Christmas Card

Dear Friends & Family,
Sophia Megan Wood was born August 15, 2007, To Matt and Nicole Wood. Our first Grand Baby!
Tippi was born in September. She is half poodle Half Chihuahua. Matt & Nicole are wonderful parents to little Sophia.
Maggie and Sina live in Bountiful, they have 3 dogs a cat and
a fish. Shannon works at the Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum in Salt Lake.
Ricky is a senior at Bountiful High, and enjoys his Drama Class.
Lance is a junior at Bountiful High, and plays the Saxophone in the band.
Aliyah is in 7th grade and loves singing playing the clarinet, and playing basketball.
Carla and I are enjoying the kids, the new puppy, and our life in Bountiful.
We are so grateful for all of you and for everything you do for us.
We wish you all happy holidays and a wonderful New Year!


Love,


Rick, Carla & the kids

Mad about the wait

Roger Malcolm, 51, is arrested at Sapp Brothers Truck Stop in Salt Lake City after he shot and killed security guard Verne Jenkins in the throat. Malcolm was upset he had to wait in line to buy a pack of gum.

BYU doesn't lose

I had no idea what happened when I shot this burst of photos after Freshman Eathyn Manumaleuna blocked the UCLA field goal attempt with no time remaining. giving BYU a 17-16 victory in the Las Vegas Bowl.
(55) Manumaleuna's block gave BYU a 17-16 victory in the Las Vegas Bowl. I sent four photos of Manumaleuna celebrating. The Tribune photo editor chose a mug shot of the games Hero.

Viewmont Head shaving

Viewmont high shaved their heads after making their fund raising goal. I only found one student that had hair long enough that it would not grow back in a week or two.

Tree cutting in the Uintas

mostly multimedia

Bison Round up, Antelope Island.



Between getting a new Director of Photography at the Tribune and our new focus on multimedia, I haven't taken many photos this past month. I have posted a couple of my recent video assignments below. Ute Basketball coach Jim Boylen is always fun to shoot.

BYU vs. Utah

I was assigned to shoot a video of the big Utah vs. BYU football game, but told not to shoot any action I wasn't very excited about it, until I saw the guy with the rubber cougar mask.

Black Friday Shopping in Salt Lake

Black Friday shopping at the Target in Centerville

Bilal Hussein

Bilal Hussein is back in the news. Matt LaPlante and I met Bilal at the government center in Ramadi in October 2005. We were told by some of the American soldiers that they may not be legitimate journalists. Although he seemed legitimate (he had the same press credentials from the press center in Baghdad that we had) I had no idea at the time, that Bilal was a photographer, or that he was part of the Associate Press Iraq photo team that would later win the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography.
You can read about Bilal here: http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003678589

Halloween 2007

Carla painted the kids faces Halloween. This is Aliyah as a cat. I've been doing so many multimedia projects lately (6 in the past two weeks) They are fun (as long as I'm not shooting from a horse) but they seem to have taken up all my spare time and energy, and my still photography has been suffering. Ricky as the SAW puppet
Lance a blue man

(rare) bloody pig blade

Ricky fills me in several times a day on the current bid for this rare bloody pig blade. The last one went for $71, Ricky is hoping to get this one for less than $25. It's funny what kids get obsessed with these days.

177th Semiannual General Conference

I have covered LDS General conferences for many years. It is usually very predictable, with few surprises. There was a wonderful moment Saturday morning, when President Hinckley gave Henry B. Eyring a tap on the head with his cane, after he was sustained as the Second Counselor in the First Presidency.

Grandparents & Goodies

I was assigned to shoot "Grandparents and Goodies" day at Holbrook Elementry School the other day. Most of the Grandparents looked so young to me, they didn't look old enough to be grandparents, then I realized many of them were not much older than me! My favorite was 88-year-old Virginia Gold, reading a halloween story to her great-grand children, Sydney and Savannah.

Burning Man

Although the man was burned 5 days early this year, they constructed a new man in two days, it was finished and lit up by Thursday evening.
Burning Man was incredible this year as always, The weather was hot, and the dust storms were more severe than anything I have seen in the past 12 years, demolishing our shade structure and our tent.

>" Crude Awakening" by Dan Das Mann, Karen Cusolito, Black Rock FX, Pyrokinetics, Nate Smith, Mark Perez and MonkeyBoy, featured Nine figurative steel sculptures, weighing 7 tons each and standing 30' tall, embody the faithful. In their various poses of worship from around the world, they bow down and reach forth to the Revered Oil Derrick, that icon of the religion which now stands above all others. The Derrick is a 90' tall wooden tower with stairs all the way to the sky. At any time, 200 people can amass on its upper platform while below, the nine faithful belch their fiery prayers from within and around their bodies. Each figure is bound by a participant-activated fire effect, created by Pyrokinetics. (from the Burning Man website)
There was a beautiful sunrise Friday morning, but I am very tempted to clone out the mechanical lift in the center of the frame.

On Saturday night, after midnight, as the air raid siren wailed and the battleship smoke generator poured forth clouds of smoke, the Revered Oil Derrick lit up with an amazing fireworks display, followed by a flame gusher that exploded from the center of the tower, creating 2.4 gigawatts of raw power and a huge mushroom cloud of smoke and flame. Some say it was the largest flame cannon ever.

Tent Revival

During a recent old fashioned tent revival, preacher Doc Van demonstrated that "Hell" is an actual place of suffering, not just a state of mind.
You can hear Doc Van and watch a Barbie fry on the hot coals here - http://166.70.44.68/multimedia/tentrevival/index.html

Key Bank Implosion

I was allowed in to photograph part of the clean up about 30 minnutes after the implosion, my eyes and my throat are still stinging from all of the dust.
More than 50 people gathered on a hill just below Ensign Peak to watch the Implosion.

Hope for the 6 Trapped Miners

The candle light vigil at the Huntington Fairgrounds was very moving, despite the corney Country and Western music and repeated playing of "Your Raise Me Up." I have nothing against Country and Western Music, just Hokey, and sappy Country and Western Music. I do have something against "You Raise Me Up" It sounds like "Danny Boy" sideways.

All the Mod Cons

A Native American dancer, participates in the inter-tribal dance, with an iPod in one hand, and cell phone in the other, at the Liberty Park Pow wow on Pioneer Day.

Back to Salt Creek

A flattened Cat was the most interesting photo I took the entire day. We waited for hours in our fire gear, for the TV crews to do their stand up shots, miles from the actual fire. It seems each day that a wildfire fire continues to burn, the photo possibilities decrease drastically. The flat cat reminded me of a very beautiful Tim Kelly photo of a flattened Fox, he shot many years ago.
Mike Johnson trudges up a hill near the Big Hollow Road, where firefighters had been back burning. He is the PIO, so we didn't use the photo.

Poseidon or Pareidolia

Many years ago, Trent Nelson introduced me to the Weekly World News, and the fact that you can buy a subscription and have it mailed to your house. Being a past subscriber, I was always intrigued by the photos stories such as "Satan's face appears in a cloud." I always thought they were airbrushed or touched up in some way. Yesterday as I was covering the Salt Creek Fire, I shot several photos of a Helicopter dropping water on the flames.
As I was editing, I was amazed at what appeared to be the face or the Greek God Poseidon, or as the Romans called him, King Neptune, falling on the flames in Nephi Canyon.

Salt Creek Fire

Covering wildfires when the temperature is above 100 degrees, doesn't sound like fun, but the past few days haven't been too bad.
The Forest service escorted us up Nephi Canyon this afternoon to observe the some of the damage from the past few days, when the wind shifted and we were in just the right spot to see the firefighters retreat as a wall of flames followed them over the ledge.

Seasons at Pebble Creek

I returned to the apartment complex, formerly known as the Hartland Apartments yesterday. Since my last visit, more than 81 families, mostly from Somalia, have been forced to move since the new owners took control of the apartment complex, changed the name to "Seasons at Pebble Creek and increased its rents by more than $200 a month. Three brothers, Mustafa, Salat and Abdirahman, along with their other 4 siblings and their mom and dad are being forced out at the end of the month. Their family can no longer afford to live the apartment they have occupied for the past four years. Several more families are being forced out, with little hope of moving into a new apartment, since they do not have the $1,200 needed for the deposit required before they move in.

Chalk Fest

Scott Stanley works on his chalk drawing during the Utah Foster Care Foundation's Chalk Art Festival, at the Gateway Center. Sometimes it's nice to have our office at the Gateway.

Off to War

The past few weeks, hundreds of Utah service men and women have been sent to Iraq. William Black, Springville, says goodbye to his wife Stephanie, at Camp Williams.
Clint Lund says goodbye to his wife Sarah, who is 7 months pregnant, at Camp Williams, before boarding the Bus for the Salt Lake City Airport with the Marine reservists from Charlie Company, 4th LAR.

Special Olympics

I love the Special Olympics, but things have changed. They used to have "huggers" at the finishline, now the volunteers just give them High-Fives.
Athletes now get free hair styling. Mike Decker, St George, gets a fancy hair-do by a student from Bon Lossee Academy. Is it supposed to be smoking like that?
Pete Alvey won two gold medals. He had a cell phone in a leather holster attatched to his short pants as he competed.

Derby Girls

I photographed Roller Derby for the first time. I was a bit disappointed that although the girls were tattooed and tough looking, with names like "Medusa Damage," "Sugar Pain," "Kinky Kilbasa," and "Dominican Destroyer," they didn't skate very fast or aggressive.

Ryan Balmer

Getting the assignment to go to the home of a widow that had just been notified that her husband had been killed in Iraq is one of the toughest things I have had to do as photographer, and I have had to do this a half dozen times the past couple of years. I am always amazed when they let us in, and for the amount of time they give us at such an awkward moment.Ryan Balmer's wife, Danielle Balmer, comforts her 7-year-old son Anthony at her home in Roy. Danielle was notified yesterday that her husband had been killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb. Patricia Balmer, Ryan's mother from Indiana (left) arrived at the Salt Lake airport yesterday evening to prepare for his homecoming a week from today, when she found out that he had been killed that morning in Iraq. The Balmers had pins, posters and banners made to celebrate his safe return home, including a special shirt made for his infant daughter "My Daddy's finally home" it read "It's about time."Ryan Balmer is the 37th Utahn to die in the Iraq War so far, and American serviceman 3,503 since the invasion in March 2003