Some pig, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

Took a nice walk around Ben Brewster's farm in Amherst today. Along
with meeting Ben I got an exuberant greeting from Willy, his dog. I
caught a glimpse of something in the back of Ben's Jeep and figured that
the plywood ramp he was propping up there was for another but perhaps
aged hound that was going to amble out and join us. Nope. And as much
lettuce as I gave her she wouldn't come out to play. Good girl, Daisy.

Don Himsel
photo editor
The Telegraph
http://blogs.nashuatelegraph.com/on_assignment
(603) 594-6590

Bear necessities, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

It was nearly sun down as I recall, and I had been stalking it for days.
The beast kept reappearing in backyards, destroying bird feeders, and
thrilling homeowners who were used to seeing the usual songbirds out
their picture windows. And then it appeared - not at the feeders, but
right outside her kitchen door, in the screened porch!

On and off for most of the week I had been chasing scanner calls for
reports of a black bear making appearances all around the town of
Lunenburg, Mass. It was 1996, and I was the chief photographer at the
Sentinel & Enterprise newspaper in neighboring Fitchburg. Scanners were
our way of knowing what was going on in the world around us.

After a few days of "wild goose chases," listening to homeowners'
stories about the four-legged creature, I had still not seen the bear,
but I knew what it looked like and I know how they behave. I had
photographed bears while working in Minnesota years ago. They roamed the
dumps and shorelines of the lakes in northern part of the state, in
search of leftovers, or a dead fish.

I was sitting in the newspaper office around supper time when a scanner
call came across of a black bear near busy Route 13 in Lunenburg.
Traffic was keeping it from crossing the highway, and police were
dispatched to stop traffic. I drove as fast as I could, but it had
already crossed on it's own by the time I arrived.

Rather than follow the cruisers as they patrolled the wooded
neighborhood, I stopped at a home where it had appeared before. Bears
hunt for food in patterns, and often return for seconds at a productive
dining spot. The homeowners had bird feeders lining their backyard, and
this bear had already destroyed one of them. I got out of my car in
front of the house and waited. It was getting dark and I was supposed to
be home eating dinner with my family. But my adrenaline was pumping and
I had an inclination something was going to happen for me.

Back then I was shooting with a Nikon F4 film camera and an 80-200mm
f/2.8 zoom lens. I had two rolls of Fuji 800 in my pocket and one in the
camera. The scanner was quiet and I didn't think anybody was home. I
stood in the street awhile and then slowly walked toward the back yard
to check the feeders. I had about 45 minutes of usable light left.

Just as I rounded the back corner of the home, I thought I saw something
in the woods across the yard. Sure enough, it was the bear. But this
time it didn't seem interested in the feeders. It was heading toward the
house! I didn't have a cell phone back then, so I ran to the street and
flagged down a cruiser in front of a neighbor's home. Soon there were
neighbors and police standing in the side yard watching the bear.

It was sitting in the middle of the back yard as if waiting to be
served. What no one understood was what it smelled. There was a
clothesline running from the second floor porch window, to a tree. On
it, right above me, were several bags filled with suet balls. I watched
in amazement as the bear climber up on an upside-down row boat next to
the garage. It hopped onto the garage roof, walked across, and entered
an open screen window to the porch. After shooting up the first two
rolls, I reloaded my last one as the bear stayed hidden in the porch.

It was almost dark now, and I walked to the front door of the home to
see if anyone was there. To my surprise, an older woman answered the
door and I told her about the visitor she had inside. She had no idea
and quickly shut the front door. Oops! It locked behind her. Now the
bear was inside all by itself and she was in the yard with me. Quickly
returning to the back of the house, we watched as the bear looked out
her porch window. I motioned to the police to come to my side of the
house. My heart was racing as I photographed the bear reeling in the
clothesline. Onlookers clapped as the bear popped the suet balls into
its mouth, and disappeared back inside the porch. I was out of film and
it was dark.

I raced back to the paper and souped my film, while telling my story to
the newsroom staff that evening. We ran it with a story on the front of
our paper. I also sent a photo to the Associated Press, and the picture
ran in many newspapers across the country, as well as Newsweek. The bear
was famous now!

Unfortunately in this populated area, bears are not welcome. Just a week
later the beast appeared in downtown Fitchburg and made a scene. SWAT
teams surrounded it in front of a girls homeless shelter and fed it a
dozen jelly donuts before it got sick and was tranquilized.
Massachusetts wildlife officials transported it to the western part of
the state to find a new home.

-Bob Hammerstrom

arrangement, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

Taken today at Ikebana for an upcoming story/audio slideshow on japanese
flower arranging.

Don Himsel
photo editor

Precious moments, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

I stopped by St. John Neumann Church in Merrimack this morning in search
of a voter photo for Wednesday's local front in The Telegraph. If that
sounds exciting to you, please stop reading, put down whatever you are
doing, and proceed to the nearest photojournalism school. There is news
running in your blood!

I've been working full-time as a newspaper photographer for 22 years,
and have seen plenty of voting booths in my time. Believe me, they
haven't changed. At least not on the outside. The ballots are different
and the machines that count them improve with time. But the voting
process remains much the same.

To a veteran photojournalist, being sent to the polls is kind of like an
ice cream scooper dishing up one more cone for the summer crowd. You can
practically do it with your eyes closed! Picture this. A resident walks
into a polling place and picks up a piece of paper, hides inside a booth
to fill it out, then drops it in a box on their way out. Now if I was
working in Iraq, I would be toting body armor along with my Canon
cameras. People would be rejoicing as they left, happy to be alive and
free to vote. That's not the case here in the United States. People are
calm here, possibly thinking about where they are going to stop for
their next cup of java. It's a routine for us. We take too many things
for granted here in the U.S.A.

So what is there to look forward to as I enter the polls in search of a
fresh picture, never seen before, to grace the pages of our newspaper?
For me it's all about the people there, and their personalities. Facial
expressions and body language can tell a story much faster than words.

Voters were sparse this morning at the church, and it was very quiet
there. A half-dozen men congregated outside, holding signs and shaking
hands. But inside, the election workers didn't have to do much running
to keep up with today's crowd. I photographed Roni McCall dropping off
her ballot in the collection box, and looked for something else
out-of-the-ordinary. The photo of her will work fine, but I have taken
similar pictures before.

As I glanced around the room, I noticed a young girl kneeling underneath
the voting booths. The woman with her was inside. Four-year-old Layla
Terwilliger had found her perch for the next several minutes as the
voting took place. She saw my camera as I slowly walked over and knelt
down next to the booth. I set the camera on the floor. Rather than
interrupt the woman and spoil a precious moment, I began taking
pictures. Layla seemed curious, but not afraid of the man with the big
camera on the floor outside the booth. The frames blazed away for only a
few seconds before the woman exited the booth. I immediately identified
myself and asked for their names. After showing Layla a picture of
herself in the back of the camera, they dropped off the ballot and
headed out the door with smiles on their faces. I showed the picture in
the back of the camera to a pair of election workers nearby, who smiled
and agreed the precious moment was captured.

A few minutes later as I changed my camera settings outside to shoot the
sign holders, a car pulled up near me and the driver got out. "Oh no," I
thought as the woman walked toward me. My blood pressure started to
rise. Was she going to tell me not to use the pictures I had taken of
Layla? Absolutely not. She stopped to tell me I had made a young girl's
day. Layla seemed down before they went in to vote, and now she was
thrilled that a photographer had taken her picture!

So what do I look forward to when going out to routine assignments?
Meeting people, and maybe making their day!

God's Humor, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

No this was not an April Fool's Day joke but maybe this proves God has
a sense of humor after all.
Corey

Mike Adasczik holds up two pieces of a oak tree Tuesday, April 1 at
his home on Newman Drive in Nashua. Mike works for Daley Outdoor
Service in the city and was cutting down an oak tree with his crew
when he discovered what looked like a frowning face."I've never seen
anything like this," Adasczik said. "In all my 10 or more years of
landscaping."

Trust, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

We received an email recently from someone inquiring about this image.
Here's part of the message "...After the emotional impact, I began to
ask questions about it. It came with no attribution. For on example, I
find the lighting to be amazing for a candid news shot. And then there
is the question of how a journalist could have been in the position to
get such a picture. Actually, what I found with Goggle strongly suggests
that it is legitimate."

It is legit. It was taken by Aaron Thompson, a staff photographer with
the Daily News Journal in Murfreesboro, Tenn. How could he have been in
that position? Without talking to him directly but speaking from
experience I can say by being smart, sensitive and gaining the trust of
the family and friends who attended that funeral.

Let me tell you there are times where it's very uncomfortable to be a
news photographer. Covering the ugly side of life can be difficult.
This is what we do and, good or bad, drama leads to strong journalistic
photos. They stick with you (the reader) more perhaps than anything that
could be written about this sad event. When I spoke recently at the New
England Press Association workshops I was talking about the impact of
photography in newspapers. I asked rhetorically what anyone in the
group could remember being written about 9/11. No response. But when I
put some memorable photographs up on the screen there were nods all
around.

I can think right now the pictures I made at the funeral of John
Ogonowski, who was killed on 9/11, and the photos staff photographer Bob
Hammerstrom has made of similar events. Most recently of Anthony
Kumungu's funeral. He was a soldier, too. Both of us were able to put
ourselves in positions to make particularly dramatic photos by showing
respect and gaining that trust.

Yeah, the light is nice. Sometimes we're blessed with it. Quite often
we're not. Really, conditions are rarely ideal for us. On any given
assignment it's going to be too dark, too wet, hot, cold, late, early,
noisy, full of mosquitoes, boring, slippery, smelly.

Whatever. But I have to say no matter what I run in to it'll never be as
bad as having a flag handed to me that draped my dad's
casket.

-Don Himsel
photo editor