Newspaper Photos from April

Amber Snider, right, is performing at the Mother's Day Artisan Festival on the Suisun City waterfront and has invited her parents Steve and Diana Wallis, left, of the duet musical group Pine Dogz to play the event along with her.

Solano County Sheriff Deputy Randy Pratt prepares to reward Hondo, his K-9 unit dog, with a tennis ball after he successfully located a bomb in the fuselage of a plane during a training excercise at the Nut Tree Airport in Vacaville Wednesday afternoon.

Eric Shih, of Lazy Q Fish Ranch in Dixon dumps a mix of around 500 bass and catfish into the civic center pond behind the Fairfield City Hall in anticipation for this Saturday's Kid's Fishing Derby.

Sheila Lewis helps lay out table cloths while work crews setup tables and chairs during the preparation for the Wine and Food Jubilee Thursday afternoon at the Nut Tree in Vacaville.

Vanden High School number one Boys tennis player Greg Deleon returns a serve from Rodriguez High School's Eduardo Lupi during their Monday afternoon match at Rodriguez High School.

Medeival Fantasy Festival volunteer Deborah Furlow makes adjustments to some of the 39 costumed plush rats from local businesses that are being displayed this week in the Ray's Cycles storefront in downtown Vacaville.

Volunteer Matthew Pryor was recently named Vacaville Police Department volunteer of the year for his efforts to help combat graffiti throughout Vacaville. "I do the job because I like to learn more about this community and try to make it a better place by helping to clean it up," said Pryor.

Solano Land Trust volunteer outreach coordinator Natalie DuMont, left, and Bob Colby, center, get directions for plant placement from Sue Wickham, right, during their restoration science Friday event at Lynch Canyon open space.

Armijo High School baserunner Robin Roxas gets tagged out while trying to steal home plate by Vintage High School pitcher Robby Rivera during their Friday afternoon game at Laurel Creek Park.

Mikayla Wilson, 3, left, helps her mom Rebecca bottle feed four Cat Tales foster kittens in their Suisun City home Friday afternoon. These next four cat images are from a brief story I did on a local cat rescue organization has helped over 600 cats find new homes.

Tanisha Champion cuddles with Phoenix, a foster cat with feline AIDS and feline leukemia as Josiah Green, 8, of Oakland looks on Tursday morning in her Fairfield home.

Cat Tales co-founder Kris Cushing, left, holds Meeka, 1, a silver and black tabby cat at the Petco in Fairfield. Over the past two years, the local cat rescue organization has helped over 600 cats find new homes.

Rebecca Wilson, of Suisun City, bottle feeds a young foster kitten Friday afternoon in her home. She is helping to raise four foster kittens for the Cat Tales adoption program.

Howdy guys. Well, it was a pretty slow April around the newspaper. But I wanted to share some of my favorite shots from this past month. Thanks for looking. Cheers to warm weather. -M

Marching into Spring

March was been a busy month for me. In addition to working at my staff position at the Daily Republic newspaper in Fairfield, I have also been developing my wedding photography business on the side. Between meeting other wedding vendors in the area, getting a new wedding photography logo and building up a new wedding website, I have had little time for anything else. It is a strange notion to me that I have to now plan out my weekends with friends often three weeks in advance. I guess this is what it's like being an adult.

Well despite the workload, I've been enjoying myself at my staffer position. March lent itself to a lot of great photo opportunities. The weather here in California has been gorgeous and with it, people are coming out of their winter shells and are being active again. I'm looking forward to what April will bring. Here are some of my favorite images I made this past month. Thanks for looking. -M

March Musician Madness

Madness not in the basketball sense but in how busy I was for the entirety of this past March. It seemed that this past month was a big one for the community arts around Solano County. I had a great time photographing the Vacaville Singer/Songwriter competition finals in downtown Vacaville. I've been working in the area for three years now and Solano County constantly is surprising me with it's growing culture of the arts. The lighting was awesome and it was really cool to see such talented performers for a packed audience. I hope it becomes a regular event. After it was finished, I was assigned to photograph Rio Vista musician Jason Cale who won the 18 and older category at the competition. Cale is a member of the Travis Air Force Base rock band Mobility and has traveled extensively performing his music. This guy has some talent. Check out his music here. Congrats to all of the winners and finalists.

San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographer 2011 Awards Banquet

Here are the photos I was given awards for.
First Place Spot News

Award of Excellence for General News

Third Place for Best Mini-Doc Multimedia Package

It is a very humbling experience for me when my photography is recognized by my photographic peers. On Sunday evening at Scott's restaurant in Oakland, California, a couple of images I made last year at my position as a staff photojournalist at the Daily Republic newspaper in Fairfield, California were honored at this year's San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographer's Association awards banquet. I won first place in the Spot News category for an image I made from a school shooting, third place for Best Mini-Doc Multimedia Package from a multimedia story I did on a local skateboard maker (I am particularly excited about this one) and I won an award of excellence in General News category from a candlelight vigil earlier last year. This was a pretty cool honor. There is so much photojournalistic talent in the Bay Area from Pulitzer Prize winners to National Photographers of the Year. It was great to have my photography honored in a room filled with such exceptional storytellers. Congrats to all of the winners, congrats and thank you to my colleague Robinson Kuntz and a big thank you to my photo editor Brad Zweerink for all of the support and constructive criticism you've given to help further my photographic career. In all, the Daily Republic photo staff took home five awards. It was a great night.

Getting Back into my Groove

Patricia Armet, right, kisses her 9-month-old Blue Nose American Pit Bull Terrier named Precious as she hangs out under a North Texas Street bus stop Monday afternoon. Pictured in the background is Michael Greene, left, and Tom Love.
Vacaville resident and country singer Buck Ford, 21, practices with his band at his Vacaville home Tuesday evening.
Sam and Lydia Katchmar have been married for 21 years and they said the success of their marriage is based off of their shared love of polka dancing.
Rowland and Wanda Spaythe ran away to get married at the age of 16 together and have spent their lives seeking adventure together. For ten years they lived and traveled on a boat sailing around the world.
Employee volunteers from the North Bay Medical Center socialize between video takes of their promotional rap video Friday afternoon in Fairfield. The event was part of the U.S. Department of Health Social Services promotional video aimed at informing women about heart attacks.
Umbrellas were out in full force outside the Solano County Government Center in downtown Fairfield Thursday afternoon as rain continued to pour down most of the day.
Rick Watson practices navigating with his white cane through the upper level of the Westfield Mall Friday morning in Fairfield. Watson has a degenerative eye disease that is quickly causing him to go blind.
The student section at Armijo High School's Girls Basketball game cheer on their team during their Tuesday night during their Sac-Joaquin Section playoff game against Merced High School in Fairfield.
Armijo High School players Erica Bossett, left, and Chloe Dawkins, right, battle for ball pocession against Merced High School's Brittany Scott during their Sac-Joaquin Section playoff game in Fairfield Tuesday evening.
Little leaguers Dylan Martin, 6, Joseph Hernandez, 7, Ernest Turner, 6, and Armando Hernandez, 5, left to right, learn how to field a ground ball during their Fairfield Pacific Little League Single A Giants team practice at Woodcreek Park in Fairfield Wednesday afternoon.

I feel like I am starting to get back into my photo groove at my staff job here at the Daily Republic newspaper. My back has been feeling a lot better and with it I have been going out a lot more on my own to feature hunt and explore the area. I've been pretty busy both at work and at home. Wedding season is on the horizon and I have been working with wedding planners and talking to brides no stop. Overall, February has been a lot of fun. If any of you haven't had a chance to check out my wedding work, I encourage you to do so. Especially if you know of anybody needing a wedding photographer. I travel. Thanks for looking. All the best, -M

Taming a Wild Turkey

This is Tom attacking the plastic covered box with Center manager Margie Furco watching.




Yesterday my assignment was to photograph a wild turkey that was being rehabilitated by our local Suisun Wildlife Center. He had had his wings clipped by someone hoping to have him for a Thanksgiving day dinner. Tom the Turkey, as he is called around the center, somehow escaped and is now healing at the center until he can be released. My job was to make a cool photo of him. Sounds easy enough, right? Not the case. He was constantly running away from me before I could get close. I was set on getting a close up photo of him. The question was how could I achieve this? My answer was to make a camera trap, a remote camera setup that I could fire the camera shutter from a far off distance much like what the guys at National Geographic do to get their photos of evasive snow leopards. Center manager Margie Furco said that Tom hated the color blue and would attack it. She had made a makeshift toy for him to attack/play with from knotting up a blue piece of plastic and shaking it to make noise. That would be how I could bait him into my trap. So all I had to do was get him to do it in front of my camera.

I spent the next hour and a half encouraging a wild turkey to chase me while shaking a blue plastic bag to get his attention. Getting him to chase me took some time but soon I was running all over the yard being quickly pursued by this large squawking bird. I'm sure the ladies at the wildlife center were watching me through the windows laughing their heads off watching being chased. When I would run past my camera trap I threw the plastic in front of my camera. Tom would stop short. I must have tried this at least a dozen times. The third picture in was the closest I could get him to my camera trap. Fail. In the end, Tom won and walked off with his plastic. I have a new found respect for the Nat Geo photographers. Sometimes our best efforts don't work out like we planned. Oh well. Taming the wild is not as easy as it looks. -M