Around Lake County

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Sleep Clinic

Gail Treffinger from Wisconsin gets all wired up as she prepares to get monitored while she sleeps.

This guy's name was Anthony Covington and he was a pretty cool guy, and fun to talk to. He used to be a firefighter before this and was talking about how he likes the quiet involved in the sleep study field.

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Also, here's a slam-dunk I caught this evening at a basketball game.

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Connecting

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Frosty Run 5K

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Fire in Round Lake

A firefighter from the Round Lake Fire Department rushes toward a burning home near the intersection of Fairfield and Nippersink on Saturday afternoon.

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Icy Plunge into Fox Lake

It's c-c-c-cold!!!!

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Oot and Aboot

Basketball half-time at a game I shot a little while back... and a winterfest I shot ... forgot to put theses up.
Hmmm... I'm going to a Shawn-gig tonight, will take some photos there I hope.
:)

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Girls Basketball Sectional Championship

Excellent game... exciting.
But I kept taking shots out of focus.
Sucks.
That hasn't happened in a while.
Blah... well, these would be good moment photos if they were a bit crisper.

Chris Padgett © Lake County Journals

Click Here to Look at My Portfolio!!!

Had fun doing this website... but it's all going to end on the 24th... :( (it costs too much moneys to do more than the trial.)

Animation Blogger started

Hello all...
I am beginning to use (a little bit), my animation blogger that I don't use much... school has begun, so I thought I'd dump some things on there.
here's the link

paintimations.blogspot.com

Girls Basketball MVP Concept Art - (Rough)

Well, my sports reporter friend, Dan Patrick is at it again. And he said he'd like some sort of photo illustration of the most valuable player, Sara Booth, that included her standing over the Chicago skyline with searchlights. So here's a rough concept illustration of that. He mentioned Godzilla, so I tried to model the illustration after an old movie poster, and got an Indiana Jones-ish font... though I admit the pose is not the most dynamic. So, it's rough, I still need to adjust the way her calves interact with the lower environment and such and her face's separation from the illustration style of the rest of it... and the city may or may not be more realistic looking.

Yeppers, we'll see if we go this route after I talk to Dan.

----------------
UPDATE

Just changed the text as seen up top, though debating about taking it off... trying to make it more "noir."

Click Here for Slideshow

This is the first one of these I've done. It took a while, and wasn't the greatest event, but it was ok, yo.

Snowy Day!

Snowy snow snow. After completing my 3 assignments for the day in somewhat blizzardy conditions, I headed back to the office. Halfway there, Sandy called. I knew what it was. My chief photographer was calling to tell me we needed snow photos for the day. I sighed and turned the wheel to make my car travel in the shape of a "U."
I grumbled to myself. I thought of how I'd be getting out of my car and how I forgot my gloves.
Moments later I drove past a street with three men carrying shovels.
!
"Good," I thought to myself, "Three is good. The lone guy is a little difficult, because there aren't many levels to the photo sometimes... Unless it's a pretty blizzardy backdrop... which would be nice... but this'll do."

I talked to the three men for a while, they were shovelling a spot for their neighbor, Mitch, an ex-postman.
I talked to them for a little while about the newspaper and the crazy snow, mentioning the 10 feet or whatever that New York got. They seemed like nice guys, although one of them seemed to tell me in a very intense fashion how very good he was at putting in golf.

As I left I realized they were a bit low on shoveling supplies. One of them was using a garden shovel for snow. But hey, use what you got... besides... it was a bit Padgetty.

Violence Interrupter

He's mostly known as Drac, though his real name is Anthony. I wasn't sure what to expect as I sat inside of our designated meeting place waiting for him to show-up. He was an hour late. I usually think of myself as understanding in the area of tardiness, mainly because my life is overshadowed by this common practice. However, I was starting to get a little tired of waiting. When he showed up, I was surprised at how energetic he was.

Drac is a man who works within the organization that the "gang leader" I shot a while back works in. Drac was also in a gang and he now spends time trying to mediate within gangs to avoid shootings in the Waukegan and North Chicago area. I spent about two hours with this guy as he showed me to his office where he works and to a part of the community that he recently did some violence intervention.

When setting up for this particular photo, I didn't even need to do any preparations. Drac was grabbing multiple signs and buttons and setting them up around the room. The signs in the background were set up by Drac. He seemed excited that he was having a "photo shoot" day.

After the photo shoot, he took me into North Chicago and showed me some abandoned buildings he had recently been to. He pointed across the street to a park, "There were some bodies over there."

I didn't fully understand if he meant people that were dead or were wounded by gunshots, and I couldn't help but realize how far removed I was from this sort of lifestyle.

Later that night as I turned on the light to my bedroom, I look around and felt the comfort flood around me. Did the gang members that Drac interacts with on a daily basis ever feel this comfort, this safety that I felt within my own bedroom? What a strange world, just 20 minutes west of where I laid my head that night and fell asleep.

Student Performance at Carmel High School

Ice Fishing

Its hard to shoot outside in the cold.... most of my assignments time gets cut in half, just so I can get warmer...

Depression

Bears Fans!
Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurant!
Need I say more?

Daddy Daughter Dates

These are photos I took tonight for a valentine's daddy daughter date night.
All the little girlies were pretty cute dancing around like that, and I found myself envious of these men who were able to go to daddy-daughter-date night. How special it must be at times, to have a child you can call your own, who fits in your arms, and be a person she trusts and feels safe with. What a strange and beautiful bond.

Feet

I saw the feet of a statue sticking out of the snow today.

Preparing for the Chicago Music Awards

I liked the way this turned out, and I'm thinking mainly it has to do with the lighting.
The woman's name in Joan Hammel, and she is preparing to attend the Chicago Music Awards for which she was nominated as Entertainer of the Year along with R. Kelly, Kanye West, and Jennifer Hudson. She also gave me 2 free tickets to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra! Sweet!

Living with a Police Dog

Today I met with a family that has a police dog for a pet. The dog was pretty playful, but the wife told me that this distance is about as close as I wanna get. :)

Jaettoo

My friend Jae got another tattoo the other night, and I went with her. She was going for a 4-part tattoo. Starting with a catepillar, through becoming a butterfly. It's her biggest tattoo now.

Awaiting a funeral

Recently a funeral director in this area passed away. From Gurnee. Today was his funeral. Apparently he and his wife founded the home in 1971... and I couldn't but help think how he must have thought about this day so many times, much more than the average person would have. And how he must have reflected on when his coffin would be lowered as well, when people would visit his grave and pay last respects. And how many times he must have had to console families, perhaps families that were there at the funeral today.



What a strange (and somewhat profound?) job. To see so many shells of human life before they are returned to the dust.

Basketball Smooosh!

Shooting basketball much lately, I suppose. Here's one I like from a recent game of a smooooshed moment.

"I was a gang leader from North Chicago up into Wisconsin."

"Fro" (named from his old hairstyle) stands on 10th Street in Waukegan where he has lived most of his life. For more than half of it, he was a gang member. He still frequents 10th Street, now as gang outreach worker. "There's a better way to live," "Fro" says of his message.

"She's my best friend"

"She's my best friend," Rob Robinson says of his wife, Julie. Rob and his wife are both cancer survivors and have been married for thirty years. Besides cancer, his wife struggled with two brain aneurysms building behind her eyes. Now Rob is recovering from his cancer treatment and planning to walk a marathon in Nashville. Rob says his wife has been his support and strength and his companion through the years.