Fireworks in Utah

Taking photographs of fireworks with a manual camera is actually fairly easy. Set your camera on the bulb setting (which keeps the shutter open as long as you want it open) and hold a dark piece of cardboard over the lens. When you anticipate a burst of fireworks, take away the cardboard, then put it back over the lens. Do the same thing a few times. Click the shutter to end the exposure, and then repeat the sequence with different frames.

Man at Work

I took this photograph of a man cleaning his sailboat in the Oceanside Harbor marina. He's sitting on a little board hung from pulleys as he cleans the mast cables. I like the silhouette and the gradation of the light.

Masks for Sale

A vendor at La Bufadora, an ocean blowhole near Rosarito, Mexico, had these colorful clay masks for sale. I was taken by the presentation.

Triathlete Magazine, September 1989 cover photo

This is a shot of my friend Tony Richardson, taken in early 1989, when I covered a triathlon in Cancun, Mexico. In this photograph, Tony was coming out of the water after the first leg of a race, and Triathlete used it as the September 1989 cover shot.

I wrote an article for Triathlete's May 2008 issue (the magazine's 25th-anniversary). The article is a retrospective of my time there as an editor (1986-1991). The current editors, probably dealing with space limitations, cut out what I considered an extremely important section about the top-five male athletes of those days. If anyone has an interest in reading the entire article, as I wrote it, e-mail me at RichardNGraham (at) Gmail.com, or just post a comment, and I'll send it to you.

Acceptable Graffiti? Ugly Art? Something Else?

Right Time, Right Place

So much of photography, to me, is being in the right place at the right time. The most important issue, almost always, is light. I worked in a darkroom in Northridge, California, back in the mid-1980s, and I'll always remember Steve Moulton, the lab manager, telling me that "photography is light." Steve had studied photography at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California. He knew what he was talking about. At the same time, if you're not in the right place, with the right lighting -- and the right subject -- at the right time, you're not likely to achieve your photographic goal.

Maine Pastels

The pastel colors of these old gas pumps and the classic GMC bus caught my eye on a trip in 1984 I took with a good college friend. I took the shot in Maine on a foggy day.

Mt. Rainier waterfalls, 1984

This shot was taken on Oregon's Mt. Rainier in the summer of 1984. My college buddy Rob Krier and I were on a 60-day road trip across North America. We drove 17,000 miles through several Canadian provinces and about 30 U.S. states. I have another version of this shot with Rob in the picture. I'll have to find it and put it up on this site, as it really helps portray the true height of these incredibly beautiful waterfalls.

Sunset Over California's Oceanside Pier

There's something about piers that I've always liked. Oceanside is never a place I would have chosen to live, but I did live there for a year not too long ago, and I found a lot to appreciate about the place. The beach was great for long walks, and I walked from Oceanside to Carlsbad along the shore a few times. Bub's Whisky Dive may have changed names, but it's still the same place. ;)

Artsy Fartsy

I took this photo at the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee a few years back. There was a small blemish in the image that bothered me, so I said, what the heck, let's shake things up. So, I played around in Photoshop. I really like what I came up with. Coolio, mon!

Denali Grizzly and Wolf Tracks

A few years back, I had the opportunity to travel in Alaska, and I went to the Denali National Park and Preserve. My older brother joined me, and I borrowed his digital camera to take the following two shots of tracks left by locals in the soft mud of a river bed. It was probably only a 2-megapixel camera, but it was what was available at the time. I had bearly enough time to shoot before I wolfed down dinner.

Electric Irises

This is just about as Christmas-related a photo as I could find in my collection after a quick perusal. It was a shot I achieved accidentally, and I quite like it. I shot it on the California coast, just north or south of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park; I'm not sure. I was on a photo safari with a friend, and we jumped out of the car for a few minutes. That's when I got this shot.

Merry Christmas!

Guitar de Chelly

I took this photograph at one of my favorite places, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona. It's Navajo Indian land, and the best way to see it is to get a Navajo guide and drive your own car on the actual canyon floor. There are old petroglyphs, wonderful free-standing sandstone towers created by erosion, and you can purchase Navajo silver and turquoise jewelry from native vendors. It's a magical place that I highly recommend. This photograph of my guitar was taken on the canyon floor, and reflects the canyon walls, sky and clouds above.

Space-Age Dream

To me, this shot could be of a spaceship descending upon an unwary city, but it's just the Encounter Restaurant on top of the Theme Building at the Los Angeles International Airport. I pumped up the contrast on the original photo to get this ghostly effect.

Big Brothers, Big Hearts

Me and my Little Brother Jared, playing inline hockey. This is a perfect venue for the following article. It's something that I wrote as part of a job-interview requirement.

FULFILLING! FEELS GREAT!
There’s nothing cooler than being a Big Brother or Big Sister.
by Richard Graham

Drive north from the Reno-Tahoe International Airport toward downtown Reno and you’ll see it -- a large billboard with the words “Little Moments. Big Magic.” The sign advertises Big Brothers Big Sisters of Reno, a program that currently matches local children with “Bigs” in the service area of Reno, Sparks and the north valleys.

According to Pat Fling, the organization’s president and CEO, Reno was the biggest metro area without a program before Big Brothers Big Sisters of Reno opened four-and-a-half years ago.

“The area is very receptive,” Fling said. “Last calendar year, we matched 480 children with ‘Bigs’; this year, we currently have 393 matches. The kids are bright, funny, energetic, curious and full of promise. Because of family circumstances, they’re at risk, through no fault of their own.”

Deaon Clausell, 27, Reno’s 2005 Big Brother of the Year, works for International Game Technology as a software developer in the information systems department. A proud graduate of UNR, Clausell said he had always thought about joining the program, but never got around to it.

“When a friend of mine went through the short process to become a Big Brother, I finally decided to take 10 minutes and fill out the application,” Clausell said. “A month later, I met my Little Brother.”

Clausell has been a Big Brother to Brandon, a 10-year-old fifth grader, for the past two-and-a-half years, Clausell says being a mentor to Brandon (aka “B-Man”), is very fulfilling.

“With work and life, sometimes we forget about taking time to slow down and just have a little fun,” Clausell said. “Being a Big Brother also allows me to know the new hip lingo,” he added with a grin.

“We both like to play video games, and it’s also a lot of fun when the weather is good to get outside and play some sports like basketball, football and Frisbee,” Clausell said. “We've even taken our bikes along the Truckee River bike trail. We have gotten some free tickets to various events in Reno. There are also a lot of places that give discounts in town to Big Brothers, like Red Robin and the YMCA.”

Locals of note who are or have been Big Brothers or Big Sisters include Mike Reed, dean of the school of business at UNR; Channel 2 morning anchor Bill Frankmore; and 2005 Big Sister of the Year Marian Lanius, who is a vice president of the Private Client Group at U.S. Bank in Reno.

According to Reed, “It is a superb program; it gives the grownups a chance to interact with younger people, and it gives kids a chance to see possibility” of different careers and adult life.

“We are part of the school-based program,” Reed said. “We do homework or whatever, one hour a week before school. On weekends, we go for lunch or to a movie, play miniature golf, or ride go carts.”

“It’s not a very big investment of time, but one hour, once a week, makes a huge difference,” said Pat Fling. “Kids with a ‘Big’ improve in their academic performance, improve in relationships with teachers, other adults and their peers, Having a ‘Big’ strengthens their resilience, and they become more able to resist alcohol, drugs and teen pregnancy.”

So, if you feel like hiking the hills of Reno, cycling along the Truckee River, or just kickin’ it at home, do it with a special friend. Consider being a Big Brother or Big Sister of Reno.

For more information, contact Big Brothers Big Sisters of Reno, 495 Apple St # 104, Reno, NV 89502, www.bbbsnn.org, (775) 352-3202.

On the Edge

On a road trip to the Grand Canyon in May, 2006, I was disappointed that pollution or haze in the sky ruined most of the photographs I took. This shot worked, perhaps because I didn't have any sky in the photograph.

Beautiful Rider

I took this photograph on the fly as a group of horseback riders prepared to take the Bright Angel Trail down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in May, 2006. I like the play of light and shadows and the tone of the yellow jacket.

Levels of Lanzarote Loveliness

I took this shot around 1990 (I'd have to look find this slide in my photography photos in my storage unit to be sure) when I went to cover a triathlon in Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco, Africa.

One thing I remember most about Lanzarote was that a local artist, César Manrique, strongly influenced the island's government when it came to regulating the look of the island. Manrique lobbied against high-rise hotels, and I recall that most buildings on the island were two stories at most. Manrique also favored using blue, white and green as the three major traditional colors in local architecture, fitting in with the blue of the ocean, the green of the crops rising from the black volcanic gravel that kept the topsoil from blowing away in the winds that blew over the island, and the white of clouds, I suppose.

Anyway, I took this shot near the triathlon's finish line in the capital city of Arrecife. What I love about the shot is the beauty of the woman, that she was a reader, the ironic wood carving of the jester behind her, the light and shadow behind her, and the probability that this local goddess drank beer, as evidenced by the green bottle to her lower left. Perhaps it was a pop bottle; I prefer to imagine that it was beer. So sue me.

Beauty and the Beach

This was the cover shot for the April 1991 issue of Triathlete magazine, a publication I worked for from 1996-1991. For a time, this was Triathlete's best-selling cover. Heck, it might still be, I don't know. Anyway, wherever you are now, Melissa Patterson, thanks for helping me create this great shot. Long may you run.

Lilly in the Light

This is Lilly, a dog I'm taking care of for three weeks in Northern California while a friend of mine travels in Eastern Europe. Lilly is an Australian Red border collie, and it's not surprising that her breed is known as the most intelligent. Lilly can count to five, speak on command, hold a biscuit on her nose and grab it out of the air, and she ALWAYS knows when you're about to leave the house without her. She's also a bit of an agent provocateur; she likes to run around the neighborhood and tease all the fenced-in dogs, then run on to the next house, reveling in her freedom.