I have been working way to much on the east coast of the United States… So I have decided to work a little bit on the western side of the country. I will be in the Tucson, Arizona area for the next six days. I will be working on a doc at the Hoover Dam for some of that time, not sure how much …yet.

So what have I been doing these past weeks? I have been busy. I had another photo from the Dropkick Murphy concert that I DP’ed emailed to me. I am not sure why I was not smiling… maybe it was the fact that a fire extinguisher had gone off in the cramped space a few hours before and I was still recovering from inhaling yellow chemical dust. At least the rest of the crew was in good spirits. Special thanks to Mike “Pizza” Porta for this photograph.

I also have been covering tons of Boston Bruins hockey. This is a shot of me on the Bruins bench just before the players took the ice. Every game I must wait on the bench to shoot an interview with our sideline reporter, Naoko Funayama and a player that will air in the pre-game show. Lots of hockey over the last few days, and the Bruins are now in the playoffs. Things will get even more busy this spring in Boston sports television. I thank Bruins team photographer, Steve Babineau, for this excellent photo shot with a Nikon 16mm f2.8 mounted to a Nikon D3. The flash bulbs in the upper catwalk can be seen blasting the entire TD Bank North Garden with light. Steve uses a wireless Pocket Wizard to trigger the strobes.

I will be on an airplane tomorrow afternoon. I am bringing all my camera equipment and this time, I have a hard case for my Vinten Vision 3 tripod. It is a hard case that I found (it was used for some unknown military purpose) on eBay. I modified it to perfectly hold the sticks and head. This hard case offers a lot more protection than the soft Vinten travel case that I used before (and found $400 worth of damage…see my past blog entry). See that Specialized Enduro Comp mountain bike in the background? I really want to ride it. When will I get some time off?

I plan on shooting a few short films while in Arizona. One will be about a cactus in the desert. Why cactus? Well, we do not have them in New England! I also want to shoot at the airplane grave yard in Tucson. I will visit my sister and her husband while out there. They have a 14 month old little girl. I have not seen the baby in almost a year. I look forward to it. Keep an eye on this page for the short films… I plan on uploading them while I’m out there.

Now back to packing.