frLast weekend I took a Saturday shift for Black Press. It was a relatively easy shift, although I did have to drive between opposite corners of town for the day’s assignments.
Of course I went places I would never have gone otherwise, such as a high school graduation at UVic and to Saanich Municipal Hall where an ethnobotanist was given the highest honour a resident of Saanich can get.
On Monday I received an email from my photo editor, Don Denton, who informed me that I would have the front page photo for both the Saanich News and Victoria News on Wednesday. Two front pages in one day, from one Saturday shift? I couldn’t ask for more.
The one in Victoria News is of City of Victoria’s parks environmental technician Fred Hook, as a part of a story about herons nesting in Beacon Hill Park. My attempts at getting a photo of him and a heron or two were futile, and I couldn’t really keep Fred from his work for too long. I tried, though. And then I stayed for a while after he left, hoping to catch some heron photos, but that didn’t work out either.
The cover of Saanich News was probably a bit more surprising, because it was not part of a cover story. I had gone to Vancouver Island Technology Park to photograph the Victoria Canary Derby, a soapbox race to raise money for the B.C. Cancer agency. There I discovered a man getting ready to drive down the hill in a beautifully decorated racer; Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard. Him being there was apparently a secret to the guests until moments before he drove down the hill. I just got lucky being in the right spot when he was getting into the racer and adjusting his helmet before being pushed off.
