A year ago, for Earth Day, I visited Tifft Nature Preserve in Buffalo, NY with my sister.

A year ago, for Earth Day, I visited Tifft Nature Preserve in Buffalo, NY with my sister.

More backlog images forthcoming

Part 2 of my rodeo photos, I particularly loved the late afternoon sun for this event.

Few assignments have had the same level of excitement as my first time covering the rodeo at the county fair. The only rule I was given by the guys running the show: stay inside the fence. At times, it felt like that gave me little to no protection, as mud and rocks flew through the air (and connected!)

Part 2 of my series covering the local Trump rally last summer. Part 1 can be found here: tinyurl.com/trumprally1

As the rally went on, it seemed to become more and more like a caricature of itself. 1,2: There was a man, dressed in his most patriotic socks and one of the many miniature flags that were handed out that day held in place to always be flying in the breeze as he played the trumpet. And boy did he play that trumpet. He played patriotic songs, he played sounds on it as a form of cheering, he saluted while playing (for extra patriot points). 3: Another shot of the group of 3 likely high school aged teens, voicing their opinions on the 2nd Amendment during a discussion on the topics that were found most important. 4: One of the young children brought to the rally, who spent most of the time in this pose or one similar. She spent most of the time looking down at the ground or else looking off in the distance at the surrounding hills. The other young children in attendance were mostly spending their time on electronic devices, not paying any attention to the discussions being had by shouting adults. 5: In juxtaposition to the children in attendance, wearing bright cheery clothing, there were many men in partial - and even full camouflage (though usually not matching in style or color). 6,7: One of the moments that really made me feel like I was in some other world. The organizer of the rally (seen in image 5, sitting between the two men in camo) came up to me while someone else was speaking, and seemed to have decided I was a good member of the media because he kept saying things about how I was there to “give our side some attention” (I don’t know if it was my beard, or the fact that I wasn’t actively berating them as they imagine all liberals must do at all times, but he quickly made the decision that I must be a trump supporter myself) and wanted to let me in on a “secret guest” they had planned. The only thing he would tell me is that the guest was “quite ‘deplorable’ and [I] will not want to miss it”. Keep in mind that this rally happened so shortly after the “deplorable” title was given to Trump supporters that I hadn’t made any connection yet with that term and who the guest could possibly be. So I stood back, and watched, as a woman donned a wizard mask from a halloween costume, put on a sandwich board, and walked down the stairs from the outdoor deck to an audience who immediately stood up and started taking photos and video of the skit that seemed to be improvised on the way there that day. The woman walked around in front of the crowd and stumbled through yelling the kinds of phrases and ill-informed rhetoric that had already become stale well before that day. Muffled by the mask, she yelled about how she planned to give her Syrian friends weaponry to keep the war in the middle east going, how she wanted to take away every gun in the country, how she let those Americans in Benghazi die and lied about it, how she wants to take over, how she will be incompetent, how she deleted e-mails to save herself from prosecution... all met with whooping and hollering (and trumpet sounds, from the guy with the flag socks of course). 8: After the “Hillary” presentation, the microphone was offered up to any person in the audience who would like to come forward and speak their mind about Trump and the upcoming election. I do not know if the mocking caricature fed into any of the points being brought up after, but it sure felt like some twighlight-zone flood gates had been opened at that point. This one specific woman caught my attention more than any other speaker that afternoon, as she went off on a rant about how God Himself had spoken to her and told her that He had send Trump down to save America from its wicked sinful path that Obama was leading it down. That Trump and only Trump was the literal Heavenly Savior for the country. This only branched off to likening him to a bear, that he was strong and brave and would violently attack to save us as his cubs, but that he was also a soft comforting person. I now wish I had recorded video rather than just photos, because as clear as day as I can remember these words shouted angrily and with such conviction from her mouth, I am sure there are people who will not believe these things were actually being said. I did snap-chat a few moments to some close friends and family. That was my experience covering a pro-Trump rally last summer.

I’ve been putting off uploading photos from this assignment I had last year simply because it’s not something I wanted to cover, because it’s not something I wanted to face happening in my community. But it is next in my year-behind backlog, and honestly as everything continues to ramp up I feel like it may even be a little cathartic to get a few of these out there in a format where I can talk about them rather than having to publish them silently. Last summer, my home town held their own Trump rally. It was held out back at a local “entertainment center” (bowling alley, bar, restaurant, mini golf kind of place) with a small turnout, which was actually a little surprising considering the area (people think of New York state as some big blue Liberal with a capital L area, when in reality a great portion of the state is very conservative). 1: This woman saw me walking around with my press pass getting photos, and asked me to get a photo of her hat. 2: One thing that caught my attention early on, both at the rally as well as driving around for the months leading up to Nov 8th, is that I saw just as many (if not more) signs about Hillary (typically the phrase “Hillary for prison”) than pro-Trump.

3: The merchandise at this rally was interesting to say the least. While there was a fair share of bootleg Trump merch, there was also plenty of generic “AMERICA!” hats/shirts to choose from, but one thing that is very telling is how much official NRA merch they had. Now, I am a hunter. I enjoy target and sport shooting as well. But the NRA is not simply a “pro-gun/pro 2nd amendment” group. If you don’t know what they’re all about by now, do yourself a favor and research them a bit. Make sure you check out the commercials they’ve been producing lately. THAT is why I was concerned with the high number of NRA merch they had. 4: More than anything, the organizers of this rally wanted to make sure everyone in attendance connected Trump with America and patriotism. This was one of 2-3 people walking around handing out multiple flags to every single person in attendance. When people cheered, it was with their flags. 5: Along with organizers walking around distributing hundreds of flags, there was a table full of “free merch” which consisted of A: some smaller flags B: Trump bumper stickers (which the leftovers were then handed out to everyone, including one forced upon me once they decided I had to be there covering the event because I was “one of them”) and C: Voting propaganda postcards, including phrases like “The Empire State can help make America great again!”. These postcards were also taped to entrance doors for the venue they were allotted the back lot for, as well as littered around inside for people who were enjoying a family dinner or children bowling a few games with their friends, to find.

6: A group of high school aged teens attended the rally, I believe they mentioned being PA residents. The rally focused a lot on not necessarily getting votes at home (New York) but rather talking to your friends and relatives in PA and OH and talking them into voting for trump. More photos tomorrow, followed by county fair photos.

A quick shot from Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve just outside Buffalo, NY.

As I go through my photos from last year and start reaching the end of the summer and start of the fall season events, we as a country are discussing many of the subjects I had covered with great passion and divide. The next 3 photo groups I will be uploading are somewhat heavy topics. First, at the end of the summer, I covered a rodeo and demolition derby. These events are often seen as very “southern” events, with confederate flags showing up as often as the stars and stripes, and usually not in the form of an actual flag. Second, Outdoor/Sportsman/Gun snows. No need to explain why that’s a touchy subject in the US. Third, I was assigned to cover the local Trump rally. Yep. Thank you everyone for your patience, more photos are coming up.

In the summer, the local ice rink is converted to a roller rink, and houses roller derby matches. Meanwhile, I got to cover a few demolition derby matches at some county fairgrounds.

A few photos from various times around spring to summer time.

After my very first convention in Philly, I went to a second convention the following week in Pittsburgh with my sister, her husband, and some friends. It was a nice 2 weekend in a row break, but the assignments just kept coming after I got back (I got back to town on the 4th of July). Photo 1 is at the Pittsburgh Convention Center rooftop, overlooking the Allegany River, two bird cosplays (masks made by @nambroth ) Photo 2 is at the Pittsburgh National Aviary. Photo 3 is in the very dry riverbed at Zoar Valley in New York. Photos 4 and 5 are from the 4th of July fireworks display in Olean, NY. Photos 6 and 7 are from 4 Mile Brewing in Olean, NY.

As the summer moved along, I found myself at my first ever convention, Too Many Games in Philadelphia. There were a few reasons I attended. For one, I lived in Philly for 5 years, and wanted an excuse to visit a few friends (and get another cheesesteak and Rita’s water ice). Secondly, I have been a gamer since I was little and my parents got an NES for me and my sister to share, and my fiance loves gaming even more than me, especially retro systems and games. Lastly, these photos are one of the big reasons we drove 6 hours to Philly for a weekend. I got the chance to see the band Red Vox perform live, and took some photos for them to use. I am a big fan of lead singer Vinny's “day job” as a video game streamer, and through that became a fan of his music as well. The band had a great gig, and I got to not only enjoy being at a really good rock show, but also shooting with some decent lighting. Though I have a full set of shots from this show on my website, I wanted to throw my favorite ones up here as well.

Mid-summer means festival time, and a whole lot of it. County festivals, town get togethers, there was a different major event just about every weekend. At the bottom, a little something extra fun I got to do between festivals. I got to go on a behind the scenes tour of the local fire hall, including seeing all sorts of technology that they use.

As assignments built up quickly over the summer, I fell behind in keeping this updated. This is the first of a few general updates of what I covered for the paper over the second half of 2016, along with a few more detailed updates about some of the bigger assignments including personal work. I tried out the new (new?) captioning system for the individual images above, rather than listing everything in order in the text at the end. Turns out, that only shows up on desktop tumblr, so I’ll do an abridged version of the captions as well. Photo 1 and 2 are from Allegany State Park during one of many educational workshops they hosted over the summer. Photo 3 is from Niagara Falls State Park in New York. Photos 4 and 5 are from a local annual motorcycle rally.