Jeffrey LaMonde Photo Blog

2010-07-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

Traveling musicians and a forgotten revolutionary war patriot memorial.

2010-06-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

Feature hunting today.
Found some family and friends playing basketball in the street. That's illegal in Flint, but whatever.

2010-06-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

Old, but trying to get back into the habit of blogging at least semi-regularly.

2010-06-05T14:44:00.001-07:00

Natasha Thomas-Jackson, left, 30, helps her son Masai Clayborne, 8, both of Flint Township shred regular bar soap to be used in a homemade non-toxic laundry soap at the Flint Farmer's Market, 420 E. Boulevard, during a safe cleaning chemicals seminar on Saturday afternoon. A class was led by a local certified natural health educator and herbalist, Suzy Sikora (not pictured), teaching people how to mix their own non-toxic cleaning supplies, including laundry detergent, furniture polish, cleaning paste and more.

2009-12-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

June Vula, of Thomas Township, looks at photographs at the 'Becoming American: Teenagers and Immigration' exhibit at the Castle Museum, 500 Federal Avenue in Saginaw, Thursday afternoon. The exhibit features numerous portraits taken by Barbara Beirne focusing on teenagers who have immigrated from other countries into the United States and their experiences with such. 'It's so wonderful," said Vula, 'So many different religions and countries.'

[ p bell ]

2009-10-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

Cam Lempe -- Grosse Pointe, MI. 2009.

[ cmu vs emu ]

2009-10-12T22:55:00.001-07:00

For more? hit that shit. However, you should probably go through the photos backwards... as.. that's apparently how mlive rolls.

Also go to .. Jake May's blog for a totally killer photo of Dan LeFevour that didn't run.

[ hard news ]

2009-10-12T21:14:00.001-07:00

more images than you care to see of kids making cakes.

[ another very important image ]

2009-09-02T23:09:00.001-07:00

i swear i'll post something meaningful soon.

[ saginaw ]

2009-08-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

also.

saginaw wants to kill you.

[ .. ]

2009-08-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

i was on a haitus. now i'm not.

it's a cow.

expect more work eventually. for now i have to pee and i'm hungry.

oh and i'm interning at the saginaw news now.

kbye.

pow wows are just boring

2009-01-08T14:06:00.001-08:00

Just a couple updates on stuff I've shot lately[ish].

These were for a photo illustration we needed on "chap stick addiction".

"Addiction" and "overdose" are the same thing right? :\

I was worried the paper wouldn't like em and would freak the fuck out and make me shoot something lame, but I guess everyone dug it. Actually I got recognized in public for the photo (the second one ran). Some lady at the library asked if my name was Jeff LaMonde and if I was the guy who did the chap stick photo.

"Why yes I am ma'am"

"Why thank you ma'am"

anyway...

Oh look a little boyyyy.

And then we did some stuff about .. babies. Babies bein born. I shot some safe stuff.

The safe stuff ran. I like these a little better.
I like the first one for Oprah starin down the baby. The second one for the shweet layerin.

Also.. if you haven't seen this, you should.

http://www.mlive.com/bctimes/slideshows/081229-christmas-with-ryan/

Watch it. Watchitwatchitwatch it.

I tried to figure out how to post it directly onto my blog, but I can't seem to get it. Probably because I'm just linking it straight from mlive's site, but whatever.

If any of you know how I can link it here, let me know. I guess I could just host it on my own website, but I'm lazy.

I shot some swim meet tonight. I actually really dug some of the photos. I'll post em tomorrow perhaps.

farewell

2008-12-26T22:43:00.000-08:00

Fellow intern and roommate Scott Mussell left Bay City recently.
He was a good guy, and I shall miss him.

Despite his love of flipping off the camera...
Constantly...He was still quite the gentleman...And fun to be around.Sitting around and complaining about shit or talking back and forth in the office late at night.Or allowing me to shoot him as a chapstick junkie..It's a bummer for him to leave, but hopefully I'll see him again someday.

Good luck Scott.

What do you call a blind dinosaur? *

2008-12-17T14:52:00.000-08:00

Alright. Another update.
Some recent basketball.
Not much to say. Just stuff. The second one makes me giggle for a couple reasons. Teammates fighting for balls. While opponent grabs balls.

Moving on. Story on the opening of an athletic training facility in Bay City. Well. A moving of the facility rather.

Captions? Nah.
C'est tout.

And a nice little moment from a puppet show. This never ran because there were no puppets.
Christmas tree story.
People buy trees.
And make odd gestures while doing so.

Musical rehearsal at All Saints High. "Little Shop of Horrors."
Construction on some methane conversion facility. It's gonna make poo into energy.
AWESOME!

That's all.
For the work-related stuff anyway.
More stuff'll be up soonish too.

I never put up my photos from the show I shot a month ago.
I should do that at some point.

*A do-you-think-he-saurus.
What do you call a blind dinosaur's dog?
A do-you-think-he-saurus Rex.

there is no there

2008-12-07T02:35:00.000-08:00

Bored one night in my room with a curtain, some pushpins, my camera, tripod, and flash.
Multiple flashes can make odd things. The one above seemed to actually make some sense, rather than just resembling something from a terrible 80's acid trip.

O btw there's some minor nakedness. Nothing severe. All the essentials are covered.
Apocalypto?

one day i'll be on time

2008-12-05T06:52:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated in a while.
So here's a bunch of junk that's just been sittin' around.

There was an art gallery opening at SVSU like five hundred months ago. The story finally ran a hundred months ago.
O hai a speaker shot! But I like this one. It's got a little more to it at least.

And then there was the "Shop with a Cop" event at Meijer here recently. A bunch of poor kids got to go shopping .. with a cop .. at Meijer. The cool part is where they gave the kids 100 bucks to spend on whatever they wanted for themselves or their family. The kids were all adorable as shit. Though I think most of them kind of forgot about their families while running through the store picking out toys.
This girl here [below], Isabella, she initially stated she wanted a Barbie for herself, and a necklace for her mother. She ended up getting... a purple hula hoop, a toy ATM machine (yes, I know ATM machine is redundant but that's what the box said), some plastic jewelry, and... a fuckton of other stuff. But nothing for her mother.
"Isabella, if you get all this you've only got enough to get one thing for your mother."
"I just want oonnnne moorrre thinggg.."
I guess that's what you get when you send a five year old alone with $100 through Meijer's toy aisles.
Feature hunting. Apparently this is the "secret" in Cathy's "back pocket". We shoot the greenhouse every year. I was then shown every image ever shot at the green house so I didn't "accidentally copy" any images. My friends, this is why I used to hate looking at images. I then feel like I'm ripping stuff off, or I find I'm racking my brain to try and think of some other way to shoot something. Which isn't bad, per se. But I really don't need the constant worry of "Oh shit! Is this too similar to that other photo?" going through my head while shooting. Perhaps it makes one a better shooter to go about things that way, really. Since you're really trying to get something new. But I also figure if I don't look at other images, there's no way I can "copy" someone else's shot.
I guess I see it both ways. In fact, it probably is better to review other images first.
However, I didn't know it was possible to "accidentally copy" someone else's shot.
Anyway, enough babbling.
Meet Kim and McKenna.
They were shopping for flowers one Sunday afternoon. McKenna was adorable and I'm pretty sure was hamming it up when she realized I was following her and her family around. But you don't really see any of that in these photos. Generally I hate photos with kids looking into the camera... since, we're supposed to be a fly on the wall. But I guess sometimes it works.
Sometimes. I like it here.
"I wanna get more!" yelled McKenna. Her mother was trying to cram as many pots of flowers into the girls arms, and McKenna still wanted more. It was amusing. I really like the light and shapes in this shot.
Oh and I should mention, Danielle Allison, a CMU student came to shadow me for this day of shooting. And I was shooting with... zero voice. I got some nasty cold or something, and so trying to talk to folks to get names and information proved... challenging. But I managed I suppose.One last greenhouse image. This was shot on the Friday before the Sunday I shot the previous two images. I went to the shop Friday while working, grabbed some images, such as this one, and then was informed of the Christmas Open House the shop was going to be hosting that Sunday. So I came back to see what else I could get, and that's where those first two images came from.
These last two images are part of a True North story on a... something. An area up north where guys bring their hunting dogs to compete against other hunting dogs to see whose hunting dogs can be the best hunting dogs. Lots of dogs.

I particularly like this image mainly for the light. It looks lit. But it's not. The light from the sun was just bouncing off the white wall of the barn right to the left of this photo. I thought this should've run, but it didn't. According to Jerry, the writer, he said the story was more about the social aspect of the outing anyway. And what's more social than a bunch of folks (I've used the word "folks" in one blog entry twice now.. yikes.) sitting around a picnic table? I dunno. Anyway.

That's it for now. I've got some other stuff to post soon too.
Music stuff, and then perhaps some weird experimental stuff I shot in my bedroom that may or may not include boobies and peepees*.

*not really, but maybe.

death and dying in my throat

2008-11-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

I'm dying inside my throat. I don't know what it is, and I don't have health insurance so I won't be finding out anytime soon. Just taking over the counter medicines until I'm all bettered.
I was shooting the beginning to this story I may be working on about Traveling Kid Productions. Started by this 24 yr old dude who manages bands and hosts shows and whatnot. But the coolest part is that he's opening up a venue in town here soon.
Anyway, I went to the show in Frankenmuth the other night, feelin fine. As the show progresses, my voice just disappears. I sound like a 60 yr old chain smoker. It's hot.

Anyway.
I'll upload some of those photos from the show in a bit, but here's some stuff from the recent past.

Regional semifinal volleyball match between Unionville-Sebawing Area, and Marlette. Or something like that.

USA won.

Speed skating practice.
Speed skating competition crashhhh.
A story about a "progressive" family. Eats organic food, believes in ... I dunno. Stuff. This was actually kind of annoying to shoot since I was supposed to be focusing on the family and their interactions and whatnot and for the most part the kids were with their cousin the whole night. I got a couple good shots in the beginning of the evening, and then the baby handoff at the very end of the night. So, I mean, it's good I stuck around. But man, a lot of sittin' around.
Hockey. First game of the season. It was a good game. Bay City, sadly, lost to Grand Blanc.

Anyway. I'm supposed to be letting a girl from CMU job shadow me today. It's Sunday and I don't have any assignments so I'm just going to pretend like this event I found is an assignment basically. And I don't have a voice so this'll be fun.

derr...

2008-11-20T15:15:00.000-08:00

AT LEAST HE SPELLED REPAIR CORRECTLY.

mid michigan

2008-11-17T12:24:00.000-08:00

Driving back across Michigan..

visual music

2008-11-17T11:17:00.001-08:00

My friends, Instant Prehistoric, played in Mount Pleasant this weekend. I came to watch and make photos. I'll post a few of the better shots from each band's set for you folks at home.

First in the lineup was The Reptilian. Very good stuff.

And then Beast in the Field.
Also good. Very loud. Reminds me much of Isis.
Native. Also-very, very good.

And thennn Instant Prehistoric.

It was an awesome show.
You should've been there.

80x

2008-11-11T13:33:00.001-08:00

Another update. We did a story on the EM Ford. The longest working Great Lakes freighter.. finally being sent to the scrapyard.

They wouldn't let me on the property at all.. So I had to shoot through the fences. Or, in the case of the photo above, across the river. Fun/obnoxious.
This one ran..

I thought this next one was a nice moment though.
..I'm guessing it didn't run because I didn't have the fellas names though. But, again, I couldn't get on the property.Then some boxing stuff.

What else?

...
O.
A portrait I shot for Veteran's Day.
I give it a meh. But Scott seemed to love it.

I'd upload it but blogspot's bein a poop right now.

Perhaps next time.

gsa

2008-11-07T07:32:00.000-08:00

I had to shoot a girl involved with the GSA at Bay City Central here recently.
Whenever the folks here refer to "Central" I keep forgetting that they mean the high school, and not CMU. :[

Ah well.
I don't feel these photos really go with the story much (since the story's about GSA, and the photos are of her putting together the Halloween "Walk & Dance" for her school), but it's what they wanted me to shoot.

I'd post the story but I can't find it. Awesome.

unbiased

2008-11-06T14:08:00.000-08:00

So. The election happened.
We, of course, had to cover it for the paper. Scott covered the Democrats shindig, and I, the Republicans.
I've no problem with this, except for the fact that I was pretty darn sure the Democrats were going to win just about everything.

Thus making my chances for epic photos a little slimmer.
But I went, and I tried, and I got photos I find myself pleased with.
It doesn't really show their defeat so much, but I think they all saw it coming anyway.

The Times put up a gallery of more of my stuff here.

scott's gear makes me pee

2008-11-02T01:13:00.001-07:00

Dear Scott,

Please give me your 5D and 50mm 1.2f lens.
It makes me want to pee a little.

Thanks,
Your nocturnal roommate,
Jeff

piss scented mug

2008-11-02T00:23:00.000-07:00

I finally had some time to get myself to Mount Pleasant.
Only for a day.
If you're reading this and I didn't get to see you, sorry.
If you're not reading this, I'm confused.

Here's some photos.

It wouldn't be me in my car, if I didn't take a photo of myself driving (A strange and, potentially, bad habit of mine). Especially with such blue skies.
I went to my old home in Casa Loma, and jumped on Katie. Crotch first.

Cam was there.

So was Betsy.

Katie was perplexed by a child's toy.

Then we decided to go get food.

Also-Katie looks like different people a lot. Wtf.

Probably talking about WOW.

Hi Tonnyyyy.

We finished eating, then decided to go bowling. I managed to convince Cam to come.

All ready.

C'est tout.
Now come visit me.

Oh and I've got a couple work related things I'd be pretty okay with posting up here, however, just gotta wait for publish date before I do.

Also-I just found out my Photoshop has been displaying in CMYK instead of RGB. So. Things haven't been looking entirely the way I thought they'd look for .. I don't know how long. Fixed.

a very convincing john goodman

2008-10-29T09:50:00.001-07:00

More photos.
This time, nothing work related.

Betsy came to visit again.This time she had a camera of her own. She bought a Canon XSi. So. Now we take even more photos of each other.
We should probably make friends.
Instead we go hang out in my creepy basement.Fuck college, I graduated kindergarten.Oh. Also, Betsy's dog, Lua, pooped and it dangled from her butthole all day. Then she sat on me. Lua did. On my face. Poopbutt Lua sat on my face.

And this is Scott, the roommate.
He hates me.Probably because I post photos like these of him.

Har har! Hi Scott!

crop crop cropow!

2008-10-28T12:07:00.000-07:00

Some other stuff from work lately.
I've been shooting a lot of high school sports. A lot of high school sports at night, mind you. So I'm not posting much of it since, unless they're totally amazing, they're just grainy high school football photos. To me, at least.

Bay City's goin' well. It smells like fungus whenever it rains.

I play too much World of Warcraft.
Scratch that, that's all I do.
But hey, I'm almost level 70!

Anyway...
Here's some high school soccer..

I particularly like the .. 2nd one. The third one was in the Photos of the Week here at the Times... I guess. The last one... is one hell of a crop. I initially wrote that "crap". Anyway. I figured the moment of the kid nearly crying made it worth the crop. It didn't run. I can see why. It's grainy as hell.

This was shot on a day when I had absolutely nothing to do last week, Monday. Mondays are very boring days in this office. I really didn't think I was going to find anything. I still don't know the town very well. Basically I drive up and down the roads.. see nothing but people walking. And then check out the park and Middlegrounds. Hey! People this time! They're a part of the Middlegrounds Flyers club. They fly remote control airplanes. They're all nice dudes and they even let me fly one of their planes. I was really hoping I'd tank it right into the ground.
Luckily, I did not.
They also invited me to come out every Saturday morning to fly their planes some more.
I haven't done it yet. Because I'm a douche.

That's it for now.
Still no photos of Scott.
Someday.

Somedayyyy.

onionhead.

2008-10-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

This morning I shot a church.

St. Onionhead.

10 20

2008-10-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

Not much to report. The past couple days have been rather slow. Both days involving some feature hunting. I'll post them when they run, or when I get impatient enough to put them up anyway.

This weekend I saw W. and Religulous. W was okay. Religulous was excellent.

Now here's some high school football.

Bay City All Saints vs. Reese Rockets or something. It was their coach's last game before retirement. The All Saints won. Everyone was happy. I was cold. The end.

Also that construction stuffs for Labadie Toyota ran...

That one ran...

I kind of wish this one had...

Also--these are from the energy forum at Delta College the other day.
Again, the first one ran...
I wish this one had.
The second image is more telling of the event I felt. The dude on the left is a spokesman for Consumers Energy, guy on the right, Sierra Club. The whole time the Sierra Club fella spoke (I'm too lazy to go through my notes to find his name), he was constantly talking the Consumers Energy guy down. I felt that last photo more accurately portrayed how the evening went.

Anyway.
I'm gonna go home now.

Edit--Mm. I'm finally pleased with the size of the photos in my blog posts. ha.
And
you should check this out..

Non-work related

2008-10-16T23:47:00.001-07:00

I went through all of my photos in an attempt to find a single photo of Scott (the roommate that nobody but Simon has ever met), but it turns out I'm a shitty roommate.
Or rather, all my photos are taken while at work, and I erase my memory cards without thinking.
This saddens me because I know I had a few good ones of workfolk the other day when we went to lunch.

Poop.
So you get these. You've probably already seen them.
Maybe you haven't.

Hey look! Me outside my work! Anyway. Betsy visits me in Bay City. That's nice. She's nice.
You should visit me too.

Betsy wanted to get food. So we did.Betsy wanted to play with condiments, so she did.Betsy wanted to go for an adventure, so we did.I wanted to take photos of random graffiti, so I did.Then we went home to make food.
We watched some debates.John McCain made us puke.We took some more photos...... and then we were silly until bedtime.

C'est tout.

Bay City

2008-10-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

I picked up an internship at the Bay City Times.
I, unfortunately, just spent the past two hours retoning already toned photos to make them look better on screen rather than on print.

Anyway. I like it here. I live in a quaint half-house with Scott, the other intern.
I've only been here not even a month, but I'm still anxious. I shoot a lot of portraits... construction... and high school sports.
Though my editor did ask me yesterday if I was ready to get started with some multimedia stuffs.
Oh yes I am.
I want to cover something sweet. I want our "OH SHIT" pager to actually have something for Bay City when it goes off.

Oh by the way, nothing against high school sports. I like shooting sports. So long as it's not terribly dark.

And nothing against what I've been shooting so far either. It's still fun making neat images from construction and stuff like that. I've got a neat shot from some construction I shot today that I'll put up tomorrow. Because, a) I'm pretty sure it's a big no-no to post something online before it's even ran in the paper and b) For some reason it didn't get transferred to my memory card anyway when I tried bringin all my work photos home.

Anyway. On with some photos.

This was my first photo to run in the paper.
I had to go find a feature since ... something fell through. I drove around, getting lost, trying to find anything in a town I knew nothing about. Finally, I found a farmer's market downtown. I spent the whole time shooting customers and vendors interacting, when suddenly this moment with the baby happened. It was originally tons darker since I had been shooting the woman talking to a couple out in the sun--this moment happened under their tent.
They call the baby "Market Baby".

High school soccer. It rules, and I love shooting it.
Btw, that's the Cadillac Vikings getting their butts stomped by... ahh whoever the Bobcats are. Anyone else think it looks like fauxhawk boy is peeing on his paralyzed teammate?

Just a story we did on some kids learning how to make a school newspaper. 7th graders giggle a lot when someone strolls into their classes with a camera. Also--getting caught in the halls in between classes is terrifying. I almost had a door swing right into me and my camera.

Construction. I guess nobody liked that first photo as much as I did. (didn't run. oh well)
And the second one I like because.. well the guy just seems so nice. Perhaps I'm biased because I had a chance to chat ("chat?") with him a little bit while shooting. Just about everyone else in that building didn't seem to much care that I was there taking pictures. Normally I wouldn't mind, however when they keep looking at the camera or making faces or hiding, it makes my job a little hard.
Anyway. And that last photo ran main front page. So that's cool.

More soccer. This time much, much later in the evening.
I drove an hour and 45 minutes to get to this game. Shot in the rain all night. Drove back.
Listened to the presidential debate on the way back. Nothing new. Except for this moment.
But that's neither here nor there. The game was very cold and wet. Oh and it was a doubleheader. So even more time in the rain.
I wasn't sure how I felt about that celebration shot until I saw it in the paper. I dig it pretty thoroughly now.

I had to shoot this real quick before heading to that doubleheader also. This family used to decorate their lawn rather extravagantly for Halloween, until a bunch of stuff was stolen this year. Not all of it, but enough to make them take down the decorations.
I had to reshoot this because the first time the family looked too happy. Understandable. And for the second shoot (which took me 2 minutes), they had that sign up, which wasn't there originally. So. Plus.

More construction. And don't worry, I'll have more for you tomorrow after the stuff I shot today runs. These guys (or, as far as you can see, this guy) were redoing the outside of the Chamber of Commerce in Bay City. I really liked the white specks that were getting all up in that dude's beard.
I almost got to go up on the roof to shoot down at them, rather than standing on the sidewalk, but unfortunately no one could find a ladder that would get me to the secret roof portal. Bummer.

Also didn't run. This was taken at the Obama rally in Bay City here. Carole King (oh hey, let's get washed up old famous people to talk politics) came to talk to everyone.
The building was packed. I was sweating. And Carole King was an hour and a half late. This guy decided to show everyone the songs he and his kids had been working on. They're from the bible. And apparently the dude used to play guitar for R. Kelly. He was good.

Now, guess how much football I've shot in my life. If you said "not very much", you'd be correct. I don't play any sports. I don't watch any sports, yet I enjoy shooting them.
I, however, do not enjoy being just as easily duped as the other team is when it comes to faking who has the ball. I find myself following the wrong dude many times. But I still had fun. And apparently came out with some decent shots. Unfortunately, they were all of the wrong team.
Yeah, we were covering the purple guys.

Volleyball. Now there's a game I can shoot.
Or, at least, I've shot it many times before.
This was my first real time shooting with a light kit too. Luckily Scott, (roommate/photo intern), came along with to help me set up. I got through one match and then some dude came and asked who the lights belonged to.
... maybbbe the guy with the antenna coming out of his camera?
So I had to turn off the lights. They were blinding the refs apparently. Lame.
I had no idea what to do or say either. Do I say "Fuck you!" and keep shooting? Or play the nice, polite role and say "Oh, okay! Sorry!"
I played the dumb "uhh.. oh. Uhm... o..kay" role... and then shot the rest of the game with available light. Luckily, Midland's gym is quite bright. That last photo was actually the one that ran main front sports page art. No lighting. heh.

This was part of the True North magazine. I had to go drive out into the middle of nowhere (I do that a lot) and photograph this guy giving a seminar on sustainable living at his home/bed & breakfast out past West Branch. He lives off the grid, so all his energy is generated by wind and... something else. I want to say hydro, but I'm not positive.
I liked the Welcome sign. O. Yeah, the way I had to shoot this was very different from how I'm used to shoot. I was told to shoot in the style of a Home & Garden magazine or some shit. Never done that before but I sure pretended like I knew how. I hate photos of stuff without people in them (usually) so it was weird for me.
(Btw, "photos of stuff without people in them" seem to run quite a bit in the paper here.)
Anyway. Please note the dude in the upper right corner of that last photo. It made me giggle.

That's all I've got for now. Sorry so long, but I had to catch up on 3 weeks of shooting into one entry (for some reason). Entries in the future should be much less painful.

Also--if the photos are supersmall in this blog entry, it's because I'm still figuring out this blogger..blogspot thing.

What else? Anything else?
I'm shooting another high school football game tomorrow. Shit. This time I don't get the luxury of Scott's ... whatevercameraitishehas and his 300mm. Oh well.

New blog.

2008-10-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

I made a blog.

Oh boy.