Day 311/365

     Tonight I got to go back out to Central Michigan University to photograph former Secretary of State and retired General Colin Powell. He was invited to CMU to give a speech in honor of the university's week-long celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The catch, of course, was that other members of the press and myself were only allowed to photograph/record video for the first three minutes of Gen. Powell's speech. What I heard was interesting, and he was a very eloquent speaker. To see the article written about his appearance and to see more photos, you can find them on MLive here.

Day 232/365

     Today, as I'm sure you all know, is Election Day. I got up early this morning and headed to my first of many polling locations for photos expecting to be doing the same thing, taking almost the same/extremely similar photos for most of the day. Little did I know that around the same time in Bay City, two local politicians got into a fist fight outside of their polling location, (which also happened to be a church). I thought it was too good to be true; politicians actually duking it out instead of hiding behind backhanded and passive-aggressive, (not to mention, ridiculous), ads? No way. Nevertheless, the news gods were shining down on us today and it was indeed true. You can't make that stuff up. 

(For full on hysterics, check out the article about what happened on MLive here. One of them called the other a 400-pound Twinkie. Seriously. Now you know you want to check it out!)

Day 231/365

     Yesterday/day 231 was filled with election preparations pretty much everywhere, but especially where I work. The only early voting that's an option in Michigan is via absentee ballot, so the different polling locations really have to prepare for a mass of people coming out on Election Day. I think it goes without saying that most, if not all, of us, whether in the media industry or not, are extremely ready to end the election fatigue and move on. With that being said, all of you better vote!

Day 229/365

     Yesterday/day 229 I had an impromptu freelance assignment in Ohio that I had to drive back for after football Friday night. I was hired by the SEIU, (Service Employees International Union), for the day to photograph their members and volunteers making one last canvassing push for President Obama this weekend. I got paired up with a really interesting group of people; they were a lot of fun to work with. I also met some more "interesting" people at the residents the volunteers were knocking on, (interesting is in quotations since I'm using that term extremely broadly). All in all it was a unique experience.