ShutterSpeed

One of the most difficult aspects of being a photographer is editing your images. The process starts when the photographer is in the field shooting. Elements such as lens selection, depth of field, exposure and lighting can help the photographer edit within the camera the subject or event as it happens.

I take a little more than a hundred frames on average, depending on the assignment. For example, when I cover a football game at UW, I might shoot 800 frames. On the flip side, a feature or portrait might yield 25 or 30 frames. In any case, choosing one image from a hundred can be difficult.

I recently struggled with an editing decision on the WTE’s coverage of the deployment of local National Guard troops to Kuwait.

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Sometimes you don’t know what to expect when going to an assignment. Today, I headed to a tax day protest in front of the capitol expecting 10 or 20 people. As I drove up, I was amazed that more than 300 people had gathered to protest government spending and taxes. Protests offer photojournalists many opportunities to make great images. And I have to admit, I get excited over the prospect of covering a situation of potential conflict.

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Lynette Enyeart looks up at her husband Steve as he tries to comfort her as a nurse stretches her legs to keep her as limber as possible as she spent nine months in a hospital bed after breaking 22 bones in a head-on automobile collision on Aug. 25, 2008. On Saturday, April 11, 2009, Lynette died due to complications of a surgery. Steve, Lynette and their 21-year-old son Nicholas were driving home in three separate vehicles that evening when drunk driver Robert Crowder swerved into their lane. Steve, who was driving the lead car, reacted and missed Crowder, but Lynette was unable to get out of his path and was struck. When Steve ran back to his wife's annihilated Saturn, he said, "I thought to myself, there is no way she is going to be alive. Nicholas, who was in the rear of the caravan, helped Crowder from his vehicle along with a nurse who stopped to assist. Crowder escaped with minor injuries, while Lynette broke 22 bones with more than 40 total breaks.

In early February we published a story titled “Crashing halt.” It chronicled the struggles of Steve Enyeart as he stood by his wife Lynette’s side while she recovered from injuries suffered in a head-on collision. The other driver, Robert Crowder, was intoxicated and swerved into oncoming traffic. Steve, who led a trio of cars driven by him, Lynette and their 21-year-old son Nicholas, dodged the automobile, which then struck Lynette’s Saturn sedan as Nicholas watched the event.

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