well you will do when you get a really good job.  Let me throw some Bible at you.  Jesus said “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much…”  You prove yourself out there shooting all those festivals, ribbon cuttings, check presentations, community events, 100th birthdays, enterprise features and the miscellany that happens all around us every day.  Finding a moment amid the chaos of normality separates a real photojournalist from a person just grabbing snap shots.  (By the way, if you value your life don’t tell me I take nice snap shots!)

Now for the concrete stuff that gives you something to build with.  Try lighting assignments you would never have lit before.  Never let another environmental portrait be “good enough” with room light.  Push yourself to be better every time you pick up the camera.  Use a telephoto where you would have never used one.  Use a wide where you should use a telephoto.  Climb a tree, but don’t scrape your knee (Sound of Music ref for those uncultured swine out there (That one is from Toy Story!)).  What am I telling you?  Push, push, push, push, push, push and don’t stop pushing.  Push yourself every single assignment to do something great.  It won’t always work.  Don’t quit pushing, ever.

The next time you have an assignment that bores you take it as a personal challenge to do anything but bring back a boring image.  Go early.  Stay late.  Lord forbid, try a motion blur.  Do  A N Y T H I N G  different.  Before you know it your pictures will be better, you will be motivated, you will be surprising your bosses and your readers and your job happiness rating will be through the roof.  Most of all, and this is the most important thing, don’t wait on good assignments to come to you.  Turn every assignment you get into a great assignment.

I have walked on both sides of this street, let me tell you, this is the best side!  The photos with this post are a collection of images I pulled from last year’s file from your ordinary, every day photo assignments.  Hopefully I stretched my envelope just a little bit on each image.  Remember, every technique you perfect on “ordinary” jobs makes you that much better when you get one of those extraordinary jobs.

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. Hargrove and Associates celebrated the opening of their new offices on the 8th floor of the People's Bank building on 2nd Ave SE in Decatur Friday. Faces are reflected in the glass doors of the new offices as people clap during the ceremony.

You know it has been a little boring around here if I am writing about a ribbon cutting.  I dislike ribbon cutting assignments.  Actually, there is not a word in my native tongue that accurately expresses my feelings regarding ribbon cutting photo assignments so I will just stick with dislike.  Having said that, we have to shoot them, not for the newspaper but for the Chamber of Commerce to publish in their monthly magazine which the newspaper distributes.  So I shoot ribbon cuttings and I work hard to have a good attitude when I do shoot them.

Some have accused photojournalists of having a bit of prima donna in us.  I can’t imagine where such an idea might have come from!  Still, some assignments are more visually enjoyable than other assignments.  You know, even when I have an assignment I don’t find particularly appealing I always find people and people are appealing which is why I am in this business to begin with.

I suppose there is nothing intrinsically wrong with ribbon cuttings.  They are, in point of fact, a big deal for the businesses who cut the ribbon.  It is one of those situations where a big day for someone is a really difficult thing for me to get excited about because, lets face it, ribbon cuttings have about the lowest visual potential of any photo opp on the planet.  Even a check presentation has some potential, obviously a very limited potential, but I have made a couple of nice pictures at check presentations.

The other problem I have related to ribbon cuttings is I am terrible at group photos.  I hate setting up people in a group and then making a picture.  My group shots never look right.  There are people, and I am not joking about this, who care a great deal about their group shots.  Many of them make a living doing this whether shooting corporate events, weddings, reunions, team photos or a variety of other events where group pictures sell and make the photographer a great deal of money.  You have seen their photos with the well organized rows of people each in the perfect spot with all that really nice symmetry.  Not so mine.  I shoot a group photo and the folks look like they are spread across three states with little organization to boot.  I have simply never acquired the ability to pose big groups of people.

The fact of the matter is I like being challenged and these posed, set up, stage managed events don’t challenge me so I have to challenge myself.  I look for pictures, moments if you will, that may happen around the edges of the event.  They turn up every now and then.  These photos don’t always get published but they sometimes do end up on page 1.  The photo of Donna Wales giving an emotional hug is the result of a check presentation assignment.  Real emotion shows up and if you are pouting over shooting a check presentation or a ribbon cutting you won’t be ready and you will miss the photo.

When I went to cover a ribbon cutting for a business relocating in downtown Decatur last week I found myself looking around for something else to shoot.  There was a mirror on the wall and I was plotting how to use it.  Nothing worked out so I decided to frame this lady who was standing in the doorway.  She moved.  I was beginning to lose hope.  Then I looked at the glassed entryway and decided I might be able to shoot a reflection photo.  I tried several wide shots but they were not working.  The reflections were not strong enough.  The rather uniformly lit room meant there were few dark areas on the glass where a distinguishable reflection could form.

Then I saw something that had potential.  I swapped to an 80-200 zoom.  I can’t imagine what anyone who may have been watching me must have thought shooting with the big glass in a small room.  I was able to stack a mix of faces through the glass with faces in the glass and when they clapped I had a nice image.  I made a pitch for it to publish in a new spot on our page 2 where we have started running a daily stand alone.  Unfortunately, our word oriented editors just couldn’t see the brilliance in my composition.  Go figure!  So my best ever ribbon cutting moment was itself cut.

If you think about it, almost anyone with a cell phone can be a citizen photojournalist these days recording breaking news long before a legit news photographer can get to the scene.  I have always said you can drop almost anyone down in the middle of a big fire or a plane crash and they will get usable photos.  What separates a real professional from Joe Citizen with his iPhone is the ability to do excellent work in any photo situation.  Maybe you don’t have to shoot check presentations and ribbon cuttings where you work but I guarantee there is some assignment that is the burr under your saddle.  How are you handling it?

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. Marquis Maze celebrates after Alabama defeated LSU 21-0 to claim their 14th National Championship.

Alabama is the undisputed king of college football right now.  Teams from this great state have won the last three BCS National Championships and yes, we are justifiably proud of the boys in crimson and white and burnt orange and blue.  Roll Tide!  War Eagle!  Talk about a wild ride and who knows if it is over yet or not.  I made myself a book last year with pictures and words from Alabama and Auburn’s back to back championships.  I gave it the title, One State, Two Champions.  I guess I will have to update it now.

They also updated the dictionary after this BCS title game.  If you go to the dictionary now and look up butt whipping you will see a video of this game.  Wow!  Alabama absolutely dominated LSU.  It was the most one-sided game I have ever photographed between two teams as talented as these two are.  From opening kick off to final second, Alabama dominated LSU in every offensive and defensive category.  It was the kind of game that could easily have been 35-0.  The only thing LSU managed to do was keep Alabama out of the end zone forcing them to kick seven field goals, five of them were good.  Trent Richardson put the nail in the coffin, which was already pretty tightly shut, when he rolled off the left end for a long touchdown run in the fourth quarter.

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. Quarterback AJ McCarron prays in the tunnel with another Bama staffer as he gets ready to come on the field before the start of the BCS Championship Game in the Superdome in New Orleans Monday night.

That was the actual game.  The game within the game is really played inside my head as I try to shoot the game, figure out what the teams are doing and where to get to make the best photos.  It is always difficult to evaluate your own work but, that being said, I felt like I had a good game.  I don’t have nearly as many photos from this game as from the Auburn game last year or the Bama win over Texas two years ago.  My shooting time was much more limited because of an insanely early deadline.  (We didn’t even use a photo from the trophy presentation on the front page.  Frustrating but nothing I can do about that.)  I spent all of half time and part of the third quarter editing and transmitting and then shot the rest of the third quarter and returned to the workroom to edit that and transmit more.  I got back out to the field with about seven minutes left in the game.

You will see below a selection of my favorites from the game.  BE WARNED:  There is one photo there which is difficult to look at.  CJ Mosley suffered a separated hip when he was tackled by Jordan Jefferson after he intercepted Jefferson’s pass.  It is not grotesque like a broken bone but the human body is not meant to bend some ways.  I have two favorites from the game.  Wait, a word about including this photo.  Some might think this is glamorizing an injury and that is not the intent.  This is a very violent game and the young men who play it subject their bodies to one of the most extremes of physical endurance on the planet.  It is an absolute tribute to their toughness that they are willing to play this game the way they do.  I include a sequence here showing not only the injury, but also his pain, the reaction of teammates and him leaving the field on the cart waving to the crowd.  This was only one play in a big game so don’t take it out of the context of the entire game or the whole photo take from the game.

Back to the point, my favorite photo, well my two favorite photos are made large in the post.  Neither is an action pic.  I love the shot of Marquis Maze with the confetti falling all around him.  I love it because I think that is the way I would feel if I were standing where he was standing.  It is a moment of pure joy.  The other is a shot before the game in the tunnel of AJ McCarron praying with one of the assistants.  It is a quiet moment that only a very few people saw.  My coworker Deangelo McDaniel was standing with me and we both shot it and there was one other photographer standing there looking up the tunnel who got the shot.  It may be my favorite.  The photo shows a side of these big time athletes that we seldom get to see.

On the technical side, I shot the game using the D3s, a 300mm f2.8 and a 1.4 extender, an 80-200 f2.8, a 17-35 and a 14mm.  Obviously, the wides got their work before and after the game while the long lenses were used for most of the action.  The Superdome has great lighting.  I shot mostly at ISO 2000 and my action was shot at 1/1250 at f4.  Just in case you are wondering, there was a crowd of photographers on the sidelines.  They told us there were over 200 credentials issued for still photographers.  Video was on the sidelines too so we had a crowd.  Still, the sidelines were well-managed and I never had problems finding a shooting position. Hope y’all enjoy the photos.

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. Alabama football players meet the media inside the Superdome in New Orleans for media day Friday, January 6. Danyelle Sargent from Yahoo Sports asks Alabama defensive lineman Jesse Williams a question that seems to hurt a bit as he squints hard while answering.

This is  the third year in a row I have been able to start my year with a BCS Championship Game.  This year it is in New Orleans.  Okay, not my favorite city but at least the food is good.  This has been a very, very busy week and tonight it wraps up with the actual football game.  Can’t wait.  The press conferences have ended and now it is time to do what we came for.

The week began with coverage of Bama’s arrival in New Orleans.  We were carted out to a truly remote corner of the New Orleans International Airport where, even if fans were in the city, they would not have found this spot.  A brass band is there and it is cool.  I mean, really, really cool.  The sun was going down and it was getting cold and I had not coat.  The wind was blowing enough to make things uncomfortable.  Finally, just before the light is gone, the Alabama charter lands and we get nice photos in the best possible light.  Then they had a press conference, the first of many.

Of course, we wandered around the French Quarter seeing the wonder that is Bourbon Street.  No nastier street in the country.  I am pretty sure the gate of hell is down there somewhere.  I got a ton of nice images, some quiet, some loud and some distinct.  Y’all know I am a Christian so the one I like the best is a quiet image, hard to find on Bourbon Street, of a couple of guys with the cross witnessing to a man.  No place is without a witness.  It recalled to my mind a man I heard about as a little kid named Bob Harrington who was known as the Chaplain of Bourbon Street.

Then there were press conferences and practices and more press conferences and practices, media day for both teams and about a dozen trips in the Quarter for feature stories and fan stories and pep rallies.  By the way Bammers, y’all should all be ashamed of yourself for that lame, and I do mean lame, effort at your pep rally.  Last year in Scottsdale, the Barners shook the earth with the noise they made.  I wanted to grab the mike and yell at all you Bammers to wake you up.  Come on now!

My biggest adventure has been my 80-200 going belly up yesterday, Sunday, and trying to get a replacement.  I snapped it on the camera and it looked like I was looking through a kaleidoscope.  No idea a lens could get drunk but it sure looks like my did.  My boss, John Godbey, using Facebook, located someone who was willing to bring me down a substitute from Decatur.  John is a great boss and what he did was really going the extra mile.

Tonight we come to it.  Now that I have figured out a way to work around my WordPress upgrade that leaves me without an ability to post, I will give everyone an update.  Grab you a big bowl of red beans and rice and enjoy the game tonight.  By the way, I will be the guy with a strip of zebra tape around the end of my long lens!  In the gallery below are some of my favorites from the week leading up to the game.  Enjoy and give a little love to us poor working stiffs down here in Nawlins!

As 2011 comes to an end I decided to check out the stats for the year for this blog. Yes, I am that bored. I am waiting on a photo assignment to get pics of New Year’s Eve revelers. Of course, I will be shooting the assignment for a 9 pm deadline so not sure if I will find any revelers at such an early hour but that is the nature of the beast. Anyway, back to the point, if there is one. I thought I would give you a nice statistical break down for the year. This will help you wind down and go to sleep after your night of reveling.

Alittlenewsphoto.com received 25,609 visits between January 1 and December 31 at 6:30 pm CDT. Those visitors viewed 79,997 pages. No doubt, if anyone is still out there I will top 80,000 page views before midnight. That is pretty cool. A bunch of you come back regularly and a bunch more stop by just every now and then, or, just once and shame on you and you know who you are. Of course, if you only stopped by once you won’t be reading this so no worries about offending anyone! No, I have not had any adult beverages. I am naturally that funny.

A break down by country, see, I know you couldn’t wait for that, puts the United States at the top with 18,805 visits. That would be the most of y’all but the United Kingdom brought me 1,155 visits so thank you to all my good friends in the British Isles. The other nations in the top five are Canada at number 3, India at number 4 and the Philippines at number 5. I have no idea why. I am just giving you the numbers baby.

On the low end of the blog is Yemen and Madagascar with only one visit each. Lemurs, I suppose, don’t have internet service. Of course, there are several nations around the globe who did not send me a single visitor. Shame on you. Those would include a large block of nations in central Africa where, I think, they might be a bit busy surviving to worry about photojournalism so they get a pass. But Greenland, Greenland, how could you let me down? Even Iceland supplied three visitors. Come on ye of the land of ice, errr, green, pick up your game.

Some other nations where I was a bit surprised to find visitors were China who sent me 97. Now that is a paltry audience, I admit it. They have about 1/4 of the world’s population so I would expect more just based on the numbers but the Chinese do have a problem with the whole free flow of information thing. Another shocker, I had 31 visits from Iran with the majority coming from Tehran. Yeah, pretty strange. I did, in fact, have visitors from almost every nation in the Middle East which I found somewhat surprising.

Back home in the States, if you are not slapping yourself to stay awake, or already snoring, I am certain you will be thrilled to know that Alabama readers led the way with 4,139 visits. Texas was second with 2,188 and California was third with 1,485. The rest of y’all were below 1,000 so I expect more out of you in 2012 so bring it!

Within the great state of Alabama the overwhelming majority of my readers come from north Alabama. Shocking, I know. Florence narrowly edged Decatur with 919 visits to 910 visits. The rocket city over in Hunstville won the bronze medal with 717 visits. There was a steep falloff to number four where Birmingham brought in 258 and Montgomery 169. And I know you can’t wait to find out who won between Alabama and Auburn so, drum roll please…Auburn sent me 128 visits to Tuscaloosa’s 92 so War Eagle! I am sure that my daughter’s presence in Auburn for most of the year did not influence that number at all.

Finally, to wrap up this scintillating discussion, which operating system do you think won the battle of the stats? It was Windows, but in defense of Mac there are more Windows folk out there and it was closer than you might think. There were 16,111 Windows users who viewed the blog to 7,303 Mac users. Okay, I admit, I am a little downcast over that one. I also know how many of you viewed the blog while in your birthday suits, pajamas, underwear, before bed, before church, before work and, tsk, tsk, during work but I do have some class and will not reveal those numbers. By the way, if you believed that last sentence, even for a moment, I have some ocean front property for sale. Call me, really.

Hope y’all have a safe and happy New Year celebration. Live well in 2012 because the Mayans seem to think the world is going to end in December! They can join the long list of failed prognosticators in my opinion. Blow a party horn for me and drive carefully. Blessings to all.

Photo by David Higginbotham. Yes, that is the Roman Coliseum!

2011 has been a unique year for me.   I have been to places I have only dreamed about. If I had a bucket list I could have stricken several places off the list this year. I traveled more in 2011 than in any year I can remember and I dearly love traveling. The best part is my family was with me during some of those travels and there is nothing better than sharing life with the ones you love.

I began the year in Phoenix, AZ covering the BCS Championship and seeing a part of America I had never seen before. I thoroughly enjoyed being in Arizona and it didn’t hurt that Auburn won the National Championship. It is so much more fun to cover the winner than the loser. Before leaving Arizona I climbed Telegraph Pass at dusk not having any idea where I was going, where I would come out or what I would see. It got dark on me but God showed me something from that high place that I will never forget. Plus, I made it down in the dark without getting eaten by a mountain lion!

Next up I was privileged to judge the Kentucky News Photographer’s Association annual contest and present some of my work the following day. In the audience that day was a new friend, Ed Reinke, photojournalist for the Associated Press. I had no idea how great that privilege was until Ed passed away unexpectedly late this year. I was able to speak with him enough to find a friend. He was even polite enough to ask questions about some of the work I presented. I wish I could have known Ed longer because, from all I know of him, he was a quality human being.

Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. We made it! Three miles down on Bright Angel Trail. Now we have to start back up.

In April we took an extended family vacation visiting friends in Texas on our way to Arizona for what was to be the best trip ever. During this trip I stood in a place I had only dreamed of. The White House Ruin in Canyon De Chelley is a place that, could I have selected any place on earth to photograph, would have been the place I would have chosen. I actually stood in the footsteps of Timothy O’Sullivan and Ansel Adams, two of my photographic heroes, who shot the ruin and fired my imagination. It was most fulfilling. We visited and hiked in Grand Canyon, saw a heavy snow on the red rocks of the Sedona area and took a train ride through the Verde Canyon and visited and hiked through several other places in Arizona and Nevada before heading back home through southern Texas with a stop in Houston for a family visit.

Two days after returning to work from that wonderful vacation I found myself in the median on Highway 31 in Tanner, Alabama facing a massive tornado, shooting and running for my life. I had always dreamed of photographing a tornado but when I actually did it I found it was more like a nightmare than a dream. However, not everything that came out of that storm was bad but that is a post for another day.

Standing beneath the White House Ruin in Canyon De Chelley.

Next stop, Nashville to assist David Higginbotham photograph a Hindu wedding, another first for me. I can only say that shooting it was a cross between covering a football game and a street festival. I am still without adequate words to describe the experience. I will say it was the most fun I had ever had covering a wedding up until that point. The most fun I have ever had shooting a wedding is the point of the next paragraph!

Before long I found myself in Rome standing beside the Coliseum assisting on another wedding shoot with David Higginbotham. That made up for the hotel in Nashville which, unfortunately, shall remain an insider joke. Who would have ever imagined that? Don’t even get me started on the food and the wine. Ahhhh, Italia! How soon can I return to you, oh Italia? The fountains, oh man, I love the fountains and the food, did I mention the food and the wine? Oh, oh, and the coffee! Oh my! I became a bit obsessive about the coffee. Drinking the wine and the coffee in Rome makes me really hope that God gives us the privilege of eating and drinking in heaven. I hear he did a pretty good job on some wine during a wedding feast in Cana.

Things settled down a bit over the summer. I began making plans for one last big trip set for mid-September. I flew to Seattle where my daughter Jo was working for the Holland American Lines cruise ship Ms Westerdam. She had me as her friend on board for a trip to Alaska. Oh man, oh man, as awesome as Rome was for the man-made stuff, Alaska was just as awesome for the God-made stuff. I enjoyed a visual banquet like you can’t even believe. Wow, what an awesome trip. Cruising with my daughter whom I don’t see very often anymore was a treat beyond words. You don’t know how much you cherish your children until they are not around so much.

My final personal trip of the year was a very brief run up to Pigeon Forge, in Tennessee, for a family Thanksgiving. I was only able to stay for one of the four days because of my work schedule. It was beautiful and great to see Patty’s side of the family too. I guess you could say there was one more personal trip. I was invited to speak again this year at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia and my wife was able to go with me. When you have as many kids as we do, finding time for just the two of us can be challenging. As a side note, if there is a Chipotle Grill anywhere near my wife, do not stand between her and the door. You will be run over. Girlie loves her Chipotle.

Mixed in with all that were a couple of little college football games. No big deal, just the game of the century, of the week, between Alabama and LSU and then Alabama and Auburn in the Iron Bowl. Rounding out the year, I covered two high school state championship games. One was a win for Hartselle High and one was a loss for Tanner High.

What a crazy, crazy year. I am kind of tired! But is the good kind of tired, you know. Now only a week an a half until I head off to New Orleans for the Alabama vs LSU BCS Championship game. What adventures are out there in 2012? I can hardly wait to find out. I am thankful to the Lord for this vocation and the many, many opportunities it presents me.

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. The April 27th tornadoes killed 14 people in Lawrence County. Those families now face a Christmas having lost someone dear to them. Noe and Carolyn Guzman face the holiday with a somber spirit having lost their daughter Aurelia as a result of the tornado.

For a guy working for a small market newspaper in the South there are two things you can count on come Christmas. First, you will have to photograph Santa, a lot. Second, you will have to photograph Christmas lights and Nativity scenes, a lot. By the time Christmas Day actually comes I am usually ready to shoot Santa alright, but not with a camera! My Christmas spirit tank will have run nearly dry. And then, shooting all the lights and the Nativity scenes is not much better; although, I have never wanted to actually shoot a Nativity scene. My Christmas spirit tank has never gotten that empty!

But this has been a different sort of Christmas. I have shot pictures of Santa only once and that briefly during a Christmas parade. I have shot zero photos of Christmas lights and haven’t even seen a Nativity much less photographed one. The Christmas story I told has been a sad one but one that is also near to my heart. Not every family is approaching Christmas this year with the joy that is traditional to the season. Far too many families approach this holy holiday with pain and sorrow in their hearts.

I didn’t understand this until my son passed away two years ago. In fact, as you read this post, my son will have been gone from this earth for as long as he was with us. I still crave him to this day. I doubt that craving will ever leave me. Just one more kiss, one more hug, one more anything. But one more would never be enough. I was oblivious to all those who suffered through the Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays with little to be happy or joyful about until I was one of those suffering. Now I know and now I am acutely aware of those who are in pain.

As I began thinking about this holiday and what story might be a good one to tell I thought immediately of the Guzman family whose daughter, twelve-year-old Aurelia, was killed in the April 27th tornado which hit their home in the Langtown community in Lawrence County. They have never been far from my mind since I first met them and thinking of them as they approached their first Christmas without their lovely daughter wrenched my heart. I suggested to Deangelo McDaniel that we should go and talk to them if they were willing to talk.

Noe and Carolyn received us into their new home, decorated for Christmas but without a Christmas tree. They couldn’t bear it. Putting up the tree was always something Aurelia loved. No one had the heart to do it without her. I know the feeling. You go through with the holiday because you feel you must, maybe you feel you owe it to the one who is gone or maybe you just go through the motions because that is what you are supposed to do. Maybe it is all three. They will never be the same. I will never be the same.

I look now into the eyes of my three youngest children for my inspiration for Christmas. But even there, even in those bright, hopeful eyes, there is pain mixed with hope and joy. One of my little boys cried himself to sleep two or three nights ago because he was missing his baby brother. We all still cry sometimes but crying isn’t bad. Crying cleanses the soul they say and I think “they” may be right. I think that may be the recipe of life, some parts pain, some parts healing, some parts anticipation, some parts dread, some parts courage, some parts fear, some parts joy and some parts sorrow all mixed together. We all feel it to some degree and we all will feel it as long as we live here.

I think, having a couple of years of perspective, the most important thing is how we handle that blend. Many times we have little to no control over the circumstances that overtake us. Our only point of control is what we do when those circumstances do overtake us. That is where the spirit of Christmas really can make a difference. I don’t mean the Santa Claus thing. I mean the Jesus thing, the Baby in the manger who grew up to become Savior. If there is comfort in this world it is found there, in the story of a Savior coming to earth, God taking on my form, feeling my pain, my sorrows and, yes, even my joys. There is a scripture in the book of Hebrews saying we have a great high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses. For that I am truly, profoundly grateful.

We will sit around the Christmas tree this year as we always do, my dad will read the story of our Saviors birth from one of the Gospels and we will open gifts. We will have a nice dinner at mom and dads house Christmas Eve and then my wife will fix a big, late breakfast Christmas morning and children will laugh and play and make a huge noise and it will be good. There will still be someone missing and we will remember him and love him and we will seek comfort in Jesus knowing that when the day comes and our days here are done, we will be reunited with the ones we love who are missing from us now.

I will not end this post wishing you a Merry Christmas but I will leave you with a thought of great comfort. Near the end of the book of Revelation is a phrase which I will now say for me, my family and all those families who are in pain this Christmas, “Surely I come quickly. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Amen.

This is the twentieth installment of the Twenty Moments 2011 series.  I sense a tear in your eye as you read this.  Be of good cheer, Santa Claus is coming to town and he don’t like cry babies!

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. Coach Bob Godsey gets his Gatorade bath following Hartselle's State Final victory over Vigor 13-3 in Bryant Denny Stadium Thursday.

Last but not least, my final choice for the Twenty Moments series, is a photo of a man getting a bath but it is the kind of bath most men would relish.  Most men would, in fact, enjoy having a photo of themselves getting this bath.  This is a state championship bath for Hartselle High School football coach Bob Godsey.  The Hartselle Tigers, my home town team I might add, won the State 5A Championship in Bryant Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa this month.  It is the first football state championship by any high school in Morgan County since championships began being decided on the field.  There was a time in Alabama when the state championship was mythical and voted on by sports writers, I suppose.

Hartselle played Vigor High, a team that frankly looked like a much better football team.  They were bigger, seemed faster and had several Division I prospects on the team.  Hartselle, by comparison, seemed small and much slower and I doubt a single kid from Hartselle’s team plays in major college sports.  So how did a bunch from Hartselle defeat a team that seemed bigger, faster and more talented.  The Hartselle kids were the personification of the word “team.”

On the first day of practice I was talking with Coach Godsey and I told him that day what a big difference there was between well-coach programs like his and Decatur’s and maybe a couple of others and most of the other teams we cover.  You go to practice and see a well oiled machine at work.  Everyone does what they are supposed to do, when they are supposed to do it and how they are supposed to do it.  And, if they don’t, they learn real quick or they don’t play.  I had never seen Vigor before but, like many extremely athletic teams I have seen in the past, they seemed a bit undisciplined.  Sometimes you will see teams that are amazingly gifted not do the small things and it was the small things that won the game for Hartselle.

The final score was Hartselle 13, Vigor 3 but the real final score was Hartselle 6, Vigor 3.  The last touchdown was scored with about a minute left after Vigor had to go for it on fourth down near their own ten yard line.  When they failed, Hartselle was able to jam it in the end zone for the extra score.  When a game is that close and the smaller, less athletic team wins I mark that up to two things; heart and coaching.  That makes Coach Godsey’s bath pretty sweet.  I can’t deny feeling a little bit of civic pride as I shot the picture too.

This is the nineteenth installment in the Twenty Moments 2011 series.

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. Shoppers hit area stores before sunrise Friday morning for the Black Friday sales events. Branson Norris takes a rest at 5:42 a.m. in the Decatur Mall. He had been out shopping with his family since 1 a.m.

I hate shopping!  I am, after all, male.  Since I hate shopping, you can imagine how I feel about shooting pictures of people shopping.  Not my favorite assignment for sure.  It was my unfortunate duty to photograph the Black Friday madness this year and I have a confession to make.  I actually enjoyed it.  Shhhhh!  Don’t tell my boss.  He might make me do it again.

I got out on the streets at 4:30 which is way too early for even an early riser like me.  I made a couple of stops at big box type stores shooting outside for the most part.  They tend to take a dim view of cameras in their stores.  We have a good relationship with several retailers around town such as Target and shoot inside there frequently.  One of our guys shot there the day before to get them setting up for the big sale so I didn’t go back there.

I ended up in the Decatur Mall.  I was not sure what to expect but I walked in and found the hallways cluttered with people and merchandise.  This was especially true outside Belk where they were apparently giving stuff away.  Ok, not really, but is seemed that way from the clutter of boxes and people outside the store.  I got several good shots there and then walked around grabbing some other random shopping pictures.

I was just getting ready to leave when I spotted Branson Norris all laid out in a rest area in one of the Mall’s common areas.  I grabbed a couple of frames before he raised his head.  Turns out he had been out shopping with his family since 1 a.m.  It was about 5:30.  I felt compassion for the lad and told him to make his mom go and buy him some breakfast.  He perked up agreeing that would be a good idea.

I left, now happy, with my money shot in camera.  I sent this out on the AP wire with the hundreds of others submissions from across the country and forgot about it.  A couple of days later the Mall manager sent me a page proof of New York Newsday’s page 1.  There was the photo.  That same day we got a phone call from the Belk corporate office asking for a copy of the photo.  The kid was laying his head down on top of one of the advertisements.  I have seen it crop up on web sites around the country ever since when someone is writing a shopping story so my money shot turned out to have wide appeal.  Unfortunately, I don’t get any extra money from my money shot!  Oh well, such is life.

Want to know what is funny?  This photo didn’t even run on our page one.  We ran it with a package on an inside page.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say but only God knows what is in the eye of an editor!

This is the eighteenth installment in the Twenty Moments 2011 series.

Daily Photo by Gary Cosby Jr. LSU defensive back Eric Reid pulls the ball away from Alabama receiver Michael Williams near the LSU goal line. LSU defender Tyrann Mathieu celebrates the pick.

Alabama and LSU squared off in the game of the century back in early November in Bryant Denny Stadium.  They were as evenly matched as two teams could be.  Ultimately, LSU won 9-6 in overtime after Alabama missed four field goals including one in overtime.

The game was an obvious defensive struggle but there were some big plays made and none bigger than this interception by LSU defensive back Eric Reid.  Had the ball been ruled a catch, Alabama would have had the ball on the one yard line, first and goal.  As it happened, Alabama tight end Michael Williams appeared to make the catch until he hit the ground entwined with Reid.  The LSU defender managed to roll away from Williams with the ball and LSU was awarded an interception.  It was a close call and one that could have gone either way.  I think, had the referee ruled it a catch, Alabama would have kept the ball even after video review.  There was not enough evidence to overturn the call either way.

Alabama lost the game and seemed to have lost any chance at a National Championship trip.  However, Bama only fell one spot in the polls and with every other team who had a shot losing over the coming weeks, the Crimson Tide ended up going to the BCS Championship for a rematch of the game of the century with LSU.  This time it will be in the Tigers backyard in the Superdome in New Orleans January 9th.  I will be there and hopefully the Bammers will rebound and win the title.

Isn’t this a nasty system.  I feel for Oklahoma State, maybe even Stanford.  I mean, not that much, but if I were in their shoes I would feel ticked off, especially if I were OSU.  Until the championship is settled with some sort of playoff system, the BCS will be flawed.  I really do believe that Alabama and LSU should be playing in the Championship.  I think they are the best teams but the key there is “I think.”  There is simply no way to know.  I would dearly love to see Alabama and Oklahoma State play to see who gets a shot at LSU for the championship.

I doubt we ever see it but, Wow, what a great way to do things.  I would love to see the top ten teams in the final BCS standings after the league championships enter a playoff and go for it.  Last man standing wins.  That is the way we settle every other sport in the country.  College football needs to get its act together and let these teams really determine a champion.  Who knows, maybe Bama and LSU are not the best.  But, as they say in the Tootsie Pop ads, the world may never know.