It doesn’t make the local team look good with the other team scoring and all, but it’s a nice home plate collision shot. If only the ball was in the lower right of the frame below the catcher and not high above the two players where I cropped it out. Such is life.

With his helmet flying off after colliding with Chief catcher Bobby Yager (right), Lexington player Stuart Long is safe at home during the fourth inning of Saturday (7/12/08) afternoon’s game at Ryder Park. Chief went on to win the game in the middle of the fifth inning by mercy rule, 10-2.

Thanks to my wife Mitzi for dragging me out of the house to see this, as it was her turn to walk the dogs. Beautiful!

People out and about at 6:50 a.m. on Tuesday (7/15/08) had a feast for the eyes as they looked to the west. Not just one full rainbow, but two are seen in the sky above Grand Island. This unusual “secondary rainbow” occurs when raindrops high in the atmosphere refract and reflect light back to the viewer. These raindrops are higher in the atmosphere than those which cause the lower “primary rainbow” and internally reflect the incoming sunlight twice rather than just once, which makes them special.

What, summer football? Oh yeah, it’s the 8-man football All-Star game. While I don’t think this is a spectacular sports photo, I do like the faces of the blocker and the runner coming up from behind him.

West’s Cody Childers (right) runs behind the block of Steven Rust during the third quarter of Saturday’s Sertoma 8-Man Classic in Hastings. The West All-stars rolled over the East All-stars, 33-6, to win the game.

This was almost too easy, as great reactions and expressions were all around me. Pain will do that. I still like this boy’s reaction to a pressure point, it made a good front page photo that people could identify with. During a defensive tactics class at the LETC/NSP Training Academy, the hands of Junior Law Cadet James Gomez of Omaha (left) go up quickly as fellow cadet Derek Muller of Bancroft practices applying a pressure point on the brachial plexus origin to gain control of a subject.

A photographer I met when starting out in this profession told that there are basically two types of photos, “A person and their stuff,” and “Gee, it’s crazy out there.” This is an example of the former. Wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I read the assignment about a guy who builds construction equipment out of wood. Fortunately, there was this big tractor close by to add a bit of color and contrast.

The big and the small of it are evident as Chuck Robertson of Doniphan, who retired from the Nebraska Highway Patrol in 1990, sits with some examples of his woodworking handiwork and a John Deere tractor near his home. The pieces before him are functional scale models of large construction equipment.

Early in June Grand Island received a lot of rain in a short period of time. With his flooded home behind him, Ray Miller of Grand Island uses his fingers to show how much water is currently flooding his home on Airport Road west of North Road. In 2005, Miller said, he had 8 inches of water in his house. So far, he said, this time there was about three inches. I give thanks to writer Robert Pore for engaging Mr. Miller in a conversation that allowed me to wait for a story telling moment.