Photo Essay: A day at the gun range

It was a surreal experience going to a shooting range with Maricopa County Board of Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. She was visiting the Joe Foss Shooting Complex in Buckeye to check in on the county-run facility. Toward the end of the tour, several visitors were asked if they wanted to blast a couple rounds off at the range. Wilcox, without hesitation, volunteered and later admitted it was her first time shooting a handgun — though, she has shot rifles before. The reason it was surreal was because Wilcox has a history with firearms, most notably when she was shot by one in 1997 after a board meeting. She recovered and obviously remained in politics. And she's not afraid of guns. It reminded me a lot of President Reagan speaking to the NRA after he survived an assassin's bullet. 

Here are some of my images from my day at the range.

Photo Essay: A day at the public library

With temperatures rising, rising, rising fewer people are spending time outside. Some are taking refuge inside the many libraries within the West Valley. I spent part of Tuesday at the Avondale Civic Center Library, where I found all kinds of people escaping the heat inside the library's vast collection of resources.

Photo Essay: Cattle at Bill Kerr Dairy in Buckeye

It's hard to imagine, but at one point within the last century there were more cows in the Valley than people. The old timers will remember a number of long-forgotten pastures, ranches and dairies, or maybe the famous Cow Palace in central Phoenix. I was born in Phoenix in the early ’80s and even I can remember corners that once had mooing cattle — those same corners now have Walgreens and QTs, and within them $3.29 gallons of milk.

The cows have all been pushed out by development and by the urbanization of our desert frontier. Go west, my friend, and you will see where they have all gone. To Buckeye. To Palo Verde. To Gila Bend. To places where the air smells like cattle, but it least it smells fresh. 

View photographer Ray Thomas spent an afternoon following around the workers at the Bill Kerr Dairy in Buckeye, where the cattle are still king of the Old West.

More Memorial Day shots from Avondale, Palo Verde services

My favorite shots from big events like Memorial Day are always the less obvious ones. The hands with the camera is a good example. The photo is of a woman's hands holding a camera. You can tell by the screen on her camera that she's taking picture of a soldier laying a wreath. You can also see she's holding a lit candle (that's talent, by the way) and and you can see her fingernails are painted in patriotic colors. Nothing in the photo screams Memorial Day, but it somehow conveys the spirit of the holiday. Here is that photo as well as several others from the View's Memorial Day coverage.

When wind transforms your photos for the better

Sometimes Mother Nature is the subject of a photographer's lens — lightning, floods, dust storms — and other times, on fewer occasions, Mother Nature works with the photographer, like a silent partner. Such was the case yesterday.

I was out on the Sun Valley Parkway in Buckeye snapping some pictures of veterans and veteran supporters as they cheered on the arrival of 350 motorcycle riders during the Run for the Wall, a cross-country bike ride to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Nearly all the people on the overpass over Interstate 10 had flags. And a flag without wind looks mighty sad. Luckily the wind was in my favor, blowing quite fast almost directly east, which made the flags flutter directly behind the people watching the riders. The way the wind blew the flags really strengthened the photos, and I'm really happy with the way they turned out. Here is a small preview of some of the shots that will run in tomorrow's West Valley View.