Today I got to photograph some volunteers tagging some young kestrels in Herriman, UT. I do this job because I truly love people, but animal assignments are without a doubt the icing on the cake. Any chance I get, I try to jump at these. 

The one holding out her wings was feisty and I got to hold her. Not super strong yet, but man, sharp little beak. I'll tell ya. 

Momma swooping down^

So this assignment definitely wasn't a turd, but did come at the end of a very long day. It was a bit later than expected, so I was rushed for deadline and a bit frustrated about standing around. But I tried to make some frames while I waited. Getting a good shot of the actual flag burning proved tough! Stripes, flames, saluting. All great things, but hard to squeeze into one good frame. Oh well. Here is some Utah light and Old Glory. 

Also, thoughts going through my head this week: Get close and in the sh*t. I had a recent review tell me I was too polite when I shot. (I'll delve into this more later when I have a really great example, definitely worth a more drawn out post.) and I also had a friend/mentor of mine tell me I didn't get close enough. He always brings out the competitive side in me and I always just want to prove him wrong. So I've been working at being less self-conscious and shoving my camera in more peoples' faces because that's my damn job and I should be proud of it. Thanks AAron.

I totally forgot to post yesterday. Long day at work, skateboarding, a beer or two, netflix, couch. You know the drill, time gets away from you. So Nick is making me post twice today. It's been a LONG two weeks at work. Rodeo was fun, but I was exhausted by the end of it, and this week just wasn't filled with brilliant assignments, but here are a few that I might have missed out on posting, or happened today (Saturday). Sometimes you just have to polish the turd (A very important lesson Seth McConnell  taught me during our many, many long hour talks in our one year at school together, miss that dude.)

(not all these assignments were true turds, but limited time and abundance of cliche images can make for a mental turd)

Can't figure out on this last one if I should've dropped to f/8 or focused on the girls and not the super weird tire. Questioning my decision making for the better or worse. Can't beat the symmetry, but the TIRE MAN. THE TIRE.