Journalism Archives

May 7, 2012

Night Football Photo Challenges

I think this was a Central High School football game, but I can’t swear to it. I have a few Missourian clips of high school sports, but none of these photos were in the ones I could find.

Shooting night football was full of challenges.

The fields were too dark and the film was too slow to shoot available light, so you had to use flash.
Electronic flash was better than flashbulbs because you could shoot as quickly as the strobe would recycle. Unfortunately, the more you shot, the more the battery discharged and the slower the recycle time.
Electronic flash duration was very short, so it stopped action very well. Unfortunately, the shutter had to be completely open when the flash went off, so the shutter speed had to be set at 1/60 or 1/90 of a second. The flash would stop the action, but there would be enough ambient light that “ghosting” would occur. You can see it on some of these shots where there is a blurry line around a helmet or arm.
The flash was limited to about 30 feet, so plays down the middle and on the other side of the field were out of range.
You had to guess where the play was going to be so you could set the exposure correctly. You could follow focus as the action moved, but you were pretty much stuck with your exposure.
You had to judge where the action was going to be, give or take 30 feet. Do you stand slightly ahead of the line of scrimmage and hope they run toward you? Do you go down the field and gamble that a pass that will be on your side of the field? When you get close to the end zone, do you stand under the goal posts and hope for a play coming at you or do you drop back behind the line of scrimmage? By the time the game was over, you probably covered as much of the field as the players did.
The goal was to drop off one to three prints at the paper before deadline. Usually there was only room for one in the paper. So, you spent a couple of hours shooting the game; an hour processing and printing it; a drive to the game and to and from the office; film, chemical and photo paper that cost about $1.50. For all of that, you got $5. Oh, I forgot to mention that you had to buy all your own equipment, too. Maybe I should have paid more attention in math class, because something doesn’t add up here.

Football photo gallery

If anybody knows the teams or anything about the game, chime in. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

May 4, 2012September 16, 2015

May 4 – Kent State – Never Forget

I’m sure I’ll get an email from former coworker and friend. John J. Lopinot today. It’s going to be short and simple. “Never Forget.” He sends me one every year.

May 4 is the day when the Ohio National Guard killed four students at Kent State University. I promised more in 2012 after doing a big piece in 2010. To be honest, May 4 snuck up on me and you’re just going to get a smattering of photos this year.

Looks like a nice spring night

I’m not sure what caused the big turnout in front of Ohio University’s Baker Center Student Union on May 1, 1970. It might have been Mother’s Weekend. Or it could have just been a nice warm spring night after a nasty winter. There are lots of shorts and short sleeves in the picture. The crowd seems to be just hanging out. (You can click any photo to make it larger.)

Here comes trouble

Despite what you might think, not every student in the ’60s was a long-haired peacenik freak. OU was a fairly conservative campus with an active Greek community that was even more conservative than the average student.

I’m not exactly sure who these guys are or what caused them to go marching down the street looking like something out of Gunfight at the OK Corral. It’s pretty obvious that they’re looking to kick some serious hippie ass.

There had been a batch of nuisance dumpster fires for several days and there was one here that night, so that might have been what prompted the confrontation.

Fight broke out

Without much warning, one of the most violent student-on-student confrontations I covered at OU broke out. It didn’t last long and the combatants were separated fairly quickly, but it was heated while it lasted

Students have short attention spans

Just as quickly as it started, it was over. Long-haired and short-haired students joined in to pitch the trash back into the dumpster and everybody went back to enjoying the evening.

Kent State erased the boundaries

What does a minor student brawl have to do with May 4?

The killings at Kent State unified the campus. Petty differences between cliques and classes were set aside when students realized that this wasn’t a game anymore.Straights and radicals; faculty members and students, young and old all pulled together in this memorial gathering on the Main Green the morning after the killings.

Neil Young captured the mood perfectly in his song, Ohio:

“Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We’re finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming

Four dead in Ohio.”

Earlier stories about protests

May 2, 2012October 19, 2016

Broadway and Sprigg

Missourian Librarian Sharon Sanders runs an interesting blog on Thursdays called “From the Morgue.” Back in the less PC Good Old Days, that what we called the repository of yellowing clips carefully snipped out by the custodian of the newspaper’s history. Folks like Sharon and her predecessor, Judy Crow, really DO know where the bodies are buried and can find the skeletons in closets going back generations. You do NOT want to get on the wrong side of the newspaper librarian. They used to possess both sharp tongues and sharp scissors.

I’m not sure what Digital Sharon could do to a reporter who didn’t bring back a much-handled envelope of old clips, but I bet it wouldn’t be pretty. On one of our first meetings, I started to raise my camera to take her picture. I don’t normally take no for an answer – I’ve shot Popes and Presidents, rioters and guys with guns – but I put my camera down when she shook her head. I knew right away that she wasn’t somebody to mess with.

I felt fortunate to escape with my life and a photo of a stack of aging clips.

Broadway and Sprigg

Her blog Thursday said one of her most-requested photos is of the building that used to be at the northeast corner of Broadway and Sprigg Street. It’s a vacant lot next to the Last Call Bar today. She’s done all the historical heavy lifting about that block, so it’s worth heading over there.

I don’t have any photos going back that far, but I do have the area today.

This aerial from November 2010 shows a number of landmarks. The red building is the Last Call she mentions. The white building diagonally across the street is the infamous 633 – 635 – 637 Broadway trio of buildings that have been a source of controversy for a long time. One building was razed and the other two are being renovated. In the center of the picture is Trinity Lutheran Church. The brick building to its left is Shivelbines Music and the white building across the street is Annie Laurie’s Antiques.

Last Call

It’s hard to miss the Last Call if you’re eastbound on Broadway. Its red colors are set off by a blue sky.

Blue-sided building is gone

The blue-sided building with the iconic mural at the top center of the aerial and the ones next to it were torn down at the end of 2011. Walther’s Furniture, across the street, has turned into Discovery Playhouse.

Like a gap in a first-grader’s grin

The northwest corner of Broadway and Sprigg has another empty spot. That’s where the old Chris Cross Cafe used to be. This view is south on Sprigg toward Broadway somewhere around 1966 or 1967. The three-story building on the south side of Broadway was the Cape Hotel. It burned and the spot is occupied by a Subway today.

April 24, 2012April 24, 2012

I’m Looking for Reader Help

I’ve been talking with a publisher the last few weeks about doing a book on Cape. We were moving right along until they discovered I live in Florida. They prefer their authors to be local so they can promote their books.

I explained about the reach of this blog, how many folks with an interest in Cape Girardeau read it and how they’re located all over the world.

On top of that, I said that I get back to Cape two or three times a year and could do the conventional press-the-flesh book signings and the like. For example, I’m putting together an October exhibit and presentation on Regional Photography for the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum.

I do a pretty entertaining dog ‘n’ pony show with lots of photos, videos and war stories.

How you can help

If you are a member of a service club, historical society or you can get more than three people together (not counting me), I’d appreciate the name of the person who arranges your bookings, so I can convince the publisher that I’m not a Cape carpetbagger. I won’t be ready to hit the chicken dinner circuit until next year, but I need to start making contacts soon. Feel free to email me the info instead of leaving it as a comment if you prefer.

Vendor contacts would be helpful, too

What do these pictures have to do with my request? Absolutely nothing. They just happened to be in the same negative sleeve. They DO represent the wide variety of folks I’ve photographed over the years and the kinds of groups I’d like to get in front of.

The publisher has arrangements with national booksellers, but they like their authors to come up with local stores that might be persuaded to carry the book: coffee shops, antique stores, historical societies, Chambers of Commerce and the like. I’d appreciate info from anyone who has contacts with any of these types of businesses. Again, email to ken@steinhoff.net is fine.

I’m kind of excited about finding an outlet for some of the thousands of photos I’ve taken. I’ll keep you folks in the loop. If this deal doesn’t come to pass, I’m convinced that another one will come along right behind it.