Jerseyville Legion Senior League Playoffs

Seems like at playoff time there always has to be some sort of controversy.  In this particular case it was about a bat.  Seems the bat in question was on a recent list list of unapproved types and it was only brought to light after a play had been made.

Game officials checked all the bats of the Eldred Legion team after one of the bats was found on the unapproved list.

And we also have the exciting shots of guys trying to beat the ball.

A Rock Island runner tries to beat the ball that is almost in the glove of a Galesburg player.

Click on the header to go to the galleries or use the link below to see all the photos.

http://michaelweaver.zenfolio.com/f855249845

Dr. Baig

Dr. Mirza Baig displaying one of the thousands of gifts his clients have given him.

I first met Dr. Baig several years ago at a fundraising event for Alton Illinois based Community Counseling Center of Northern Madison County.  Community Counseling recently changed its name to Wellspring Resources and built a new headquarters on the site of their former building.  The doctor and I have a common love of western boots and numerous other things.  He prefers the traditional, more pointed toe on his boots and me.. well,  I prefer the wider roper toe on mine.

Dr. Baig has worked with a lot of extremely sick people and is passionate about his work.  At the recent open house held by Wellspring to show off their new building, the doctor and I were catching up on things and I handed him a card.  My cards are a mini-portfolio of images I have shot with contact information on the back.  He went through them and said he wanted me to shoot his picture.  I said I could do sometime and as soon as the ribbon cutting and other niceties were over I found him in his office. 

I talked with him a bit to try and get a better feel of what would show who he is.  It's easy to get a perfectly exposed image, but it's harder to get something that shows who the person is.  Even harder when you can't really photograph the person with the people he works with. He said something that got me digging a bit more and this image is what we ended up with.

The penny has nothing to do with compensation or money.  It's just one of the thousands of gifts that his patients have given him through the years.  He has kept every present and knows the story behind each one of them.

If you ever get the chance to meet Dr. Baig, ask him about his patients and how they show their gratitude.  It's really a very touching story.

Last of the 2011 Jersey County Fair Photos

Fair ended with a demolition derby.  Several good derby images and this one of the fair at night after the derby.  The economy has seemed to hit the fair this year and there were, according to vendors, less receipts.  As you can see in this photo there were certainly less people on the rides after the derby.  Even the grandstand and infield were less crowded than in recent years.

You can see all the fair photos by clicking on the link: http://michaelweaver.zenfolio.com/p986465352

Todays Digital Images

The photo above is from a collection of around 100,000 negatives rescued from an auction house after the contents of a storage locker was sold for non-payment of storage fees.  The woman who created the images had died and no one knew they existed until the contents of the locker was sold.

It begs the question, what will happen to the vast amount of digital images produced today if there is no physical representation of the image?  Are Flicker, Facebook and Photobucket the new storage lockers that we can look to to find amazing material 60 years from now?  Will the hard drives of our loved ones be preserved for posterity?  How many of us have thrown away old digital storage media because we either didn't think it was important and didn't want to take the time find out or just didn't have a way to read the "obsolete" format it was on?

Sometimes the only way of looking to the past is the physical paper record.  Bound original copies of newspapers exist in many libraries or they may have microfilm copies.  The original images are long gone that are contained in the publication.  There are exceptions, but I think it's important to understand that if we really care about preserving the digital images we produce today, something needs to be done to preserve them other than having them on a hard drive.

Click on the link below to be taken to the web site about the images:

http://www.vivianmaier.com/

Sights from the Jersey County fair

What's not to love about county fairs?

You could watch the motocross riders,

and then be off to your favorite carnival ride after the show!

The Jersey County Fair is held every summer at the American Legion Park in Jerseyville IL.  These are a few images of what was there to entertain the crowd.  More images as the fair continues through Sunday.  If you want to see more, click on the link.

http://michaelweaver.zenfolio.com/p986465352

Something that won a prize

14mm f2.8 ED AF Nikkor handheld at 1/60 second, f8, 800 ISO

Now for something other than sports.

The black and white image above is of one of the upper classrooms of the historic Hamilton School in Otterville IL.  This school has been recognized as the first free school in Illinois and the first integrated school in the United States.  The building was in use until the early 1970's by the Jersey Community District 100 school system.  The site is now maintained by volunteers and contains items that were in use at the school when it was in operation, some items date back to the 1800's.  As the volunteers raise funds they repair and maintain the building.

This room is actually one half of the larger room that was turned into two classrooms at some point in the past.  The original large room was to be a place for the community to gather for worship services.  There are plans to remove the dividing wall to restore the room to the original size. 

This image won the Grand Champion award at the 2011 Jersey County Fair.

Knowing something has gone wrong...

The photos above and below don't really need captions if you understand baseball.  For those of you that are wondering,  the guy at 3rd is safe and the 3rd baseman is watching the ball skip away that he just missed.  The one below is of the batter just a millisecond before he is struck in the middle of his back with a baseball he knows he can't dodge.

See all the images from the American Legion Senior League playoff game from Tuesday (July 13, 2011) night held in Hardin IL.  The Calhoun Legion squared off against the Eldred (Carrollton) team and held a large lead midway through but ended up losing the game.

Championship game is Saturday.  Jerseyville vs. Eldred.