Chen's World Blog

This morning I went to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake to take photos of an annual bison roundup, as well as the school children who come to the island to learn more about bison. All of the children have mental or physical disabilities, but they were really fun to work with. They behaved really well, and I was able to get some good photos of them.

In addition, it was just a fun experience for me to see bison at a super close distance. They were treated just like the cows or the bulls that I have seen in the rodeos except that the bison were a lot stronger and bigger and more dangerous. I heard some pretty sad and crazy stories today about some people who have gotten hurt by the bison because they were either not careful or just being stupid.

Watching dogs run at Course A’Lure is an interesting event. I was sent to take photos of Humane Society of Utah’s “Fall in Love” Autumn Adopt-a-thon event in Murray, Utah. The dog, which runs the fastest in the course, wins the race. Simple, right? Wrong. The entire course was about 500 feet long, but there were dogs just didn’t care to win the race or not. They just stepped out of the track. The funny thing was that the big dogs usually got sidetrack and didn’t have any time recorded, and the small dogs often finished the course and got the fastest time.

There was a bus accident in Idaho and one marching band instructor was killed last Saturday night. Her name is Heather Christensen. Since I have never met her, I didn’t how good of a person she was. But the amount of people who attended to her candlelight vigil amazed me. Hundreds of people showed up in different places. Here is more of the story.

The most dramatic sports event I have seen this year so far has to be today’s 3A Utah High School Boys Golf Championships. You can read the whole story at the Deseret News here. The short version of the story is that the committee made a mistake announcing that the first two teams were tied and forced a playoff with each other. But then, Park City’s Jack Burrus stood up and shouted to the committee that they made a mistake, and he was right, one stroke less than his competitor, Judge Memorial High School, 603-604. That mistake sank the hearts of the Judge Memorial team hard. Some cried, and some were angry. It was not a good day for them to have, to remember. On other side of the room, the winning team, Park City High School players cheering for their championship title.

I was standing  aside in the crowded conference room watching one team cry and the other shout for joy. The entire span of human emotions could be seen in one room at the same time. It was quite amusing to me.

This morning I went to jail – a fairly new reopened jail that was closed from 2002 to this year. My assignment was to take photos of a group of Salt Lake County Council members on a tour of the Oxbow jail. The experience was not as bad as I thought it would be. For those of you who have never been to a jail and seen too many terrifying jail movies can understand how I felt this morning. Although I was making jokes and laughing with the reporters and other people, my heart was not at ease.

When we followed Capt. Kevin Harris through the hallway and finally saw the inmates, all I was thinking was “prison break, prison break, prison break….”! This is the best chance for them to escape and kidnap us. Of course, all these were not true. Lol! In reality, the inmates we visited were really not that scary. In fact, we went into one of the units and talked to the inmates face to face. It was a very interesting feeling to be in there, depressing, exciting, and nervous. After the tour, I came out of the jail alive, whew…!

The past Sunday was freezing and wet, not the best day to be outdoor, not to mention having a birthday celebration at a park. But there is one person’s birthday worth withstanding the misery of the cold, Mahatma Gandhi. If you want to learn more about him, you can look him up here. What I want to say is that during the celebration, there was a girl from India dancing barefoot in a pavilion at the International Peace Garden. I was so cold that I couldn’t even talk, but she, not even dressed warmly, danced as if she was in a comfortable climate. Amazing!

Divya Narayanan performs an Indian classical dance during the Mahatma Ghandi birthday celebration at International Peace Gardens in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Finally, this is my first college football game. It’s way more excited than the high schoolers’. The light was just beautiful. Although some photographers complained about light was too flat because it was a cloudy day, for me, I was really grateful to shoot a football game without boosting up my ISO. So here are some of the pictures that I am happy with.

Last night, the temperature dropped significantly here, Salt Lake Valley. The result, snow! It was the first snow of the fall in Salt Lake City, and more importantly, it was my first time to see snow. Seeing the snow was amazing, but the experience was really cold! My editors knew that I have not seen snow yet, so they sent me to cover today’s weather photo assignment. Of course, I eagerly accepted. I was sent to the Little Cottonwood Canyon in Sandy, UT. Also, I was able to take my wife with me to the assignment. We were so amazed to see the snow flakes hitting my windshield as we drove up the canyon. As we were driving, we saw a girl running along side the road. Since it’s snowing, we stopped and asked if she wanted a ride, but she declined and wanted to keep running. Well, in that case, I took out my camera and took some photos of her as part of my assignment.

As we were driving to the next town, the snow started falling stronger. It was harder to drive and to take photos because I could not find anybody who was outside in the cold. So I decided to turn around and go back. As we started to drive back, I saw two women shoveling the snow in front of a building. It was such good timing for me to take photos for the assignment. In brief, I turned in my assignment and very happy about the day.

My last assignment of the day was to take some pictures of LDS mothers and wives dance at a church. I was like: what could be more boring than that. When I got there and start taking photos of them dancing, I realized that they were really good and I really enjoy watching it. In the end, I didn’t regret a bit for having that assignment.

This event happened last week. President of Sutherland Institute Paul Mero spoke about why we protect marriage and family in the law during a pro-family rally at Provo Tabernacle. Interestingly, the editor of the Deseret News Joe Cannon also spoke at the event. Joe Cannon is the boss of the Deseret News, which means he’s also my boss. It was my first time seeing him in person, but I never thought I would meet him on an assignment.

Paul Mero

Joe Cannon