Anchor of The Year?

So this happened. For the third straight year, I am a finalist for the Society of Professional Journalists Florida Chapter Anchor of the Year. I don’t know if this is good. I worked as at WWSB-TV in Sarasota for not even two full weeks of 2014, and my entry consisted of work from a single day’s ordinary newscasts. Either the judge really liked my work on a mundane news day, or only three people entered and all of us made the finals.

You may judge for yourself:

South Dakota Wants Would-Be Mars Colonists

I have not made this up. South Dakota has produced a video extolling its virtues compared to those of Mars for people considering the one-way trip to the red planet. South Dakota, it brags, is "progressive, productive and abundant in oxygen."

My Photos on FineArtAmerica.com

People like the photos I post on Facebook and on Instagram (@PhotoQuist). Now I'll see if anyone likes them enough to buy one. I've uploaded about two dozen to a website called FineArtAmerica.com, where artists can upload their work and the site takes care of the orders, of the making the prints, and doing any framing that a customer wants.

Check it out!

Baby Chimp Plays with Tiger and Wolf Cubs

Useless cuteness? Nah. No such thing. Happy Friday!

Lorikeets Play - Sony Power Zoom Lens Test

One cool thing about my job is that I get to try out cool gear like the Sony FE PZ 28-135mm G OSS lens. Some days I even get paid to go to the zoo and take pictures or photos! The Sony power zoom lens is designed with video in mind, so that's what I shot with it.

While shooting demo footage with the lens on a Sony A7S camera, I caught a couple of interesting exchanges between these colorful birds at Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa called lorikeets. I don't know if this is their version of wrestling, or if it's an attempt at mating. But it's fun to watch?



I did no color grading, correcting or sharpening in post. This is straight from the camera, rendered to an MP4 file. The part before the dissolve used the lens' auto focus. After the transition I manually focused the lens. This shot doesn't feature much of the zoom, but it worked well for me. I'd say more but since I will review the lens for my job, I don't want to steal anyone's thunder! But the result will go up on YouTube, and I'll post it here.

Prepare for the Best

A photo posted by @photoquist on Dec 12, 2014 at 4:16am PST

"Expect the best. Prepare for the worst," the saying goes. Prepare for the best, too. You'd hate not to be ready if it happened.

Oh, and follow me on Instagram: @PhotoQuist.

Flying Drones

First thing: This is not journalism, I know. This is a marketing video, and it's a lot of what I do now. The cool thing for me*, as you'll see in this video, is that I get my hands on some really cool gadgets and get to try them out.



*Also, they pay me.

Anchor of the Year? Update: Not Quite

Looking back at previous posts, I see that I mentioned that I was a finalist for the Society of Professional Journalists Florida Anchor of the Year. And I left you hanging.

Now I have this to hang. The award ceremony happened in Miami last month, and I finished runner-up. Second place for the second year in a row. I obviously would have preferred to finish first, but second place in the whole state is not bad for a weekend guy at a small market station. It will have to do. I have likely anchored my last TV newscast. If so, I feel proud of the work I did, and glad to see it recognized as good.

Even if not quite as good as I'd hoped!

Here is the entry I submitted:

Hello Again!

Hello faithful readers, from your far less than faithful correspondent. I cannot explain my absence, though not having anything interesting to say could explain some of it.

(Good rule of thumb: when you have nothing to say, don't say it!)

But I saw on Facebook, that vast wasteland of status updates thumbed on phones and viral animal videos, that a friend of mine had earned an award nomination for her blog.

But first, because I know this might be a long time away from Facebook, here's a viral animal video:



Now back to our programming. Here's the link to the blog award finalists: http://typeaparent.com/announcing-still-blog-award-finalists.html. Back in the day, I would have made a hyperlink so you wouldn't have to see the URL. Of course, back then, I could remember what URL stood for.

Turns out I should have spent more time typing in this space more often. My friend's name is Des Miller and her blog (again with the lack of hyperlink, sorry: http://stressfreebaby.com) actually makes her money. This is a wonderful but alien concept to me since my online scribblings have only made me trouble.

And she's not the only one. One of the other finalists, Carter Gaddis, is a former sportswriter for the Tampa Tribune who interviewed me when I got my job at WFLA-TV in Tampa. Forgive him if he does not remember me, for the occasion stood out far more to me than to him. I was so thrilled to get a mention in the newspaper without having to get arrested! Plus, it was in 1997, which at last count was 17 years ago.

Not that I do count these things, but I was much younger then. I'm not saying I'm old, but when asked my age, not only do I not like to reveal it, it takes me a while even to remember the number.

Old being relative. A former colleague of mine at WWSB-TV named Linda Carson was 75 when she signed a new contract with the station earlier this year. When (though at that age you must allow for the possibility of an "if") she finishes it, she will be one month shy of 79. And, knowing her, ready to sign another contract.

I'm nowhere near that age. I just feel like it sometimes when my knee sounds like Rice Crispies popping in freshly poured milk as I hobble up the stairs.

But where was I? Oh, yes. People making money from blogging. Pretty cool. They do have to put disclaimers on many of the posts about the free stuff, or free trips, or other payment or consideration for writing about them, while the only disclaimer I put here is that nobody would possibly pay for this mess of caffeine-fueled stream of consciousness.

I should probably mention for that one person who actually does follow this blog that I have found gainful employment again, in addition to my personal documentary business (at http://personal-documentary.com), though I better check the definition of gainful, because if it means making a lot of money, well...

Yeah, so it's like a lot of my jobs in TV news were.  This one is not in TV news but is a job that involves writing and appearing on camera. It's not secret, but if I say no more about it, maybe I won't cause myself any trouble!

You know what that means if I start to write more often here: lots of cat stories!

You can't wait, can you?

Don't answer that. I was just beginning to feel good about this.