Last night, I bought another “lens” for my iPod Hipstamatic app. The Hipstamatic, and other apps which create faux-retro photos, have  become a little cliche, but it’s still a fun little toy and shooting with it is a little jolt of creative, fun energy. Here are some snaps from the Bears game:

As photographers, our main tool in the creation of interesting images is light. Sure, a bunch of fancy gear helps, but really, what we do is record how light hits things and try to record things in an interesting and informative. When working with light, you have to consider the qualities of the light you’re working with. Is it soft and comfortable or harsh and hard? Is is flat and frontal or streaming in from an angle, illuminating the depth of the thing or person you’re shooting?

Yesterday, I had two assignments where side light became an essential tool in adding a bit of drama and interest to two potentially static images. In the first, I was shooting a softball pitcher who was injured when a line drive hit her in the face. While a frontal light would have shown her face, and the scar she still has, I decided to light her from both sides, creating a shadow down the center of her face. I then moved one light just slightly forward so the scar above her eyebrow was still visible. While we tend to use soft, frontal light for typical head shots — the one’s that run with a person’s quotes, I wanted something more dynamic to illustrate this story.

My second assignment was to shoot the Selah farmer’s market. It was a great time of day for the shoot — about 6 p.m. — and the sunlight was low and warm. I looked around for a good situation, a place that showed the scene while making use of the beautiful light.

This patch of sunlight hit a booth full of fresh vegetables — a perfect illustration of the farmer’s market — and the side light caught people picking out their food while also casting parts of the photo into shadow. Because the light hits Bonnie Bruenn’s face and the beans she picking, but doesn’t reach the customers behind her, you get a sense of the scene, but your eyes still go straight to her. Directionality is just one of light’s many qualities, but an important one to consider as you decide where to position yourself for a shoot.

For this month’s Fresh column, I grilled stuff. A lot of stuff. So much stuff that I didn’t have space to write about it all in the print column, so I wanted to share the rest of it with you here. While the print column has the recipes for grilled bread and potatoes, here I’ve got the recipes and photos of grilled corn and marinated chicken.

This was my first attempt at grilled corn, and it was actually very easy. I started by soaking the ears of corn, totally submerged, for about 15 minutes in the sink. Then, I peeled back the husks enough to pull off the silk and bundled them back up. The water in the husks will help steam the corn when you throw it on the grill. One recipe I read said to brush the corn with oil when up unwrap it to pull off the silk, but I skipped that and it turned out fine.

After prepping the ears, I just put them on the grill, turning until everything was browned. When I peeled back the husk, the kernels were cooked, but I wanted a little more grill flavor, so I peeled back the husks and let the corn itself touch the grill until I started to get some brown on the kernels. After that, I buttered them and sprinkled them with salt.

For the salt, I used both some large white kosher salt, and also this fancy pants black lava salt from Hawaii I bought on vacation (not to Hawaii, sadly). It was an inexpensive way to make corn into something gourmet without a lot of fuss or prep, and something to think about if you want a little adventure or are trying to impress someone with your grilling prowess.

The chicken was also very easy. I started with about 1/4 C. olive oil and added 1/8 C. lemon juice. Whisk this together and add some salt and fresh herbs (I used rosemary, the plant that is doing the best in my garden). Drop in some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and make sure the marinade is coating everything. Let it all sit for awhile (while you have a beer or prep something else). Then just toss ‘em on the grill.

I also wanted to share a couple of alternative shots from this month’s column, one of the grill bread and one of the potatoes. I think the combo I chose for the print column fit together well and showed both dishes, but I also liked these shots.

Hope you’re having a delicious summer!

Very very cool video a friend shared. If you happen to have some extra gear lying around…

We decided TJ would get a few still and video from above as the paddlers came around the point and I would get some stills and video of them coming straight at the camera from my vantage point near the dock. After TJ got what he needed, he’d drive down to the dock in time to get the boats coming in. The boats arrived and people jumped off quickly — in 15-20 minutes all the action was done. Because there were two of us, we were each able to focus on our task, rather than having to juggle seeing and shooting still and also video, trying to grab everything in the short amount of time we had. As we wrapped up shooting, Molly finished up her interviews.

As a team, we were able to create a complete and interesting story in several mediums even when everything happened relatively quickly. TJ’s stills added to the gallery and print package, and a little bit of my video ended up in his finished version. Two vantage points gave the package more visual variety and the time we had to devote to doing only stills or video added to the depth and quality of both. Plus, I got to spend the afternoon outside with two fun fellow journalists.

Photographer Sara Gettys prepares to move away from her perch overlooking Columbia River paddlers from Canada as they head toward Vantage, Wash., on June 22, 2011.

I loved the contrast of the warm weather activity and attire with the snowy scene. However, it didn’t really show the pass itself, and another photo I had made a few minutes earlier showed a bank of snow collapsed in the road, a visual example of the avalanche dangers that delayed the opening of the pass this year. So, although I loved the picnic photo more, it ran secondary to the photo of the woman holding the slow sign. Editing can be a tricky and sometimes frustrating process, when the most interesting photo and the photo with the most newsy information are not the same image, but that’s just one of the challenges of the job.