Richfield – Fans of Rich High School’s girls basketball team traveled over 260 miles to see their team win the 1A state championship game over Piute High School at the Sevier Valley Center, Saturday, February 16, 2008.
Monthly Archives: February 2008
2007 Portfolio: World Cup Bobsled
From my 2007 Portfolio.
Romania’s Nicolae Istrate. Park City – at the FIBT World Cup Bobsled Competition at the Utah Olympic Park, Saturday, December 8, 2007.
; 12.08.2007
Tagged with: bobsled, fibt, nicolae istrate, park city, romania, utah, utah olympic park, world cup bobsled
Posted in Photography
Posted in Photography
"Rotater" Art
The front page of the Tribune’s website has this cool thing that rotates through several of the top news stories of the moment. Once in a while as the rotater switches from one story to the next there’s a slight hitch in the system; for a split second the displayed text doesn’t match up with the displayed photo.
This little tech hiccup has created a new source of entertainment for some of us staffers, trying to capture funny screen captures. I found the one above and thought it was pretty funny. But then fellow photographer Scott Sommerdorf caught this one and stormed the leaderboard:
Posted in Photojournalism, Vintage
1998 Africa: Church in Guguletu
February 22, 1998: Cape Town, South Africa.
Not much sleep once again. And no breakfast. Do I need to type that every single day? You can just assume it. I didn’t eat today until 5pm. But it’s our last day in Africa, so we wanted to maximize our time.
The good news is that I finally had a chance to have my clothes washed. I had been wearing the same pants for the entire trip and rotating between two shirts in an attempt to travel light. I hop in the shower and look forward to putting on my clean clothes. Clive is picking us up in ten minutes to go to church services in the township.
I open up the laundry box and feel the clean, pressed shirt. This will be nice. Then I notice something. My pants are missing. I can’t believe it. My pants. Gone, lost, misplaced. Housekeeping is no help. All hotel laundry is done by an outside service. They take my address and say they will mail them if they turn up.
So it’s ten minutes until church and I’ve got no pants. The situation is fixed with a quick call to Clive, who brings me a pair of loaner pants that end up fitting quite well.
We drive to the township of Guguletu. Before the meeting, an elderly missionary from the US talks to me, joking, “We didn’t know anything about South Africa before we got here. We thought this was where they boiled missionaries in pots over a fire.”
As the meeting started, I realized that I didn’t come all the way to South Africa to be timid about photographing the church service. I got up during the opening hymn and took some photos from the back of the room. But after only a few shots, one of the leaders stood up and walked over to me.
“Could you stop taking pictures during sacrament meeting? I know you’re from Salt Lake but it’s against the rules. Sorry.”
I put my gear away and sat down for the rest of the meeting. Then a young man got up to speak. He was holding up a picture of Jesus as he read aloud from the Bible. It was an incredible shot, which I had to pass on. If only I had waited to start shooting, I could have had it.
Clive later suggested we recreate the moment, that the boy would be more than willing to re-enact his talk. Sorry, I said. Ethics and all.
The leader came up to me again after sacrament meeting and was very polite and offered his apologies. He was sorry that I couldn’t shoot, but said I was free to photograph anything else in the remaining meetings.
I photographed the Priesthood (the men)…
Relief Society (the women)…
and Primary (children) meetings.
They were practically indistinguishable from the same meetings held in the US, which was interesting in its own way.
With that our trip came to an end. We hit our ninth airport in ten days. Somehow I was upgraded to business class for the return flight. I reclined my seat and slept for several hours. Walking off the plane, I was met with laughs from friends and family. It was bitter cold winter in Salt Lake City and I was wearing shorts.
Links to the rest of this series:
Church in Guguletu
1998 Africa: Into the Townships
February 21, 1998 – Cape Town, South Africa
More incredible luck in finding people to help us with our work. Last night I met a man who agreed to take us to church services in the townships. Clive knew the townships very well, having served as an LDS branch president there. It was a relief to find him, as we had no desire to attend the mostly-white ward that others had arranged for us to visit.
Clive called this morning. He was down in the hotel lobby and ready to take us around. We drove into Langa and Guguletu townships and met with various church members, including this lovely woman (above), a mormon as well as an apparent Beatles fan.
Mildred Mvula, with her photograph of the LDS temple in Salt Lake City.
The scenes in the townships were so visually striking.
I tried to grab whatever photographs I could in the little amount of time we had there.
At one point he stopped the car and asked a roadside vendor, “How much?” I looked closely at what was cooking on the barbecue. Sheep heads.
Later we found out something else incredible: Clive knows my neighbor Mel, the South African who lives across the street from me. At his home, Clive pulled out photos of my neighbor who had lived in Durban many years ago. I photographed them so Mel could have copies. These photos are from the 1957 dedication of the LDS chapel (The Grove) in Durban, South Africa.
At this point I felt very strongly that throughout this trip some higher power led us to certain people. Our course throughout this trip had fallen into place too well. It seems beyond any coincidence that we met all the right people at all the right times. Ben, Glen, Khumbulani, and Clive. Their help and knowledge were invaluable to us.
Later on, Clive takes us around the Cape on a sightseeing trip. It turns into a very long drive along the coast and though it’s beautiful, I’m thoroughly exhausted. I’ll close this post with a photo of the sun setting over the Cape. I was completely drained by the time he pulled the car over to watch this sunset. Eight airports in eight days had taken their toll. I only have this photo because Clive literally dragged me out of the car to take it. My thanks.
Links to the rest of this series:
Into the Townships
1998 Africa: Cape Town
February 20, 1998 : Cape Town, South Africa
At the Cape Town airport, we are met by a strange young man and a portly man. The portly man would say something he thought was funny and then burst into violent laughter. It got very tiring. I figured if he was going to laugh that hard I had to laugh as well, even though he wasn’t funny.
No one knew where our hotel was. They hadn’t heard of it. That is a bad sign. But our first priority was to find a photo lab so we could have my film from Soweto developed. We only had fifteen minutes. We found a one-hour lab in a mall. I told the guy in the lab that I needed three rolls developed, negatives only, as soon as possible. I told him I had no extra time. He said no problem, it would only take fifteen minutes.
He figured out I was a professional and started asking me about what cameras I used. I said Nikon. He asked which model. I said F5. He couldn’t believe it. He begged me to bring it in when I picked up the film so he could see it. I went out into the mall and looked at some shops, then returned to the photo lab after fifteen minutes.
When I walked in, the guy was just barely putting my first two rolls into the machine. I couldn’t believe it. I grabbed my third roll back and told him I wouldn’t have time to run all three. I could only hope that my best shots were on those two rolls.
I pulled out my camera. He was amazed I would let him hold it. He showed it to a co-worker and said, “This is the most highest professional camera in the world. It costs 28,000 Rand.” (US $5,600, more than twice what it cost me in the US.)
I pulled out my Leica to take a picture of him looking at the camera. That sent off another wave of astonishment. “You have a Leica M6 too?!”
Because he thought I was cool he gave me a 10% discount, which saved me sixty-cents.
We got in the van with the other Utah reporters (Deseret News and KSL-TV) and drove to the next spot that LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley would be speaking. Since our competition flew into Cape Town early this morning, they had no time for anything like the trip into Soweto we took this morning. We made sure to tell them how great it was, just to rub it in.
These other reporters seem to have done nothing other than cover Hinckley’s speeches. We’ve done that as well as filling every spare minute finding other stories and seeking out people to interview. We’ve been working our asses off and great stories have been the result.
Tonight’s meeting is in an mostly white, upscale community.
At the end of the meeting, those gathered waved goodbye to Hinckley. It was a very emotional moment, and many were brought to tears. I was drawn the image of this man, Atholl Howden:
At the end of the day we finally reach our hotel, starving and tired. We just have to file our Soweto story and then we can eat and finally have some laundry done. But is it ever that easy?
I should have known this hotel sucked when I walked in off the pleasantly cool street into the unbearably hot lobby. It’s only after we check in and hit our rooms that we realize there is no room service or laundry, which we desperately need today. This just isn’t going to work. We stay long enough to send our photos and story back to the newspaper and quickly check out.
We find another hotel just down the street and it’s worlds better. At 11:30pm we finally get our first real food of the day.
Links to the rest of this series:
Cape Town
1998 Africa: Soweto
February 20, 1998
I found this story in a local newspaper today: A doctor in Kenya who removed a bean from a six-year-old girl’s ear reinserted it when her father was unable to pay the full $6 fee. The father offered to leave the girl at the clinic while he went to raise the balance of the fee, but, “the doctor refused and shoved the bean back into the girl’s ear.”
Our hotel in Johannesburg is very swank. I took advantage by ordering a huge breakfast from room service. But then Khumbulani showed up and we left for Soweto before my bacon, eggs, freshly squeezed orange juice and cinnamon french toast were delivered.
In Soweto, Khumbulani bought us some breakfast, township-style. It was a greasy scone with a slice of ham in it. Later we bought a cob of corn from a woman roasting (burning) it on at the side of the road. Those two township delicacies were the only things I ate all day.
Khumbulani had served as an LDS branch president in Soweto, so we were in good hands. Having a guide makes all the difference. As he drove I photographed whatever I saw out the window.
At the Protea Glen LDS chapel we met some local church members. And also a pigeon. It was trapped in the building. Khumbulani chased it into a corner, trying to get it to go out a window. It flew quickly across the room, and one of the other men reached up and plucked it out of the air.
We spent the little time we had interviewing Bishop Thomas Mogapi for our story on the LDS Church in Africa.
Khumbulani dropped us back at our hotel and we waited for our ride to the airport. And we waited, and waited. Pretty soon we got very nervous about missing our flight. Finally our driver called the front desk asking for us. He didn’t think he needed to pick us up since we didn’t call him last night, but he says he’ll be right over.
We wait longer and longer, and just as I have the doorman hail us a cab, our driver and his wife pull up. We were now desperately late for our flight. And our driver was so slow.
His wife says things like, “Are you sure this is the way?” And he says things like, “This is a shortcut that Fred taught me.”
His “shortcut” drops us way off in the parking lot, nowhere near where we need to be. Carrying all of our luggage and equipment, we run, exhausted, to our flight.
Links to the rest of this series:
Soweto
1998 Africa: Johannesburg
February 19, 1998
Glen picked us up bright and early. At the airport we were again able to go on the tarmac as LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley departed. When he saw me, cameras in hand, he said, “You’re still taking pictures? Let me tell you something. You’ll be so much happier when all of that film is gone.”
With that, we were off to Johannesburg, crime capitol of the world.
Headlines from today, appearing in “The Johannesburg Citizen” newspaper:
- Traffic cop killed
- Alleged killer on 134 charges (50 murders, 20 rapes, 24 counts of robbery)
- Husband charged (with shooting his wife)
- Contractor slain on NW smallholding
- Charge of murder laughable: Sabadia
- Woman killed for R2 (US 40cents), matches
- Policeman shot while walking
- Cape robbers grab R50,000
- Woman, 79, attacked
- Murder suspect recaptured
- Robbers shoot businessman
- 2 die in Cape gang warfare
- R530,000 cash, jewellery stolen
- Pupil shot in school
- Five murdered, four arrested in KZ/Natal
- Four killed, four hurt in E Rand violence
- Airport guard held for R23 million theft
- Drugs and gold confiscated in Mpumalanga
- Man, 64, wounded in bakkie hijack
- Grieving family attacked again (a family whose son was shot dead in an attempted robbery last week, was last night attacked by two gunmen, and had their car hijacked as they returned home from his funeral.)
- Gunmen hold four
- 3 shot in council eviction fracas
Two elderly LDS missionaries met us at the airport and soon we were in a van with the reporters from our competition (Deseret News and KSL-TV). One of the reporters wanted to see Soweto. Our driver refused, saying that the early afternoon in the townships is the prime time for violent carjacking incidents.
As we drove to the meeting, we talked with our driver and his wife about Johannesburg and the crime. As we would found with most people in South Africa, they talk about horrific crimes and how bad it is, but always end their grim talk with a line like, “But it’s not really that bad,” or “You just have to be careful.”
One man said, “I just tell my daughter not to stop at traffic lights or stop signs. It’s just too dangerous.”
Just this week, an LDS woman was shot and killed as she waited for her daughter’s ballet lesson to end. A man had grabbed her purse from behind, and her instinct to pull it back toward her caused him to shoot. To make the story that much worse, the entire family had just been issued their green cards and were emigrating to the United States to escape the crime that has taken over South Africa.
Blame it on the exhaustion, but I’m getting pretty cranky towards our competition. As we were driving around, one of them kept asking stupid questions that did nothing more than show his ignorance about South Africa. He then asked them about our Zimbabwean friend Reg, who he said he admired but hadn’t been able to spend much time with. Our guides knew Reg and started talking about him. They got stuck trying to remember the name of a South African golfer that one of Reg’s daughters was good friends with.
It was a name I remembered from last night. “Lolly,” I said.
The reporter looked very surprised and asked, “How did you know that?”
It was a fine moment. “Oh, Peggy and I had dinner at Reg’s home last night,” I said. I so enjoyed revealing that.
Now our driver announces, “There’s the outskirts of Soweto” and points off to the side of the freeway. The other reporters have him pull over and they take pictures of Soweto from across the freeway. The shot seems lame, so I sit in the van while they shoot over the top of the van (above). Peggy and I have other plans regarding Soweto.
President Hinckley spoke in a large hall at some kind of fairgrounds tonight.
There was a lot of emotion. As I noticed in Ghana, the visit of the man these people saw as their prophet was an historic occasion. Below: Liesl Armstrong, who sang in the choir.
People traveled hundreds of miles to attend, and parents were telling their children that they would always remember this day.
We want to go into Soweto tomorrow morning, but we need a good guide. During the meeting I was prepared to ask everyone I met about finding someone who could take us to the LDS chapels in Soweto. Amazingly, the very first man I met at the meeting, Khumbulani, said he would be pleased to take us.
On the drive back to our hotel, our guides told us about the last time an LDS prophet had visited Africa, twenty years ago. Back then they had “cultural exhibitions” during public meetings, usually tribal dancers. For that visit, the person responsible for the cultural exhibition had little time to plan and hired a dance troop sight unseen.
When the cultural program began, the male dancers came out and danced in their native garb. A few minutes later the female dancers came out in their native garb and danced in front of the Mormon prophet, with their breasts exposed.
Links to the rest of this series:
Johannesburg
1998 Africa: In the Zanu PF's House
February 18, 1998
LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley spoke to a gathering of church members at the Zuna PF building in Harare tonight. The Zuna PF is the ruling political party, led by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe was attending a meeting nearby and there were camoflauged soldiers with machine guns all over the place.
We were planning to send photos back to the paper from the event, so there were a lot of technical issues to tackle. Inside the hall it was very dark. And they asked that we not use flash. And I couldn’t push my film since it would be developed at a one-hour lab. And I had a two roll limit. And I had to send my film off after the first twenty minutes so the guy delivering the film wouldn’t miss Hinckley’s talk. Other than that, what could go wrong?
Photo-wise, the talk was uneventful. I’ve found myself taking more photos of the crowds and locations than I have of Hinckley and the other dignitaries.
The deadline was far from tight. We were hours ahead of Salt Lake so we went over to see Glen’s house after the talk. A beautiful place behind a locking gate and high wall, wherein prowled two large and vicious guard dogs.
Next we went over to another member’s house and were fed some great pizza and conversation. We were tired, but the people were so warm that we stayed and listened to stories for a long time.
Back at the hotel, I was so laid back about sending my photos. They were scanned in and ready to go, but I still hadn’t connected to send them. Why rush? It wasn’t like I needed a special adapter for the Zimbabwe phone system, like I had in Ghana. Peggy was still writing her story. We could just send everything at once. I made some international calls, talking to Laura and the office. I wasn’t worried about getting online. That was a big mistake.
After a full hour of trying to connect with no luck, I realized the wiring of the Zimbabwe phones was completely different than the U.S. cord even though they both fit in the same jack. My computer could dial out and I would hear the modem on the other end answering. But it became obvious that my modem couldn’t hear anything and so it wasn’t connecting.
I spent the next two hours trying to re-wire the phone cords. I ripped the phone wires right out of the wall and had them splayed all over the place, trying to mix and match the different colors to make it work. I figured there had to be some combination of wires that would fix the connection. It was a long, tedious process and I had no success.
Approaching 2am, I was starting to panic.
As a last ditch measure we decided to put the story and photos on a floppy disk and try to use the hotel’s business center. The first disk we tried was corrupted. Luckily I had a spare floppy. The staff unlocked the business center and we fired up their sole PC. I opened up their e-mail client, and was relieved to see they kept their password plugged in.
Finally, success. But at a cost.
By the time we were done and I was putting my room’s phone wires back together, I was so exhausted. My hands were shaking and my leg had a constant, uncontrollable twitch. And there were only four hours before we had to catch our next flight.
Today should have been so easy.
Links to the rest of this series:
In the Zanu PF’s House
1998 Africa: Zimbabwe
February 18, 1998
The all-night flight from Ghana was a nightmare. The plane was mostly empty, but people kept coming near my seat to smoke. Even worse, they were showing “Home Improvement” on the movie screen. I couldn’t get to sleep in my seat. I tried to stretch out on an empty row, but nothing was working.
But Zimbabwe was very nice. We’re out of the tropics, so the weather is pleasant. It’s a lot less third world than Ghana, which is good and bad. Our driver is a great chap named Glen. He drove us around on the left side of the road and pointed out an elephant, which I couldn’t see.
After going to the hotel to check in and drop off our luggage, Glen took us back to the airport to see LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley fly in. One of Glen’s friends was there to welcome Hinckley. And that friend was friends with the airport’s protocol officer. We got right out on the tarmac to photograph the arrival, which was a key shot in our editor’s mind. A good thing to check off our list. Even better, no other media were there for it.
When Hinckley’s motorcade was ready to go they noticed that someone had parked a car in a no-parking zone blocking the exit. After some honking the guy who put his car there soon appeared. And even though his car was in the way, he was pissed off. Turns out it’s the local constable of police.
They ask him to move his car and he says, “I will leave it here forever if I like!”
Another power-hungry official. It takes a few minutes of polite negotiation before he finally moves his car.
Glen got in line at the rear of the motorcade and now we followed Hinckley around. I don’t think Glen realized that they probably didn’t want us around. He figured we were part of the group. They stopped in at the local mission and Hinckley greeted the missionaries from his car. It was an okay moment, made better by the fact that we were the only ones getting it.
We got back to the hotel, pulling in right behind Hinckley’s car. There were the guys from our competition, Deseret News and KSL-TV, waiting with their cameras. One of them says, “You guys have good timing. Hinckley just got here.” Then he paused, realizing where we’d been, and said, “Unless you were following him.”
Back in my room for a little rest, I read today’s warning to hotel guests about a local outbreak of cholera and ordered room service. When I ordered, I thought the guy said “cream soda” not “green soda.” It tasted worse than it looks.
I got a two hour nap and was trashed when Peggy called to tell me she had finally gotten an interview with Hinckley. I quickly went down and took a few photos. She asked him about illiterate people here in Africa who are joining the Mormon church without ever reading the Book of Mormon, the keystone of the LDS religion.
While the other church officials seemed to squirm a little bit at the question, Hinckley was fast on his feet. “What a tragedy it would be to not be able to read and write,” he said. “And what a tragedy it would be to not be able to read the Salt Lake Tribune.” Everyone started laughing.
Links to the rest of this series:
Zimbabwe
