Sometimes people ask me, “How do guys find stories or photos? It must be difficult to find things in the area to photograph every day for the newspaper.” At times it is very difficult. This past week was slim pickings for photo opportunities but we still managed to find something to run in each edition. With a little luck and some creative juices there’s a photo op almost everywhere I look.

For example, the photos of the 1966 Mini Cooper, which ran in Wednesday’s newspaper, I photographed after a scheduled assignment for our Women In Business section. Didn’t plan on doing it or think it was a potential story but figured it would lend to some good wild art. I saw Hector first on Highway 49 on my way to the WIB assignment. While checking out his ride I envisioned what photos I would do with him and his car. So I decided to follow him hoping for a moment I could get a minute of his time. As it happens, Hector lost me and turned up Lorenson Road. I was bummed and figured my photo op literally drove off.

After the WIB photo assignment I took a chance and drove up Lorenson Road trying to find his shiny blue Mini. Ironically I saw another classic Mini, this one red, in a business parking lot and dropped by to see if the owner of that Mini knew the owner of the blue Mini. I was surprised when he said, “Actually that car is at my shop right now with the owner.” This person Mike Kearney, escorted me to the Seven Enterprise Mini Cooper shop and sure enough Hector’s blue ’66 Mini was parked in their lot. Hector was hanging out with his car chatting with other Mini owners and he was very excited to be photographed. I saved the package for front page if we had nothing else to run and turned out it ran on A2, which worked out well.

And then there’s Gilbert. Oh Gilbert. If you don’t know who Gilbert is then you might have been living on the moon for the past few years. Even if you don’t know his name, chances are you’ve seen him riding his bike around town. At first I will admit I wasn’t too sure about putting his photo in the paper for a couple reasons. One, if we put his photo in the paper because it’s his birthday, every one might call and want their picture in the paper when they turn 80. The other reason, which I think is probably true, is that readers in the morning will pick up the paper, look at the front page photo and say, “must have been a slow news day at the Journal. They have a front page photo of Gilbert.” Actually we had stories and photos we could have run on the front page, but thought Gilbert would be the best choice. He’s a slice of our community that most people recognize and readers might get a chuckle. Besides, who would write a negative comment about Gilbert? He couldn’t hurt a fly.

After I photographed him once in the morning, I heard his bike horn from the seat of my desk again in the afternoon. Someone in the newsroom made a joke, “There’s Gilbert again. Better go and get another photo.” It was a good idea because now I wanted to put him in our studio. He loved it. Of all people I would have never guessed Gilbert and his bike would be in our studio. I decided to put a slide show of his photos in our video section of the website and people really liked it.

So when there’s days with nothing going on, I have to try to keep an clear mind and an open eye, because the next front page photo could be right in front of me when I least expect it.