S-T police reporter Josh Wolfson and I were chatting in the office yesterday about, you know, work stuff. Always work stuff. Somehow the conversation took a detour (as it often does) into music and 'best of' lists. Oh we've come up with some golden lists, like 'Most Awkward Songs for a First Dance' or 'Top 10 Female Bass Players in Rock'. Good stuff my friends!

Yesterday's list was pretty intriguing, especially considering how much time many of us spend just driving through this vast and empty state.

'Best Albums for a Wyoming Drive'

The music doesn't need to have a Wyoming connection at all, just have a good 'feel' for the landscape.

Of course there are so many variables...like day or night, season, location and direction, and most of all the general mood or intent of the driver. Are you running from 'the man'? Are you 'the man'? Have cheatin' in mind? Been cheated on? That sort of thing.

Here are some albums that have often kept me company during some of those countless hours out on the open Wyoming roads.

The Jayhawks- Tomorrow the Green Grass

Probably one of the most important albums to me. I discovered this alt.country masterpiece during one of the most dark and depressing times of my life. Broken marriage, miles from my young daughters, living in a dank basement apartment in Sheridan, and barely able to get by on my meager wages. I often made the long drive to Denver to see my kids on weekends (usually leaving late Friday night after work) while playing this in the car. Songs about loneliness and loss, about running away, suicide, child abuse, guitars, having 'nothing left to borrow'...all sung with harmonies that sound as timeless as the Wyoming land itself.

Bruce Springsteen- Nebraska

Every Springsteen fan knows the story behind this album. He recorded these demos at his home on what was then a new invention...the 4-track cassette-based home 'studio'. The raw, hissy, and sparse sound give the album eerie atmosphere, and Bruce's haunting songs about desperation and murder make for a good diversion during long drives. It also doesn't hurt to have a shout out to 'the badlands of Wyoming' in the title track.

Emmylou Harris- Wrecking Ball

Produced by Daniel Lanois, the album manages to sound lush and raw all at once. However, it's Emmylou's stunning voice and delivery that makes this a perfect road choice. One of many highlights is the cover of Steve Earl's 'Goodbye', perhaps the most gut-wrenching songs of loss ever put to record. Happy times!

Son Volt- Straightaways

Son Volt's Jay Farrar understands the road, and he effortlessly sprinkles references such as '4-barrel speed' into into breakup songs. Now that's talent. Weepers and rockers keep up the pace of this strong album.

Spoon- Kill The Moonlight

Minimalist indie rock from the Austin-based group mixes well with the high desert.

The National- Boxer

I've only gotten into The National over the past year and now can't stop obsessing. Songs that are haunting, cinematic, sometimes downright creepy, yet always fascinating. I don't want to stalk anybody or promise to 'start a war' if done wrong, but it's certainly fun for the imagination.

Hem- Eveningland

I love Hem, but this might be too, er, 'soft' for some people. How to describe...'chamber pop', 'modern countrypolitan'...I dunno. It's as if the great Chet Atkins came back from the beyond to produce a Cowboy Junkies album. Lush, thick, gorgeous arrangement behind a female singer with a voice like warm milk. Aaaah. Ok, sorry about that last sentence. At any rate, this stunner is perfect for that drive from Cody to Yellowstone. A sound as open and beautiful as the summer Wyoming air.

 Willie Nelson- Red Headed Stranger

No car should be without at least one Willie Nelson album. Willie wrote some of his in the car while leaving Denver. I don't know if he came through Wyoming but I don't care. It's awesome!

Ok people, before you hit the road next time what will you be stocking up in your CD case or iPod?

Happy driving!

Below: Near Pavillion, Wyoming, Jan. 2008. Photo with Holga camera by Dan Cepeda.

Ok, maybe this one isn't all that cool. Or maybe it is, you tell me!

There are two photo-related blogs that I check regularly.

First is the 'A Photo A Day' blog. It's just like it sounds. Simply one photo, every day, by contributors all over the world. Whoever edits this thing is a genius. http://www.aphotoaday.org/

My next favorite the 'Shorpy Photo Archive'. This is an amazing collection of photos dating from the 1850s to the 1950s. Most of the photos are of average and mundane things in everyday life, which is exactly why it's so fascinating to me. It's a clear, honest, and often beautiful look at people from generations ago.http://www.shorpy.com/

Below is an example from the Shorpy blog:

November 1908. Cotton mill workers at Daniel Manufacturing Co. in Lincolnton, North Carolina. Four doffers. Boy on left end (knee pants) said he had worked in the mills for seven years and some nights. At nights they work 12 hours, without any hour off for lunch. Eat when they can. Some of them "eat a-workin'." Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

It's pretty safe to say that so far in all my years as a newspaper photographer, the Matthew Shepard story was probably the biggest. 'Biggest' in terms of national attention at least.

It was also a bit overwhelming for me at the time. There were a lot of competing media here for one thing. Elbowing for position with dozens of TV and newspaper outlets is something Wyoming media usually don't worry about. Secondly, we were down in staff to only one photographer. Me. For a state-wide paper. This meant covering the daily grind stuff like prep and UW sports, filling the city page, shooting for feature pages, along with our extended coverage of this huge story.

I don't remember too many specifics, other than the feeling of pure anger when I saw the anti-gay protesters from Kansas in City Park. The park was literally my backyard. I lived in the Ada Apartments less than a block away, and I spent a lot of time in that park relaxing, letting my young daughters play when they came for visitation, and just walking around on sunny days. On Oct. 16, 1998, that park was filled with media, mourners, curious onlookers, and pure hate.

I never made any direct photos of Rev. Phelps and his lackies. I did however make a conscious decision to only shoot reactions to those signs. Some of those images survive today.

About the 'lost' photos part. Most of the images I took during those days are gone. Erased forever. Earlier that year we invested tens-of-thousands of dollars in what was then cutting edge digital equipment. Storage was almost non-existent, the clunky Type II camera cards were fragile, very expensive, and could hold only a limited amount of photos. Battery life was also a problem, especially in the cold. Back at the office, our only Mac on the photo desk had a whopping 4 gigs of storage, and CD burners were still very expensive and uncommon. For those reasons only 'non essential' photos were saved, which usually meant only the photos that actually ran in the paper.

This story was bigger, of course, so I tried to save extras. Those extras eventually disappeared, except for a handful I put on a Zip (remember those?).

Recently I discovered a CD-R labeled 'Shepard'. It contained dozens of 'raw' photos from our early cameras that I shot way back when. Candlelight vigils, the funeral, and coverage of the McKinney trial the next year. Thankfully the new versions of Photoshop can read those early files.

I put them together in the slideshow that follows. Some were published, many were never seen until now.

Click here for Matthew Shepard slideshow

Also, please have a look at the mini-documentary we produced for this 10th anniversary. It's longer than our usual videos, but hopefully worth the effort.

Click here for Matthew Shepard video

You can also view a higher resolution QuickTime version of the Shepard video by clicking HERE

In this brave new digital world, fans of all things analog are going to be saying goodbye to many familiar products.

Polaroid? So long old friend. Agfa film? We hardly knew ye. Kodak B&W printing paper? Ah yes, we had some good times together.

Lately I've been preparing myself for a really hard one to let go. Kodachrome. The film that made even a sour puss like Paul Simon tap his toes. 'Mama don't take my Kodachrome from me' he optimistically sang so many years ago.

It's not 'mama' taking Kodachrome away, it's the free market. You can hardly blame Kodak for dropping so many classic but low-selling film formulations in recent years, but something as iconic as Kodachrome has gotta be a tough call.

The death call hasn't been announced yet, but the signs sort of remind me of a paranoid communist dictatorship that keeps insisting the dear leader is just fine, even though he hasn't been seen or heard from in months. Oh sure, they say he was just at a high school soccer game over the weekend, but did we actually see him?

Kodachrome, for those who don't remember, was at one time considered the standard of the world. In fact, it was the first practical color film ever.

It's a slide film, of course, but what makes it unique is the processing. The color dies are actually added during processing rather than released from the emulsion like all other films. For decades only Kodak would process the film, which is a very involved and actually toxic endeavor. Only the tightest tolorances would do. In return you got stunning sharpness and saturation, as well as incredible stability and fade-resistance.

Kodak stopped processing the film about a decade ago, but leased out the processing to other qualified labs. Now, amazingly, only one lab in the world processes Kodachrome.

So many color photos, both negative and slide, have faded and shifted over the years. All except for the Kodachromes, which look as stunning today as the day they were shot over half a century ago.

Kodachrome used to come in several sizes and speeds, but now we're down to Kodachrome 64 in 35mm. That's it. The awesome Kodachrome 200 was killed off a few years back after they jacked the price up to nearly $20 a roll. The super sharp Kodachrome 25 also left without much fanfare.

From what I understand, the current batches of Kodachrome 64 are cut from a massive master sheet that is only made once every year. No word yet if Kodak plans to make another batch, but I'm not holding my breath. When the current batches run out, that's that.

So, for old time's sake, let's all go out and get a couple of rolls. Take some pictures of your kids, dog, house...anything you'd like to remember years from now. The Kodachromes last practically forever. The era of Kodachrome, sadly, won't.

88.3 is where my XM Radio used to be tuned in my car up until this mysterious KKRR hit the air. I Googled it and while there's no record of such a station here in Casper, there is a 'KKRR' low-powered TV station registered in Cheyenne. Hmm.

Right now the station is obviously on a recorded loop, rotating through the same couple dozen songs and the same station ID now and then. The music for now is a collection of well worn (if rather bland) oldies and country tunes.

It's not every day a new radio station hits the air. I'm curious to know what's going on.

Life is tough, I am tougher. Brah ha! No worries, I don't actually take myself that seriously. But I did have a busy couple of days this week down in Denver with Star-Tribune reporter Jared Miller. And while part of me wished I could've stayed the rest of the week up to the big speech at Mile High last night, I was just as happy to watch it on television in the comfort of my own home. My press pass barely got me access to the events at the Pepsi Center. No floor access, no delegate seating, no fancy pants editing suites set up in luxury boxes. But I did get to hit the pavement around downtown Denver (after finding a parking spot next to a really sketch flop house hotel) and shoot whatever cought my eye. The energy around town was a great thing to experience. Sad to see it end in a way. Now downtown Denver people can go back to riding their bikes and drinking their lattes without the hassle of thousands of journalists with mini-cams, angry protesters, and performance artists dressed like toilets.

Bad idea on my part wearing big city dress shoes for this assignment. I wanted to fit in so I 'upgraded' from my usual hiking shoes, so my feet quickly became bloody stumps after pounding the pavement while hauling camera and video gear for 2 days. But hey, life's tough...

If you missed it the first time around, click on the link to see the slideshow that I posted on Thursday (it has since cycled out of the trib.com page). I will also leave you with a 'bonus' photo that didn't get into the slideshow. I'm waiting for the Pulitzer now, thank you.

Slideshow:http://trib.com/slideshow/dnc/

'Porn'

No doubt this year's Olympic coverage will be edge-of-the-art in terms of coverage and technology, and in this day and age that means glorious HiDef.

But not us, dear Wyomingites. We get the short straw. Not surprising I guess since we are one of the smallest TV markets in the country, but still disappointing.

Ok, let's clear a few things up. If you have an HD television and subscribe to Bresnan's HD package, you might have noticed our NBC affilliate, KCWY, now available in the HD channels...713 to be specific. You might even notice a somewhat sharper picture, but you'll also notice something weird. Very weird.

What's weird is it is not a true HD picture, but rather an upsampled version of the standard picture. To make matters worse, it's also cropped top and bottom to mostly fill the wide HD screen.

Stay with me here....

So since a standard picture already has to crop the sides of an HD picture when it's downconverted to fit the old near-square TV format, what we are getting on channel 713 is a CROP OF A CROP. Not good.

On the up side, the picture does look sharper than standard channel 13 on Bresnan, which I guess is a result of Bresnan assigning more bandwidth and less compression to their HD channels. But trust me, it is NOT real HD. Not even close.

You also get the full stereo and surround sound that NBC sends rather than the mono signal usually sent by KCWY (why on this green earth they built a studio from the ground up just a few years back with MONO sound is beyond me...but anyway...).

I'm not blaming anyone at KCWY, I'm sure they'd love to be broadcasting in HD as much as I'd love to watch it. Their parent company put the small station on the back burner apparently.

Still, I'm disappointed...and this weird pseudo-HD hybrid on Bresnan certainly won't help the already confusing world of HD television.

I prepared a bunch of photos from the soccer championships. I covered the semi-finals on Friday and the championship games on Saturday, sent back oodles of photos but only a handful made it to the paper. Too much stuff going on, too little newsprint. Sigh.

But you lucky people now have a chance to see photos of some great high school athletes...and I have a chance to make my sunburn and tired feet all worth while!

Click on the window below to advance the frame. Enjoy!

CLICK HERE FOR SLIDESHOW

A while back I posted my memories of Polaroid. If you recall, the company that now owns the Polaroid name and patents will stop making all instant film next year.

Since then I found a couple of interesting links. This first one features several vintage Polaroid ads at YouTube which are a joy to watch. Some funny, some awful, all are dated...and very charming. http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/006464.html

Here's the interesting part. A group of enthusiast have organized a Save Polaroid petition. Bless 'em for trying, but I doubt this will change the sad but natural course of things right now. However, it certainly doesn't hurt to try. Not only can you sign up to petition to save Polaroid film at this link, but you can also read many personal and often touching accounts about what the film means to many people. You also get to see some cool Polaroid art.http://www.savepolaroid.com/

Star-Tribune reporter Christine Robinson and business editor Tom Mast have been working on a series about Casper's housing shortage for weeks, and this week the S-T is rolling out their hard work. The stories and art will also be archived here at trib.com, and there is even a forum where you can leave your thoughts about Casper's housing situation.

As for visuals, head designer Wes Watson took charge and created some fantastic illustrations. That took the pressure off of us for a story that is rather lacking in visual appeal.

However, I did have a chance to produce a couple of videos for the story. So far my favorite is an interview with Geraldine Slensker, who moved into a new neighborhood in 1958 and raised a large family there. She's still there in the modest home she and her late husband paid off. The neighborhood she's in was built as an answer to Casper's lack of affordable housing in the 50s. Will Capser respond this way again? We'll see.

Anyway, I tried to step out of my comfort zone a bit with the editing of this video. Nothing radical or innovative by any means, but it is an evolution in this new video language we're learning. Have a look, leave a comment or advice, and then go read Tom and Christine's brilliant series.

Yes, this is the 'Photo Blog' and today we're not talking about photography. We're talking about music. 

Saturday (April 19) is 'Record Store Day'. Read all about it HERE

The Photo Blog LOVES music! And where would music be without your local indie record store? "Well, it's online dummy", you might say. And I'll say "Duh! But it's also in town!".

I buy music online like everyone else. eMusic is one of my favorite ways to sample and discover new and indie acts. But I also support the indie record store whenever I can. There's just something about browsing a physical collection of music, looking at the cover art and finding stuff you never knew you wanted...or even forgot you wanted in the first place.

You might then say, "Well, I can't remember the last time I even played a CD". And I'll say, "LOSER!". Just kidding. Really, just kidding.

I don't play CDs either, they end up ripped to my computer and on to my iPod...just like most of the world it seems. But think of the CD is an instant back up copy. When your hard drive fails (and IT WILL fail), you'll already have your music safely on a physical HiRez format.

Also, if you really care about sound quality, you have to realize that downloaded compressed MP3 files are inferior to standard CDs. They're good for the most part (eMusic's files sound really good IMHO, but regular iTunes files suck large), but they aren't as good as the CD...and someday you might buy some really nice audio gear and be bummed that your whole collection consists of sucky compressed sound.

Want one more reason to haunt the local record store? Vinyl!

"Vinyl?!", you might say. "You ARE a geek. Yuck!". And I'll say to that, "LOSER!". This time not kidding.

Vinyl is awesome, vinyl is real. It's big, it's tactile, and it sounds great on a good rig. And it's cool again. A surprising amount of current indie and mainstream artists are appearing on vinyl again. New music, not just the old stuff.

So go out and buy some CDs and records people! Here in Casper we have Sonic Rainbow right downtown, which happens to be next to a great locally-owned book store called 'Windy City Books'. Go buy some music, go buy a book and have some coffee...and support your local merchants!

If not, all we'll have left is Super Box-Marts and drive-thrus. Bleh!

I wish I had a floating turntable:

I knew this was coming.

Two months ago the announcement that many of us were dreading was finally delivered. Polaroid, or what's left of the company after nearly dissolving in bankruptcy in 2001, is ending production of all instant film.

Everybody's familiar with the little instant photos sold everywhere for years. What most people who aren't photo geeks don't know is Polaroid professional products are cherished by artists all over the world. A film I fondly remember using back in school was made to be used in a large format camera (in our case, 4 X 5) and produced both a print and a B&W negative of unspeakable tonality and beauty. Yes, it was 'instant', after you manually pulled it out of the special camera back and counted to 'sixty'. Peel apart the paper backing and inside was a print and a very fragile negative that needed an additional chemical bath. Since holding wet negatives in the dusty open air is pretty much a bad thing, this film was best used in the studio. And since I didn't chose a studio career, sadly my experience with that film is just a sweet memory.

It's almost impossible to imagine when watching a Polaroid develop before your eyes was pretty close to mind blowing. I never got tired of it myself. The original Time Zero camera and film system from the early 70s was nothing short of an engineering masterpiece. The first camera was a true SLR (single lens reflex) that folded flat. When the elegant camera was opened, the user would look through the viewfinder, focus via a ring on the front left, and push the shutter on the right. You were treated to a solid clunk, followed by a sturdy 'whirrr' as the camera pushed the film through rollers that squished the developing chemicals over the emulsion. Then you watched as the self contained little photo did its magic. About a minute later you had a photo.

Digital of course has made all of this irrelevant. Never mind that an artist could take that little photo, smush push and squish the soft emulsion around and make an entirely new and unique piece of art. Never mind the communal experience of shooting instant photos at a party....hell of a lot more fun than sitting in front of a computer.

As a final thought, I leave you with a photo of my Cepeda Grandparents, taken around '75 by my grandfather on my mom's side. Grandpa Wyant was something of a camera buff, owning a lovely German 35mm kit along with a rare high end 110 camera with a built in rangefinder (yes, 110, weird). But some of my fondest memories are of him using that awesome Polaroid Time Zero camera of his. I still have and cherish that camera, even though it has been broken for years.

Sadly everyone in this photo is gone. My Grandma Cepeda, and both of my Grandfathers. Gone. Now even the technology that captured this unassuming little snapshot is gone.

Star-Tribune photographer Kerry Huller posted a slideshow of her work from Saturday's state wrestling events. It's hard to find on our site, so I wanted to post it here with hopes that more people will see it.

Great work, Kerry!

BTW, you can order prints from State Wrestling, as well as pretty much everything else the Star-Tribune staff shoots, from MyCapture. Click on the link below:

http://casperstartribune.mycapture.com/mycapture/index.asp?thebrandingid=

Whew. Long day, almost done.

It's really nice to be home, finishing my work as the vinyl spins on my turntable and melodic sounds of the Bill Evans Trio magically drifts from the speakers.

Yeah, you read right. Turntable. Vinyl. I'm just that friggin' cool. Did I mention the Pabst Blue Ribbon next to me? Mr. Cool. Me.

This is a much better place to be than a smelly darkroom at the newspaper office. The miracle of digital photography...gotta love it. Yeah, I remember the days of waiting in the wee hours for film to dry while listening to KTCL (great alternative station from Ft. Collins...this was the early 90s and all) on a broken Panasonic boom-box during my internship at the Greeley Tribune. And get this, after the film dried I had to print the photos! Eeek. Standing under the dim red safe light, dipping my hands in caustic chemicals while waiting for an image to appear. Hoping and praying to every known god in the universe for something that was sharp and relativly well-exposed. Why I wanted the dirty, lonely job of a newspaper photographer in the first place is beyond me.

Well anyway, here's a slideshow of today's pix from state wrestling. Tomorrow's festivities will be covered by my superb colleague Kerry Huller. Tim Kupsick will be doing some video stuff, but none of us really know exactly what that'll be. At any rate, you can always expect the best coverage from the Casper Star-Tribune.

Enjoy. (simply click on the image to advance to the next frame)

Behold the Holga. 

What's a Holga, you ask. Well, it's sort of a goofy-looking, chunky, light-leaking black plastic toy camera with a plastic lens, a few settings for 'focus' (relativly speaking), two settings for 'exposure' (even more relatively speaking), and an artistic heart of pure gold. You load it up with medium format film with a huge image area, point, shoot, and hope for the best. Or hope for something at least.

For years I have been thinking about playing with one of these things but never bothered to take the Holga plunge until our trip to New York last November. While there I visited the fabled camera store B&H, a glorious toy box for grown ups and geeks. Of course my budged was seriously limited. So instead of plunking down hundreds of dollars for a new HiDef camcorder or that awesome retro-looking new digital point and shoot from Canon (the G9, in case anyone needs any ideas for the Photo Blog's birthday on July 1st of every year), I decided to lay down my hard earned $25 for the fabled Holga. Of course I had to find another $25 for the professional medium format film it wants as well.

You don't know what you're going to get when you shoot with the Holga. Not only do you give up digital luxury of instant feedback, you also give up the option of one-hour processing (since medium format requires a special trip to a special professional lab, which thankfully are still plentiful in NYC).

The Holga experience is less about shooting and more about feeling. The results are sometimes awful, some times stunning, sometimes oddly both. It takes me back to when I played with my first camera as a kid, when I carefully chose my subject and waited for what seemed like forever for my photos to come back from the lab.

I'm hoping to shoot a project or two this year with the Holga. I'm also trying to take it with me whenever I have to travel for work. It refreshes my original love of still photography, it somehow makes the familiar mysterious and exciting. And it's really light, because it's a crappy $25 plastic camera. I love it.

New York City, Holga style.

Ok, we can't stream HiDef video at the moment. We can't even stream standard def (SD) video. We stream poo def. It looks like poo on our player, as does the vast majority of streaming video on the web right now. YouTube? More like PooTube in my opinion.

However, most geeks believe it's only a matter of time before true HiDef streaming video will be as common as sending an email or downloading an MP3. Such is the pace of technology.

On our end, we'd like to be ready for whatever the future might bring. That is why when our corporate parent decided to invest in video equipment, we applied for the very best money can buy. We didn't quite get that, but we got what could be considered a close second.

Yesterday our new HiDef Canon video gear arrived, much to the shrieking delight of online news editor Peter Hockaday, me and our new photographer Tim Kupsick. After unpacking and cataloging the cameras, microphones, wide-angle lenses and various support gear, we were itching to shoot some video...in true HiDef no less!

What to do on a slow news day? Well, after a quick brainstorm we decided on running down to the Kelly Walsh High School pool for a swimming feature. Best selling point? That cool window in the basement that allows you to look up into the pool. Yeah. Very cool.

Even though I hogged the camera during the entire shoot (Tim's one and only shot is of the diver at the very end), it was a true collaborative effort. Without Tim's technical knowledge I couldn't have worked out the irritating bugs we discovered when we hooked up the camera to the laptop for editing. We also bounced ideas off of each other during shooting and editing. The result is a tight little 55 second feature that looks and sounds better than I could've imagined.

Except you at home have no idea how good it looks...or sounds. But trust me, that'll change.

One more thing...with added resolution of HiDef it's easier to make 'frame grabs' to publish in the paper. Today's stand alone photo of the swimmers on our Sports front is taken directly from the video.

Here's the frame grab:

And here's the video...in glorious PooDef:

I get some sort of sick pleasure from making lousy photos on my free time. Let me explain. Since I decided to pursue photography as a profession many years back I have tried to make photos that are at the very least technically proficient.

As the years go on, the innocent joys of  venturing out with a plastic 110 Instamatic, pushing a button, hearing a snap, and hoping for a recognizable image have been replaced by the realities of the newspaper job. The job of getting good photos that tell stories on every working day (and sometimes days off). The realities of deadlines and editors and readers. Yeah, I love my job...and it still can be fun. But it's still a job.

Recently I've rediscovered the simple photographic magic that I fell in love with as a kid. Cheap (and/or vintage) cameras, some film, and total mystery as to what might have been captured by those tiny silver crystals.

So imagine my delight when I unwrapped my latest toy, a goofy plastic toy camera named the Lomo Fisheye. My wonderful wife apparently noticed me giggling like a little boy when I first saw the camera in a gift shop during our trip to New York.

What's Lomo? Well, it started in the late 80s with some bored artists discovering a weird, clunky Soviet-era point and shoot camera. What was considered junk by camera snobs became a so-ugly-it's-cute cult hero. Many weird cameras grew out of that early movement, but the spirit of the Lomo game is alive and well. That spirit? Taking gobs of photos of anything and everything and see what happens. LoFi, low tech, good fun.

So here's a helping from the first two rolls I pushed through the Lomo Fisheye. Enjoy!

 (Simply click on the photo below to change the slide)

With Christmas less than a week away I decided it would be fun to sift through a big bag of poorly archived family photos for some holiday memories.

The first ghost from the past (and this one really haunts me, big time) is a 1971 Polaroid taken in my Grandparent's Chihuahua, Mexico home. There's my adorable big sister Corinne on the left, my wonderful Aunt Prescilla with her beaming smile, and on her lap is me...the holiday Oompa-Loompa. I'll never know what possessed my mother to dress me in what appears to be a discarded living room curtain and leggings, but here's the photographic proof that it actually did happen. And what better time than Jesus' birthday to dress an innocent child in curtains and leggings. Years of anger management and therapy were to follow.

Next up is a much happier ghost. Down in that West Texas town of El Paso it was common for people to light Luminarias on Christmas Eve and line them up around the house. It's the only time of the year that we were encouraged to play with fire. Here I am in 1980, thrilled that my Dad is taking a photo of me. Notice how the bags aren't blowing away and the candle actually has a flame...OUTSIDE!  As the howling winds I'm hearing outside the house right now constantly remind me, this is not a suitable tradition for those of us who've relocated to Wyoming.

The last ghost is happier yet. Self-portrait in a vintage ornament. Why the big smile? Must have been the nog.

Happy Christmas and a great New Year from the Photo Blog!

See 'em while they're still hot and tasty...before they get as stale as the sandwiches here on press row at the Events Center.

Cowgirls slide show is up first. I'll post the Cowboys when as soon as they're ready. Enjoy.

   2007 Cowgirls Shootout  

Update:

Ok, all done with the photos. Special thanks to my old friend (and former Star-Tribune photo editor) Robert Hendricks for teaching me this little slideshow embed trick. Pretty slick, don't you think?

 2007 Cowboys Shootout

Lost Dogs.

Cute title for a blog, eh? Not clever at all on my part since I'm stealing it from a Pearl Jam album that was filled with odds and ends and B-sides...songs that basically were never on proper albums and therefore 'lost'. But it works here for two reasons. This is a photo of dogs, obviously, and it was 'lost' on our web site. It ran as a stand alone on last Monday's city page. Unfortunately we don't have photo galleries online, so unless a photo runs with a story you won't see it here. My ego is much too fragile for that sort of thing, so I'm running this photo in the Photo Blog.

This was taken at a fund raiser for Rainbow Rescue, which is a wonderful little organization that saves dogs from being euthanized at the pound. Normally I'd think folks who take their dogs to be photographed with Santa are sort of nutty, but in this case it's all for a great cause.

I also slapped together a video for this assignment, so if you missed it on our front page here it is.

Friday's announcement that country star Brad Paisley is coming back to Casper early next year got me thinking about some of the concerts I've covered while working here at the Star-Tribune.

'What the heck does Brad Paisley have to do with rock?!' you might be screaming to yourself while sitting at your work computer. 'Why aren't you working instead of wasting your time reading this silly blog?' is my response.

My other response is Brad Paisley does rock...in his own way. Ever watch him play that Telecaster of his? He rocks. He's also one of the very few current mainstream radio-friendly Nashville country acts that I really enjoy. Actually most of what modern Nashville is dishing out these days makes me wretch, but I'll leave that for another day.

When Paisley came through Casper last year I chose to cover the show for the paper rather than attend as a fan. 'Great job you have you get to see shows for free!' you might be shouting to yourself...still reading this blog rather than getting your work done.

Well, it is and it isn't great. See, when we get access to shoot a show we are on a serious time crunch. At best we're allowed to shoot during just the first 3 songs, sometimes only 2 songs. Then we gotta blaze back to the office to edit and get the photo filed for the next day's paper. Tight deadline there, since most headliners don't hit the stage until well past 9:00. The Eagles were nice enough to let media in (Bob Dylan never does) but were also snotty enough to place us near the back of the arena on the floor. Thanks guys.

Shooting country and pop acts is a challenge because their songs are usually under 3 minutes long. That's 10 minutes to get your shot. Metal acts tend to have very long songs and jams, so your first 3 songs might end up giving you over 20 minutes! That was the case with Metallica...easily one of the coolest and insane assignments I've ever worked. Do you have any idea what kind of anarchy goes on near the stage at a metal show? That's about as close to a war zone as I ever want to get.

My wife attended Brad's last show here and took her dad since I was working. They had a blast, still talk about it today. Brad is super talented, rocks hard (country style, of course), writes witty and catchy songs, and puts on a killer show. Next time he's here I'm leaving the camera at home and going as a fan. Much more enjoyable that way.

On that note, here are a few of the shows I've covered over the past several years. Enjoy!

Brad Paisley, 2006:

The Eagles, 2004:

Metallica, 2004:

Rascal Flats, early 2003...before they were huge, opening for Toby Keith:

Just like those leftovers in the fridge, if you let photos from a vacation sit around too long they start to get stinky and gross. So here's the final belt-busting helping of happy snaps from the Cepeda's bank-busting trip to the Big Apple...before that weird fuzzy stuff starts growing around the edges.

Disclaimer: I do have a special B&W surprise from NYC planned for a later blog. Think of them more as brownies made from a secret mix we found in a hip shop on Bleecker Street rather than stinky leftovers.

Checkers in Central Park:

Pretzel guy:

The Brooklyn Bridge at night:

 The old Daily News building. "They ain't human they're newspapermen!" (quote from 'His Girl Friday' with Cary Grant. Great movie, you should buy it):

Art and a fire hose in a corner of the historic Hotel Chelsea:

View from the 'Top Of The Rock' observation deck at the GE Building:

Our tour guide and a Rockette during a goofy tour of Radio City Music Hall:

Dogs in Central Park:

 Brownstones in Harlem:

Wha???:

 The Cepedas at Radio City:

Blogging in a corner of the Chelsea Market:

Day 11: On Wednesday we hoofed it from our cool (and oh so spacious in comparison) digs in midtown up to Central Park. We walked into the famed Guggenheim Museum and spent a quick two hours looking at the exhibits. If you only see one museum in NYC it's gotta be this one, both for Frank Lloyd Wright's timeless design and for the permanent collection of modern works. Central Park's colors were in their full fall glory. Hard to believe it's fall anywhere this time of year! For this lovely day I suggest downloading Billy Holiday's version of Autumn In New York.

Day 12: Thanksgiving day. We got up stupid early and walked over to Broadway. Macy's big store was in sight a few blocks away. The abuse we put to our feet by standing for 4 or so hours was worth it to witness the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in person. The crowd's energy kept us alive, as did the free coffee handed out by the fine people from Chock Full O' Nuts (this was an authentic New York company for 75 years, they had coffee and lunch counters all over the city...sadly the original company is gone along with the lunch counters and the name is owned by the same corporation that owns Hills Brothers among other brands). After the parade (and a well-deserved nap!) we had our Thanksgiving feast in the beautiful deco Rainbow Room at 30 Rock. The views were awesome as was the food. So was the friggin' price after it was all said and done...but hey, we'll remember this one forever. Oh, the song of the day fits perfectly here. Download Fairytale of New York by the Irish folk-punk group The Pouges. You've got to hear this masterperpiece to believe it. Anything that starts off with the words "It was Christmas Eve babe, in the drunk tank" has to be good. The song tells the story (in call and response with a male and female singer) about two lovers (possibly Irish immigrants) in New York dreaming about happy Christmases from years past, well after drunkenness and time has destroyed their dreams and relationships. The production is glorious, the writing is superb, and it's not quite as depressing as it looks in print. You can find it on various compilations by The Pogues or on it's original 1987 album If I Should Fall From Grace With God.

Whew! I'm getting pretty wordy here. My apologies...almost done.

Day 13: Flew out on an 8:00 early morning flight. It was all quite easy, not much traffic the morning after Thanksgiving. Sad to leave New York but happy to come home. Mandy was a bit more ready to return to real life than I was, but all is well now that we're back. What's with all this open space and fresh air and peace and quiet around here! My final suggested download is Frank Sinatra's 1947 Columbia Records version of One For My Baby (and One More For the Road). This was playing on my iPod as we flew away from that wonderful big city...it seemed oh so fitting.

Central Park, facing the Upper East Side:

The Guggenheim Museum:

View of the Empire State Building from our table in the Rainbow Room on Thanksgiving...for real!:

Couldn't finish a marathon trip to beautiful New York City without attending the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade now could we.

Instead of looking at the AP's cliched photos of the parade I got to take my very own cliched photos! You get a much better view on TV, especially in HiDef (which you can't get in Wyoming...or did I already mention that...).

I'll write and post more photos later today. In the meantime, we wish you all a very happy and filling Thanksgiving!

dan cepeda

It's the great Dolly Parton!

 It's Pikachu!