Hoop house

This is the last of my Earth Day posts..  I went out to Mt Vernon for a Practical Farming workshop at a CSA farm, where dozens of people were learning how to build a hoop house and helping out a local farmer in the process. (Here's Cindy's story.) The first day I went out, they were mostly finished with the frame, and I wasn't crazy about any photos I was getting, so I left after 30 minutes with a plan to return the next day to catch the plastic cover being put on the frame.  I arrived bright and early (okay, 8 a.m.) the next day, only to find they weren't as far along as I'd hoped -- a minor frustration, but I was able to rearrange my schedule for the day and, while I waited, shot intermittently and had some great conversations with the workshop participants and organizers about everything from sustainable living to the state of the journalism industry. That hour+ of patience payed off when the plastic covers went up -- lots of action, good light, dramatic/graphic images.. worth the wait.

I write all of this illustrate a point: So often I hear, "Oh, you have such a cool job, you get to take pictures for a living," and while, yes, that's true, there's more to it than just showing up and clicking away -- it's working with the reporter and subjects to be in the right place at the right time, knowing when the storytelling moments are going to come, and being ready with the camera when they do.  Hard-hitting journalism? No. But really fun to work on, resulting in images that I dig? Yes.

-liz