Picture this. It’s a hot Thursday summer afternoon, my shorts are rolled up past my thighs and I’m standing in the middle of the crisp, cool water of the American River with a camera around my neck. It’s another day at the office for me, photographing Laird Thompson for the river run story written by Journal reporter Gus Thomson. The story was held for a couple days on account of trying to plan a photo of some one actually kayaking the stretch of river from the confluence leading to China Bar. After a quick phone call to Laird he jumped at the opportunity to spend part of his day at the river as well.

The first set of photos was a basic shot of him paddling past me while I was standing in the calm waters next to No Hands Bridge, which provides an excellent back drop. I wanted to get close to him with the wide-angle lens, instead of shooting tele-zoom from the shore. It was an average photo, one I refer to as, “paying the rent.” In other words I snapped a good photo that could fill a space, but I wanted something else. Something exciting. Something that screamed, “buy me!” from the newsstand. I needed white water.

We could hear a small rapid down from our first location and decided to check it out. I hiked to it, as Laird casually floated by. While waiting for me, Laird examined the rapid to determine how he would negotiate through it. Once I finally arrived he went back up river in his kayak and paddled his way back down toward me. I posted up just beyond the rapid and waited on the shore. This shot would not require being in the water simply for my safety and out of respect for the rapid. It took us only one attempt to get the photo I needed. The photo we ran on today’s front page was exactly what I was striving for. It was well worth the extra effort hiking to the location, navigating along the canyon wall, climbing over boulders and dodging clumps of poison oak, which were taller than me.

Without the help of Laird, the photo would have never happened, and for that I’m thankful he cooperated with me. Which leads to my next point.

There are certain people in this community who are always willing to help the Journal. Right now we are working on promotional house ads, with photographs of notable people in our community reading our paper. So far I have only photographed three people, and don’t want to disclose their names yet, but each person has told me, “what ever we can do to help the Journal, let me know.” It’s people like that and situations with Laird, that keep the partnership with the community alive.