Edmonton firefighter Paul McGonigal stands on the roof of a fire station in Edmonton, Alberta on March 10, 2010. Paul McGonigal and a group of firefighters are camping out on top of their fire station this week as part of an annual fundraiser for Muscular Dystrophy. The camp out runs from March 9 to 12. For the Globe and Mail.

Isn't it enough that fire fighters fight fires? Do they need more excuses to
be called heroes? Really?

I had the pleasure to hang out with Paul McGonigal, who has been a fire
fighter for the last 20 years. One week every year for the last several
years he has been camping out on the roof of a fire station, to raise money
and awareness of Muscular Dystrophy (the charity of choice for fire fighters
in Edmonton).

McGonigal is the real deal. A soft spoken, caring and inspiring local hero.

The Technical Stuff: The portraits were shot using my Nikon D700 and a
70-200 mm lens. I really like the look of using a longer telephoto lens
because it compresses the objects in the photo and it also helps to make the
subject really pop out. I also metered to drop the ambient down two stops
and Paul was strobed using an SB900 flash with a Rayflash ring light.

<br>Growing Power Hairy Hills Biorefinery Selects - Images by Jimmy Jeong

I had the opportunity to spend a day with Bern Kotelko, whose family owns Highland Feeders near Vegreville, Alberta. They have a 36,000 head of cattle feedlot and are now building a bio refinery to turn all that manure into energy. Once his 100-million dollar venture is complete, they will be able to power a town the size of Vegreville, population 5,500.

"When the plant is completed, Mr. Kotelko expects it will take 80 per cent of his manure, enough to power a town the size of Vegreville, population 5,500, which lies 20 kilometres to the south. Mr. Kotelko insists the process also solves the tricky economics of ethanol fuel, whose production typically eats up a lot of external energy. In his model, biogas from the feedlot will also power an ethanol refinery on the site, providing big energy savings. The refinery, using cattle-feed wheat as an input, will also turn out distillers' grains that go back to the feedlot for cattle nourishment. Thus, the plant operates as a closed loop – from manure to energy to cattle feed back to manure."

—from the Globe and Mail Story http://bit.ly/b4UFa0

I really hope this type of innovation continues. What do you think? Does our future lie in poop?

BTW, I'm trying out this new slide show gallery option. It allows you to see a large full screen version. You can also embed the gallery on your own site.

I had the opportunity to photograph this amazing Edmonton gospel group for Avenue Magazine. They are a gospel group dedicated to preserving the style of vocalizing and musicianship that Alberta's Black pioneers brought with them from the southern United States nearly a century ago.

It’s a pleasure to photograph portraits of such a dynamic group of people. Taking photographs of people with character is just a matter of pointing the camera in the right direction and letting them be themselves.

This is my final post to the NPAC blog. January 8, 2009.

I got the call from The Canadian Press at 10:30am this morning. There were reports that the RCMP had made an arrest in north western Alberta near the BC border in connection to the EnCana bombings. It was near Hythe, Alberta which is in between Dawson Creek, BC and Grande Prairie, Alberta — six hours from where I was.

Made some quick calls to other photographers I knew to see if I could find some more information. Found out that the next flight out was at 1:30. So, I called CP to get the OK to book a flight. Luckily they agreed, because I wasn’t looking forward to the drive. I was on the road at the time so I booked the flight on my iPhone. Packed a pair of socks, underwear and a toque and out the door with my gear.

All my gear fits nicely in my Think Tank Airport International rolling case which fits the requirements for carry on. I don’t want to risk losing my gear by checking in luggage. My kit includes 2 Nikon bodies, 50 f1.4, 70-200 f2.8, 17-55 f2.8, 300 f2.8, a 1.4x teleconverter, 2 flashes, power inverter and my laptop.

The news reports that Wiebo Ludwig is the one arrested. But no charges have been laid. He is an Alberta activist that was convicted of bombing oil and gas wells in the ’90s. But this time around he was earlier in the year apparently helping the RCMP find the EnCana bomber.

Find out that the flight is delayed by an hour. Damn. I’m worried about the light. I know I need to get some scene setting shots before it gets too dark. Check in to find any more news. Make a quick call to my wife, sounds like we won’t be going skating tomorrow.

We land in Grande Prairie at 3:30pm. The plane was full of media: Global TV, CTV, The Edmonton Journal, a huge CBC crew, and a film team from the National Film Board. I grab a rental car and follow Edmonton Journal photographer Shaughn Butts and head out to Trickle Creek Farm which belongs to Ludwig.

A grain elevator in Hythe, Alberta.

After 70 clicks on the road, we’re the first to the scene. But the RCMP has blocked if off so that we can’t even see his farm. There’s news that a huge search team is on the farm and they plan on working all through the night. So, I shoot the obvious and early shot of the RCMP blocking the road. I have nothing else. I file the photos I have because CP needs to get these out right away for their online clients.

The grace of the photo gods shine down upon me. Wiebo Ludwig’s family shows up. Awesome, I have relevant subject matter and people in my photos now.

Wiebo Ludwig’s wife Maime walks out of her truck and talks to media near her home.

Wiebo’s wife Maime shows up with three of their sons. Richard Boonstra, the head of the other big family here shows up and talks to media. None of them try to elude us. In fact, they seem to want to talk. I take my shots and then head back to my car to file. The photos seem to be taking an eternity to send over my laptop which is tethered to my iPhone. I curse. And then curse some more. I open the photos again and resize them making them smaller. And then send again.

The sun is fading fast. The pace slows to a crawl and there really isn’t much left to shoot. Most of the media has left but I take a chance and stick around. There are two big buses here and apparently there will be a shift change of RCMP who are searching the farm. I imagine a shot of an army of RCMP coming down the road and getting on the busses.

I wait. And wait some more.

Screw it. It’s pitch black now. So I head back into Grande Prairie and meet up with the Journal crew. We eat. And then we go bowling. Take care everyone. It’s been fun and an honour to blog these past few days for NPAC.

Edmonton Journal Photographer Shaughn Butts apparently bowling the wrong way.

I'll be posting to my site http://www.jimmyshoots.com about my Edmonton photography and editorial assignments soon.

This is my third day post for the News Photographers Association of Canada.

So, one of the things that I do during my usual week is to post to my own blog. This would be this week’s entry. (Yes, my NPAC blog for today is my other blog posting.)

For photographers, one of the greatest compliments you can give is the phrase, “I wish I took that photo.” (Of course this might also be a tell about our egos.) And this is how many of my colleagues and I felt when we saw this photo by Shaughn Butts taken on the night of October 1, 2006.

This is his account of a man known on Edmonton streets as Preacher.

I didn’t hear back from the reporter again. But I wished I had. I wished I had some preparation for what I was about to see. Because I think I would of reacted differently to it.

When I got there I parked my car. It was probably the strangest scene I’d ever seen. I was familiar with the building. It was called Wyser Manor and I knew it because it was a shithole. It was a drug den. It was full of assholes and it had been recently renovated. I parked close by and walked to the main door, which faces south. There was a bunch of cops there. Immediately I was spotted by a staff sergeant which is something I always try to avoid. I always try to avoid bars because they will either run to you and say “no comment” or “PR is on their way” or they will point towards the furthest sidewalk that they can see. “The edge of the horizon, go over there.”

  A Guest To the Show
Anyways, I was busted right away by him but he could not of cared less about me. So, I thought this is really weird. There was no tape around the scene so I didn’t know where the scene was. All of a sudden I saw the reporter. She was huddled in the bushes further west down the street.  I thought, “this is weird man.” She was motioning to me and I was watching the cops. I still didn’t know what was going on and why she would be down there. So, I peaked around the corner because I heard someone talking. I saw a cop who was standing in a parking lot beside the building and talking to somebody. He was looking up. I didn’t want to disturb what was going on so I put my cameras down. I peaked around the corner from across the street. And I saw a man sitting there—on the ledge.  I still hadn’t seen the body yet. But I saw this man and I thought, this is crazy. This is supposed to be a homicide and they’re trying to talk this guy down.

I talked to the reporter. And she said, “you got to look further around the corner.” So I came around and there was this corpse hanging out the window. And beside that was this guy. Somehow if I could have been able to take that picture I think that would have been a killer photo. But I didn’t want to influence the scene (by attracting attention to myself). I felt like I was a guest in that whole scenario. And I knew that I couldn’t take pictures there.

So, I went back to my car and I drove to the other side with the Preacher and the body in the line of site. I drove down into that vacant parking lot and got out my 300(mm lens) and I shot from the parking lot. I actually shot it from my car.

I took about 15 images and then he got up and walked inside. It was over that quickly.

In hindsight I wished I had been able to move around and get angles but really I got there at the tail end of that whole thing. So, when he went inside he was tasered. He was tasered at least twice. I could see the blue flashes in the room. I drove back down to the front of the building where I initially started and I got him coming out of the building in cuffs. He was covered in blood and tattoos. That was it. I was there less than 15 minutes, for sure.

It was a big risk for me at that time to get in my car and drive down the alley but it was my only option. If I would of stood there and started clicking away I might of gotten a picture off but who knows what of happened. I would have enraged those cops and I could have influenced the outcome of whatever happened that night. I wouldn’t want to do that. Because the guy up there hadn’t noticed me yet. The cop talking to him hadn’t noticed me yet.

It came out later in court that the guy who was killed had originally broke into Preacher’s apartment. And Preacher defended himself, or so he claimed. He stabbed him something like 37 times (police say he was stabbed 75-100 times). He pulverized him. And then pushed him out the window.

What I remember most of that picture, oddly enough, is when I would ask people about that picture they would say that it’s a nice picture of a guy on a ledge. For most people I had to point out the dead guy.

I was commissioned by the Globe and Mail earlier this month to take a portrait of Patrick Kabongo, an offensive lineman with the Edmonton Eskimos’ CFL football team. The story was about how much he volunteers and gives back to his community. Patrick is a 6-foot-6, 315 pound small C celebrity here in our northern city. Fans love him because of how he plays on the field but he’s also known for his personality. Every time I’ve seen him he usually sports a huge smile or a great laugh. But, he seemed almost serene in every photo I took of him.

Patrick and his family fled the African city of Kinshasa in 1982 when the Zaire government was battling rebel forces in a bloody conflict. He came to Canada and grew up in Montreal and got started in football through an organization that runs sports programs for underserved children. He ended up playing at Vanier College and then to Nebraska University. Sometimes we forget that these athletes playing in our CFL are all top ranked football players coming from prestigious US football schools.

The Technical Stuff: This portrait involved three lighting scenarios. I used my Nikon D700 with a 50mm f/1.4 for the blue photo and a Nikon D300 and the 17-55mm lens for the other two. The first photo is obvious, with two Nikon speed lights with white shoot thru umbrellas on either side. I also use a Honl 1/8 grid on a Nikon SB900 for very focused lighting on his face (for both lit photos). In the third photo I put the speed lights behind him. BTW, that’s the roof he’s holding on to.

I was commissioned last week by the Globe and Mail to take a portrait of the Albert premier. They had slotted a time for myself and the reporter from 3:30 to 4pm. So basically, a half-an-hour for the interview and the portrait. Which usually means 5 min or less for the portrait. That’s problem one.

So, as I was doing my research on photos of past premiers and politicians one thing I didn’t want to do was the stand-by photo of the Premier behind his desk flanked by the Canadian flag and the Alberta flag. Boring and it usually doesn’t add anything to the story. I’m sure the story will mention that he is the premier of Alberta or else it will be obvious. So why take the obvious and redundant photo. Problem two – how not to take another redundant photo.

The day before the interview and portrait was supposed to be done, I called the Premier’s press secretary, Tom Olsen, and explained what I wanted to do. Or more specifically, what I didn’t want to do. He said that he couldn’t promise anything but to call him the next morning. I did. And I showed up around 10am at the Legislature at Tom’s office.

I was told that the Premier had a busy day, including Question Period. I replied that I was willing to wait for an opening. I waited. And waited. Then I got about six minutes with the Premier and his staff as they prepped for Question Period. Then I waited some more. And then I got about 3 minutes with the Premier and his chief of staff. Then I waited some more.

3:30 came rolling around and I went in with the reporter. And I waited as she finished her time. Then it was my turn. It was past four and already getting dark so I asked if I could turn off all the lights in his office so that the tungsten lights wouldn’t mix with the window light. And in about 38 seconds total, I took this photo.

Maybe I really didn’t need more than 5 minutes to take a portrait. Maybe I didn’t have to spend the day to take a 5-minute portrait. But, if I didn’t spend the time preparing I probably wouldn't be in a dark room with the Premier of Alberta.

The Technical Stuff: Keeping It Simple. I shot the whole day with a Nikon D700 and a 50 F1.4 lens.

Here are some of the photos I was filing throughout the day.

                   

                           

Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada visits the iHuman centre in
Edmonton, Alberta on Friday, July 31, 2009. PHOTO BY JIMMY JEONG

Let me say, the GG could cause the polar ice caps to melt with her smile. I've never seen a political figure able to make just everyone in the room feel comfortable and welcome. Usually when I go to these events where token kids are brought in to make a political figure look, you can easily tell that someone had bribed them to be there. But I got the feeling that the kids at this event really wanted to be there and were to thrilled to meet her.

The Technical Stuff: I find the biggest obstacle on an assignment like this is other media. There were probably 20 or so media types with video cameras, still cameras or audio types all trying to get in the best position. You try to get a great shot, but you have to realize that we all have to work together in the future so you try not to block someone else's shot. Although, on this occasion I did accidently get in the way of a CTV camera person - I"M SORRY (and I did apologize to him).

               

The family of Cpl. Nick Bulger, takes part in a military funeral at St.
Joseph's Basilica in Edmonton, Alberta on Monday, July 13, 2009. Cpl. Nick
Bulger was with Edmonton's 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light
Infantry , and was killed July 3rd, 2009, by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.
Photos by Jimmy Jeong for The Canadian Press

I've shot a few millitary funerals now, it doesn't get easier. We try our best to respect the families and friends that are grieving but I always feel a bit like we're intruding. In fact, for this particular funeral we were told that the media were to be banned from the funeral. This usually means that media are not allowed in the church. On the public street, that's a different story. The military had PR peeps there to answer our questions and we were invited to shoot the procession but the family did not want to be interviewed