We send photos as quickly as possible now, so when you shoot a Jazz game you have to send before the game even starts. For this matchup I looked for an early Kobe photo. Here he is arriving at the arena, yawning as he passes a Jazz logo…

Raja Bell, Kobe Bryant

While that one above is tight, I’ve been trying looser shots for more context. Here’s Earl Watson after hitting a three pointer as the Jazz take a big 4th quarter lead, en route to the win…

Stephanie McAllister on vault as the University of Utah hosts Georgia at the Huntsman Center, college gymnastics Friday, February 3, 2012 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Stephanie McAllister on vault

Kassandra Lopez on bars

Hailee Hansen on bars

Stephanie McAllister on beam

The meet came down to the final event. Here’s Stephanie McAllister after her 9.95 floor routine that helped seal the win:

You could not make this up…

A state legislator stood at a computer, its screen projected on the large screen for all to see. Everyone is watching and four TV cameras are rolling. Demonstrating a new identity theft prevention website, he filled out a web form by typing his home address, e-mail, his birthdate, and his drivers license number & expiration date for all to see. His private information was projected on a screen for everyone to see, including the four TV cameras rolling.

Just moments before, Jennifer Andrushko told us about how her three-year-old son Carter’s identity had been stolen…

There were a lot of sad stories last night at the Day of Remembrance for Downwinders. Above is Ira Hinckley, remembering his father, David Hinckley, who died of cancer after working in Southern Utah for the Atomic Energy Commission. As the assignment read,

Nearly 1,000 nuclear weapons were detonated at the Nevada Test Site during the Cold War, and they sent clouds of radioactive fallout across the United States, exposing a generation of Americans to radiation.

I thought I was shooting RAW with the Fuji X100, but wasn’t. The frame below is a jpeg straight out of the camera with no adjustments:

I shoot everything in Velvia mode. Who would have thought that in 2012 you could shoot Velvia at 3200 ISO instead of 50? The frame is nearly perfect, aside from the easily correctable greenish cast that my Fuji shots seem to have.

I was telling a photographer I had just met how the whole “red carpet” photography thing seemed pretty superficial to me. I just don’t get it. While the people are famous, the photographs are generally awful. I said something about it being a shame that you could make more money doing celebrities on the red carpet than you could doing real work that meant something, like reportage or concerned photojournalism.

By his reaction I knew I had said something wrong and then he told me he did red carpet celebrity photography for a living.

Ouch. Sorry.

My second premiere of the day started out with about twenty of us journalists being kept in a pen, outside in the cold, for about twenty minutes. No lie. Then we were taken into the tent where the press line would be and we waited.

There were six still photographers and about ten video crews for the red carpet. A snow storm was snarling traffic all through Park City, delaying the stars of the film. Cast member Eve Hewson came through the line. Then the director, Paolo Sorrentino, came out for a quick photo. Here’s an outtake:

I know, we’ve been rocking these Mark II’s for so long that they’re about to become cool again in a retro photography way. But I’m sure Adobe is right now developing software to sharpen lost frames like that one. In a few years I’ll be able to post a software fixed, in-focus version of that shot. Check back here in 2015 to see it.

After that we waited. It was only after two hours of waiting that a publicist came in and announced that Sean Penn would make a quick appearance for still photos, but there would be no video or interviews. Glad I wasn’t them.

Before Penn arrived a publicist came out and said since there were only six photographers there’d be no need or us to yell out his name and she said, “Everything will be beautiful!”

He comes out, stands in front of the red background for a full 21 seconds, taking turns looking at each of our cameras. Our six flashes fired about a billion times.

I got 34 frames off. Once again my favorite shot is one where another photographer’s blasting flash blasted my shot. And for the record, I threw about a hundred Lightroom pre-sets onto it before it looked like this:

21 seconds and he walked off.

I might be reflecting my feelings about the situation when I say that Sean Penn appeared amused at how ridiculous the situation was— him walking out for 21 seconds and all of us taking the same bad photograph with direct flash of him in front of a corporate banner.

As I walked out of the place I saw Penn standing off in the dark and thought about making a joke with him about how silly all of this celebrity photography stuff is. But I didn’t. Who am I kidding? I had no right to joke. I was playing the game just like the rest of them.

Coco

The process:

Drive through a snowstorm over a mountain pass, passing at least one car that’s swerved off the road into a snowbank.

Go to the secret parking spot that a colleague tipped you off to, only to find signs that say, “No Parking Today: FUNERAL.”

Find a parking spot near theater, carry equipment three blocks through a blizzard.

Find the Press entrance, wait twenty minutes for someone to check you in.

Get checked in and taken to the Press tent, then wait at least 45 minutes.

Photograph Ice-T.

Photograph Coco.

Photograph Little Ice.

Photograph a couple of white guys who did something with the film.

Photograph Coco’s stiletto boots.

Walk through blizzard back to car.

Edit in car cold car.

Find favorite shot made better by a wire service photographer’s strobe blasting it apart, but hurt by corporate logos.

Blog it.

And then, go back out into the snow to cover the next premiere…