"Welcome to Bermuda... (again)" Oct. 2010

"10•10•10" @ 10:10AM...
Deputy church warden Winifred Jones prepares the altar for service at St. Peter's Church in St. George, Bermuda on Sunday, October 10, 2010.

Sunset over Bailey's Bay, Bermuda on Saturday, October 9, 2010.

Church Bay Beach, Bermuda on Friday, October 8, 2010.

Dinghies at Sandy's Boat Club near Somerset Village, Bermuda on Friday, October 8, 2010.

A boat owner paddles his dinghy out to his powerboat at Sandy's Boat Club near Somerset Village, Bermuda on Friday, October 8, 2010.

(2) Race teams compete in the Argo Group Gold Cup at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in Hamilton, Bermuda on Thursday, October 7, 2010.

Jobson's Cove, Bermuda on Tuesday, October 5, 2010.
Horseshoe Bay Beach, Bermuda on Tuesday, October 5, 2010.
Warwick Long Bay, Bermuda on Tuesday, October 5, 2010.

Day #1 in Bermuda for Cup Match Week. July 26 - 31, 2011.

ST. GEORGE'S, BERMUDA. St. George's Cricket Club bowler Stefan Kelly (above) views the pitch during practice at the St. George's Cricket Club in St. George's, Bermuda on Tuesday, July 26, 2011. The annual two - day Cup Match Cricket Tournament between St. George's and Somerset begins Thursday. © www.chetgordon.com/blog

I have been waiting nearly 10 years to see, experience and cover Cup Match here in Bermuda. The week's festivities and celebratory atmosphere were all I ever heard about from Bermudians during my numerous trips here to the island. It is already shaping up to be a wonderful week for making images. Stay tuned... ~cg

St. George's will host Somerset in the annual two-day cricket tournament known as Cup Match beginning Thursday. Cup Match was introduced after the abolition of slavery in Bermuda. Men from Somerset and St. George’s met in a friendly rivalry and held celebrations of Emancipation by holding annual picnics to mark the anniversary of the abolition of slavery. One of the highlights from the picnics was a friendly cricket match played between lodges from the east and west ends of the island. In 1901, during a cricket match between two major Friendly Societies, an agreement was made to play for an annual trophy. Members of the Friendly Societies and Lodges raised funds and in 1902 a silver cup that was played for annually was introduced.

"What is it about Bermuda...?" 31•July•11

*(Relaxing is hard work here in paradise...) I'll be posting a slideshow from the week once a deep re-edit is complete. "Cheers!" ~cg.

ST. GEORGE'S, BERMUDA. Tobacco Bay in St. George's Parish, Bermuda on Saturday, July 30, 2011. © Chet Gordon/THE IMAGE WORKS

#48.

A few favs through the years now that '#48' is here. "It's been a heckuva ride so far..."

*(from top - in no particular chronological order): #1. w/ a Masai grandmother. Kenya Nov. 2001. #2. Arriving in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Nov. 2005. #3. Last stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Vladivostok, Russian Federation. June 2005. #4. w/ a bedouin family. Petra, Jordan. Sept. 2006. #5. Snorkeling in Bermuda. Oct. 2003. #6. San Diego, CA. July 2004. #7. San Francisco, CA. Aug. 2004. #8. Mae Moi City, Thailand. Nov. 2007. #9. Operating Theatre - Empangani, South Africa. Sept. 2006. #10. Onboard a South African Air-Mercey Rescue helicopter. Empangani, South Africa. Sept. 2006. #11. Army- Navy Football. Baltimore, MD. Dec. 2007. #12. HS Skiing Championships. Belleayre Mountain, NY. Feb. 2008. #13. Splashlight Studios, NYC. Feb. 2008. #14. w/ NBA player Elton Brand of the Chicago Bulls. Feb. 2001. #15. onboard a cargo aircraft. El Salvador. Jan. 2001. #16. haircut. Mobasa, Kenya. April 2006. #17. Rice field, Mae Sot, Thailand. Nov. 2007.

"Go early. Stay Late. Get the uniform dirty..." -cg.

Bermuda Cup Match. Day #1 28•July•11

My take so far from the first day of Cup Match yesterday here in Bermuda. "Cheers...!" ~cg.

REWIND - Images from the Archive.

BERMUDA. Street scene in St. George, Bermuda on Sunday, October 10, 2010. © Chet Gordon/THE IMAGE WORKS

REWIND - Images from the Archive.
A showcase for some of my favorite images here on the blog that aren't particularly in the working portfolio. Look for this occasional feature where I'll highlight a single image that's meant a lot throughout my career. Enjoy. ~cg.

"What the (photo-editor's) Voice Inside My Head is Whispering..." 6•Sept.09

When I have time off from work, I really enjoy entertaining all the nuances of my stock & personal editorial work. Moving and archiving personal image files, troubleshooting external hard drives, editing and re-captioning older material for delivery to my agency, THE IMAGE WORKS and their newly launched division PRESSTOCK, representing the work of contributing newspapers and newspaper photographers. I cherish the good morning light and actually get out early some days to just make pictures for pictures sake. Well, not exactly. There's much more to it than that. Just about all of my photographs are made with the intention of potential editorial usage or resale at some point. My agency has been good to me the last few years and I'm working hard to continue contributing images whenever I can. That means even the simplest landscapes and seascapes made while on holiday in Bermuda to the few abandoned buildings and even an empty car dealership photographed this morning all have possible resale value.
Keeping in mind the current economic climate and state of affairs in this country, imagery like this can appear in any number of publications and uses. One can easily see images like these illustrating a business / economy / real estate story in publications like BusinessWeek & Fortune magazines, as well as the business section of the leading newspapers, trade publications and web editions. On these simple self-assigned "mini-projects", I try to challenge myself and think like a photo-editor down the road who might actually have a need for images like these. The files must obviously be publication quality, exposed properly, captioned correctly and the like. Seeking out these type of simple photographs becomes the self-assignment in itself. Whether I shoot for an hour or half a day, and spend another hour or two editing the take - it's usually rewarding to have accomplished even this simplest of assignments.


"When the light is good - I want to be out there making pictures, no matter who they're for..." -cg.

The 2011 POY - Pictures of the Year. *(full version).

"The 50..." OK, so another year in the business is in the books. Fondly looking back at 2011, it wasn't such a bad year for making images, both for work and on my own self-generated & self-financed assignments. *(see: working vacations...) Bermuda. Kenya. My fifth Army graduation where the low-angle remote camera finally delivered the image I'd been chasing in my head for five years and three previous attempts, way too many games and / or general news events with multiple cameras & a super telephoto on a stick, as well as hauling around more full strobe sets to light HS & college gyms and medium sized arenas than I care to remember, installing a remote camera in the ceiling of an arena in White Plains in less than 15 minutes for a HS playoff basketball game, numerous video clips with the Canon 5D-MKII (which you won't see here yet, unfortunately), a few decent feature images and portraits. And the news; major snowstorm and Hurricane Irene followup coverage, the new governor doing his thing at Marist College, an FBI led pre-dawn raid (with temperatures in single digits) of suspected gang-bangers wanted for unsolved murders, a 23-year old shooter and his partner sentenced to life in prison w/o parole and the funeral for a Poughkeepsie police officer who was gunned down on the job. Here's how the best of my take on 2011 kind of shakes out. Again thanks for looking. "See you in the paper..." ~cg.

BDA. "Like Nowhere else on the Planet..." June 2009.

Finally getting around to posting a brief slideshow of my week in Bermuda (BDA) last week. It is the only destination I know of so close to home where I can still get lost visually, and almost spiritually if you will. It's always a well-deserved treat to return to the island. It is just so relaxing to re-explore some of the most beautiful beaches I know of anywhere, zip around the island on a scooter, watch a little cricket, of course have my fill of "Dark & Stormies™..."

Cheers, -cg.

*(Click the arrow at the bottom left of the player to start the slideshow, or click the image / or the arrows at lower right to scroll through the show manually. Enable full screen viewing by clicking the 4-way arrow icon above the credits button at lower right of the player. There is no audio with this brief slideshow.)

"Recapping My 2009..."

*"Oh No, Not another look at a photographer's "Best of 2009" post out here in cyberspace...!"

Yea, I figured it was time to get around to sifting through my favorite 10, 20, uh, probably more like 40+ favorite images from the past year. Hey, It's my blog, right...? After a bit of teeth-clenching, sleepless nights, and laying on the delete key to whittle down my favorite 6 for the paper and then 10 to post over at SportsShooter, here are the images that truly meant the most to me in 2009. In all seriousness it was an extremely rewarding year for making photographs - and that's what all this is about in the first place, isn't it...? There were days where I couldn't wait to get out of bed - way before sunrise - to head out on the job. Shoot, there were a few long haul nights again last year where I didn't get to sleep at all (see: The Newburgh Bombers' Bust - Here.) or napped in the car after logging more than 1,000 miles for three days of coverage up in Glens Falls, NY for the HS State Basketball Championship Tournament games, including installing arena strobes & remote cameras alone. Worked assignments that routinely called for two, and sometimes three cameras (see: remotes for HS basketball and feverishly installed a remote for an unforgettable hot air balloon ride Here.) The highlight of the year for equipment overkill on one assignment was covering my third West Point Graduation & Commissioning ceremony in Michie Stadium, where I arrive with five cameras, and enough supporting gear to open a small curbside camera shop. Slipped away from it all in June to get the passport stamped again for a week in Bermuda. There were stories that touched me & grabbed my heart, and countless people who went out of their way to offer a kind word, share much needed laughs, hold a ladder, loan me gear, or put something in writing about the work. Continued the most basic mindset to be in the right place at the right time when I could - and probably more importantly, worked my butt off to be in that place to not only witness firsthand but to capture those oh so special fleeting moments that we as photographers live for. Realized again that it's not all luck at this level, and just as Sports Illustrated photographer Bill Frakes told me in a lecture years ago when I was still pretty green in this business, "Luck is where opportunity meets preparation..." I never forgot that.

I trust that some of the following images in the click-thru slideshow will leave an impression on you as well. *(Click the image or the arrows at the bottom left of the player to manually scroll through the slideshow. Enable full screen viewing by clicking the 4-way arrow icon above the captions button at lower right of the player. You can stop the small continuous slideshow in the right column by clicking the pause II button under that player.)

Here's the video again that the paper put together where sports writer Kevin Gleason and I talk about HS player Will Bouton's game winning 3-point shot with two seconds remaining, to knock off arch rival Mt. Vernon in the state playoff quarterfinals. (first two pictures in the above slideshow) What made these two sports pictures particularly sweet was that NFA went on to win the State Championship up in Glens Falls, NY. This game exemplified their full roster of talent, unselfishness as a team, and a picture I surely needed to have. Talk about being in "the Zone..."



I am already looking forward to the challenges of the new year 2010... Happy New Year & Don't touch that dial! -cg.

"Happy New Year & (finally) my POY..."

Glenda Hyde of Modesto, CA holds a graduation photograph of her son, then a 2nd. Lt. Daniel Hyde after his graduation from West Point in 2007. The Hyde family of Modesto, CA were at West Point on Sunday, August 8, 2010 for the Hyde Challenge presentations to the Class of 2014, which was renamed in honor of their son, 1st. Lt. Daniel Hyde, a 2007 West Point graduate who was killed in Iraq in March of 2009. CHET GORDON/Times Herald-Record

The POY. (Pictures of the Year.) One of those abbreviations that a lot of photographers in the business truly dread. The mere mention of organizing one's images from the year just ended for the major contest entries in the business conjures up memories of sleepless nights, headaches, teeth gnashing, bloodshot eyes, rewriting of captions, major caffeine fixes, and way too much time at the computer. (Not to mention what it was like back when entering the year-end contests required either copy slides, prints and sometimes even the actual newspaper clippings of your best work during the previous year...) As I prepare my year-end retrospectives once again for publication, contest entries, other blogs & websites in the trade, as well as a new slide show folder as my screen saver here on the Mac, I began to realize that 2010 was a good year for making pictures.

Actually, it was all a VERY good year: Two presidents. A return trip to Haiti with less than 24 hour's notice from a longtime NGO client, to document the work of their volunteer trauma surgeons treating victims of the January earthquake. Graduations - both big and small; including my fourth ceremony at the United States Military Academy at West Point with President Obama delivering the commencement address. Another weekend trip upstate to Glens Falls, NY following HS State Champion NFA (Newburgh Free Academy) on their quest to repeat as the top HS basketball team in the state in their division. A return personal holiday to Bermuda. A two-page piece in Popular Photography magazine. Extensive coverage again of Army Football, including the first college game played at the New Meadowlands Stadium against Rutgers in East Rutherford, NJ and my fourth Army - Navy game down in Philadelphia. The continued use of multiple & remote cameras, as well as strobing arenas and gyms for sports - and working hard to continually refine those techniques - including the installation of remote cameras firing in sync with the arena strobes for basketball, wrestling and swimming. There were some difficult moments to document as well: The ongoing coverage and funeral of little Marc Bookal; the four-year old Newburgh boy who'd been missing since December 2009 - whose death was finally ruled a homicide. Coverage of more shootings, crime scenes, a major gang raid by the FBI at sunrise, more arrests, perp walks and homicides right here in my small city than I care to think about...

*But most of all and without question, the strongest photograph for me during 2010 came in meeting the parents of U.S. Army Lt. Daniel Hyde of Modesto, CA last summer (top image). I'd photographed then 2nd. Lt. Hyde at his graduation back in 2007 (at right), and had a nice frame of him in prayer immediately after the traditional "hat toss." It wasn't even an image I'd thought about, as the "hat toss" is the real money shot that sort of seals the day's graduation coverage for those of us covering the day. Any additional images are considered "B-roll" or in my own terms, "gravy." Well, long story short; Lt. Hyde's family had seen the image of their son on our website back then, contacted me, and we corresponded a few times via email. It wasn't until I learned that he'd been killed in Iraq two years later, that I felt an attachment to this Army family on the West Coast. Fast forward to summer training this past year for cadets at West Point where I learned that Lt. Hyde's parents, Glenda and Brian and sister Andrea would be at West Point in early August for the Hyde Challenge presentations to the Class of 2014. The Hyde Challenge ends summer training for the cadets and was renamed in honor of their son. Needless to say I'd made arrangements to work that Sunday, and to personally offer my condolences to them.

This is the a prime example of what it means to me to be a photojournalist - connecting briefly with people you don't know, and know nothing about, but by being courteous, respectful, professional and above all, a gentleman - you sometimes get to make a difference in someone's life with your work. You can view an earlier post on that day's coverage at West Point by clicking HERE. I will never forget the Hyde family of Modesto, California. Semper fi. ~cg.

My 2010 POY:

*(Use the arrow at the bottom left of the player or click the image to start the slideshow. Enable full screen viewing by clicking the 4-way arrow icon above the credits button at lower right of the player. This is best for viewing the images with captions. Pause the portfolio slideshow in the right column by clicking the "II" pause button.)