On Assignment: Cowlitz Co., Washington-Day Eight

"Cold Water Lake" by Wes Aldridge

Whew, 'tis finished. After a helluva crazy day, another IMAGES Magazine has all photography assignments complete. Now, here are the tales of the day.

It started off with a portrait of an athletic director of a local college. I met him at the college baseball diamond as a tournament was being played. We decided to shoot him in the foreground from the third base line stands with the diamond behind him. As I poised to take my first shot, a line drive foul ball came screaming at me. I dropped the camera from my eye quick enough to watch it slam into my right thigh, dead center. Yes, there is a nice baseball sized bruise there.

Later in the day, I did the 50-mile voyage to Mt. St. Helens to do a photo essay for the magazine. The shot for the day is from a place called Cold Water Lake with the mountain in the background. I was searching high and low for shots for the photo essay and decided to take a three-mile hike around the lake to find a vantage point with a great reflection. I like this one, and the blog is up once again.

Finally, I drove from Cowlitz County to Vancouver, Washington, to be closer to the Portland, Oregon, airport for my morning flight. I sat down at the desk in my executive suite in the Holiday Inn Express to download my photos for the day. Then, my spirit dropped. After calling back to the hotel I stayed at in Cowlitz for the past week, I confirmed that I left my memory card reader, camera battery charger and cell charger in the room. I jumped in the convertible and popped in my Telefon Tel Aviv CD and back to Cowlitz I went, 1 hour and 15 minutes roundtrip.

It was just another day full of adventures. Some people might look at these events as unfortunate, but screw that. I believe what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and we all know I should have been dead many, many times ago and it has all made me pretty strong. So, if I can keep the adventure going, I promise I will keep it exciting, or at least keep myself entertained. That's what's important anyway, right?