MorningWeed

On Friday morning at 8 I had an assignment to shoot some U students working at Bend in the River. I had heard about Bend in the River in my Annalist of Argument class during the fall of 06, so I was actually excited to head down and see the site for myself. When I arrived I saw a group working alongside the trail I thought they were the ones I was there to shoot but I wanted to survey the rest of the site before I started my work. What a nice site it is there were people from the neighborhood out walking dogs and riding bikes and at 8 it felt nice to be out.


After my quick look around the site I went back to the group to start my work. When I approached the group a lady from Bend in the River spoke up first and I told her what I was doing and she filled me in on what the group was working on they were removing Russian Knapweed from the site. Over the 2 acres of the park 1 acre is covered in this Knapweed.The group was working in the shade and with a BRIGHT sunny back ground this was causing problems. As time passed the sun started to cover the work area making my job a bit easier I still put a flash on one of my cameras just to lighten up the faces a bit.Then when I changed my angle the sun was causing sun flares in the lens at first I was disappointed but then I realized how hot it was getting and they told me they were working until noon so it will only get hotter and sunnier. I quickly started to try and get flares in the shots. I had success getting a shot of Denise Brown throwing a weed onto a pile of weed with the sun betting down on her.After nearly two hours I had enough shots that I felt comfortable leaving, declining the groups gracious offer to join them in pulling weeds. After all, I still had a full day in the hot ACless Sports Imaging office in front of me.