WINGS AND WHEELS

     This past weekend was a chance for me to do a little bit more creative photography while I was covering the annual Shawano Fly Out, along with a car show.
     Older cars are fun to take photos of because of the curves and shapes to them ... unlike cars these days that don't look "cool" in photographs.
     You can ask my wife, I've been in the mood to shoot some old car photos all summer and unfortunately this has been the first chance I've been able to do that.
     My favorite image is of a cherry red Chevrolet I took a photo of from the back driver side, looking down the side. The other favorite car image of mine was of a hood ornament in the shape of a swan, I've never seen one like that before.
    There were some fun photos that I was able to capture at the fly out as well, including a dad and his daughter holding hands as they checked out the planes and a group of men pushing an airplane out of its parking spot where two of my favorite images.
    We've just entered the month of August and it is usually our most hectic month when it comes to covering events on the weekends — this weekend we have the Bonduel corn roast on Friday night, followed by the Menominee Nation Contest Pow Wow the rest of the weekend.
    Also this month we have the Stockbridge-Munsee Pow Wow, Work day at the county fairgrounds to get ready for the fair at the end of the month, a Pro/Am motorcycle race in town and you can't forget ... the fall sports season kicks off next week!
     Lots of photos coming up this week.

A LITTLE REST

     Here I am in the middle of my vacation week and I'm at home relaxing and going through some recent photos.
     Yep, pretty exciting vacation, eh?
     Just before going on vacation, it was pretty crazy with 100-plus degree days, an accident on the Wolf River claimed a rafter's life, parades, water fights and more.
     In the few days where the temperature soared above 100 with high humidity, we knew we needed some photos showing folks cooling off or beating the heat. I learned that one of the youth soccer teams would be having some fun with water balloons after their final game of the season, so I showed up a few minutes before the end of the game and got some nice images of the kids attacking each other.
     We also got kids swimming in the city's wading pool, jumping through sprinklers, resting in the shade under trees and eating ice cream.
     On the Friday before vacation, I decided to venture off to northern Menominee County to see if anyone was rafting down the wild Wolf River. Luckily for me, there was a group there going down the rapids just as I showed up.
     In the weekend before my vacation kicked off, I was assigned to cover Navarino Days. Navarino is a tiny town just outside of Shawano, but the celebration was pretty big. Starting with a parade that lasted about an hour, followed by water fights between kids, Theda Star helicopter landing, bike raffles, face painting and bands playing.
     It turned out to be a pretty good Saturday afternoon taking photos.
     Unfortunately, the day didn't close on a good note. At about 6 p.m. on Saturday, the county's dive team was called out to the Wolf River -- right where I was Friday getting feature photos -- for a report of a woman who went under and never came back up. The dive team found the young woman the next morning.
     Now, it's time for some rest and relaxation.