Southern Fried Funeral

Tonight Trimm Photo attended the Fairbury High School theater performance of the play Southern Fried Funeral. We stopped afterwards to get some interviews. (read below) but first we have a review of Saturday's performance submitted (by request) by Beulah Trimm. 

From the opening scene where Martha Ann Fox (junior Addi Parrack), Fairy June Cooper (junior Sarah Engleman), and Benny Charles Greenwood (sophomore Caleb Trimm) discuss the details surrounding the death of Frye patriarch and civic-minded, good man, Dewey, at the Rotarian buffet Fairbury Jr./Sr. High’s performance of Southern Fried Funeral is literally laugh-out-loud funny. Then, hearing Dorothy Frye (junior Hailie Nicholson) sincerely thank Benny for letting her husband of over 40 year’s die with dignity was all the more funny considering there was talk of wiping mashed potatoes from his face, removing beans from his nostrils, and talk of Benny’s toupee. 

While there is lots of laughter, there is also the expected family drama that comes at such a hard time. Dorothy’s brother-in-law, Uncle Dub (senior Taylor Runge) is the antagonist who is scheming to take her home mere hours after he learns of his brother’s passing. Dorothy’s daughters, Sammy Jo (senior Natalie Rogge) and Harlene (junior Kacy Strarck) verbal spars are fun because they sound like actual southern disagreements – “Shug” and “Lamb” and “Good gravy, you are ugly when you got your hatin’ hat on” all the way to their food fight where poor Ozella Meeks (senior Lauren Patton), chairwoman of the SonShine Committee ends up with pie on her face.

There are touching parts too. Every interaction between Dewey Jr, aka Dewdrop, (8th grader Toby Julin-McCleary and his brother-in-law Beecham (sophomore Alex Buxton) remind you that this is a family story. Dorothy setting a place for her husband at the breakfast table and talking to him about missing her best friend reminds the audience of the loss, making the character even more relatable. Harlene and Atticus (sophomore Zane Grizzle) share a “tender moment” that once again has us laughing. 

The directing team of Mr. Fitzgerald and Natalie Julin-McCleary, along with acting coach, Linda Bauer, are indeed worthy of the praise and admiration that the cast and crew heap on them at the end of Saturday evening’s performance. Their guidance has made this one of the most entertaining productions this reviewer has seen to date. 

The kids do a great job with their Southern accents, their delivery of a hilarious script, and their acting in general. There is still time to come out and enjoy the show on Sunday, November 17, 2019 at 2 p.m. 

How many Rotarians does it takes to have a pancake breakfast? I guess we’ll never know now…

Director Joseph Fitzgerald ---"It was a real honor to work with this cast, the students put in hours and hours of hard work and effort. They were very receptive and coachable. Over the summer I had some ideas but couldn't pin point out something yet so I read probably twelve or thirteen scripts, August came around and kind of narrowed it down. Me, Natalie Julin-McCleary sat down for about three hours one day and started listing out pro's and con's and thought we could pull it off."

Natalie Rogge (Sammy Jo Frye-Lefette)---"I think the play went really good, the energy was up and I think it was one of the best shows we've done so far. The food fight took a long time and we only actually started using food a week ago. Fitz and Natalie just told us to throw and say a line and then keep throwing and be as defensive as possible. I've been doing theater for a long time, I did Missoula Children's Theater ever since I was in Kindergarten and worked my way up from there.

Zane Grizzle (Atticus "Attie" Van Leer)---"The play was awesome, practices were always fun, the performances are the best part. Everyone's coming together, the energy has been the best it's ever been so it's really been fun. Other than playing Rockin Robin in sixth grade I've had no theater experience How did you prepare to play a lawyer?, "Law and Order."

Sports mode can ruin your shots

If you use the sports mode on your camera normally you get decent shots but as it gets darker out you may notice your shots getting blurry. Why would this happen? You're using the correct settings right? It's in "sports mode."

The answer is that when you give up control to the camera to make adjustments to your settings there is a trade off when it gets dark out and you're shooting under the lights. The camera wants to have enough light to make the image and the result is that the shutter speed suffers to the point that action shots become blurry.

So what do you do to fix this?

When the stadium lights come on, and in poorly lit gym's (which is most of them) you have to go manual. That can be scary for a lot of people but if you want crisp action shots you will have to figure it out. You will need to set you shutter speed at at least 400/sec (that is still low in my opinion) and set your F stop to around 4 or 5.6. I set my ISO to 6400 as soon as the sun starts to set or in any gym.

By doing this you have control over how fast your shutter works and you have a better chance of capturing the image without blur. I would not suggest using a flash at all ever.

If you find that your shots are now clear but a bit dark, try setting your F stop to 3.5 or 2.8 to allow more light in. Your depth of field will narrow and may cause some focus issues but at least your shots will be brighter.

Go out some evening with your camera and try to shoot photos of traffic under the street lights and play with the settings.

KT

Best photo advice

If you want to up your game with your photography this is probably the best free advice I can give you. Pay attention to what is going on. Yep, it is that easy. I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I will tell you what I do and if you like my photos this is how I do it.

I've often been at games where I've seen the pro's punching buttons on their phones, probably updating scores to Twitter while great shots go unnoticed. I shake my head and go on wondering who these people are that need up to date Twitter scores but maybe this is a new thing.

Whatever game I am covering I have the camera up to my eye ready for a shot at every play. That is a lot of plays during a football game but nothing is getting past me. I anticipate the play based on the formation and follow the ball. I don't miss much doing that and that's why my shots look like they do. It's the same with volleyball, softball, basketball, etc...

If you are a casual photographer that just wants a few snapshots of your child then this advice probably isn't for you. But you should still pay attention to what's going on. I choose my lens, my angles and where I stand on the field/court based on what I plan to shoot. I have special angles for certain sports, head shots and wide angles also based on the outcome I desire.

Being a good sports photographer means being part of the game and choosing the right shutter speeds and F stops. And by that I mean not using the sports mode that came with the camera. I will get into that in a later article.

This may have seemed like the most obvious bit of advice I could have written but it is by far the most important thing you can do to improve your photography. You have to pay attention to what is going on and be prepared.

KT

Cropping

Next up on photography tips is cropping. I think all camera phones these days allow you to crop, I know mine does so why should you use it? If you take your photography seriously it makes a huge difference in how you photo looks. If you want your images to look professional you should crop all your shots because there is usually a lot of extra "stuff" that needs to go. Let me explain why I do what I do.

If you ever wondered why I put the batter at the back of the photo when I post softball pictures there is a good reason. You have to give you subject a place to move in the picture. The picture is a still image but by giving more room in the direction of where the subject is looking, or moving, you create a visual dynamic that the still shot has room to breathe and that the subject, if it were a live shot could move into this space.

Here is a side by side of the raw shot of Taylor moving towards the team. In the original shot she was centered and that created the illusion that she was stuck in this space. By cropping out the area behind her now she has a space to move into. This may seem like a trivial thing but I crop all my shots this way. I think this simple change takes a photo from amateur to professional in one step.  I feel you have to give your subject a place to go or you end up stagnating them in that space.

Here is another example and probably the most dynamic. Here Devin just threw the ball and if I didn't give him the space to throw the ball he would look flat and by flat I mean still. I want my still image to look like it has a place to go and by leaving him plenty of room to move into I have created that illusion.

If you want your photos to get to the next level spend some time with your crop function and give your subject a place to go. Don't force them into a still space and stagnate them. Let them breathe...

KT

Lens choice

Back when we first started Trimm Photo I used to give a lot of photography advice. I didn't think anyone was reading it so I quit, but let's give it another try.

I want to talk about lens selection when it comes to taking photographs. Obviously this pertains to using a DSLR and not your camera phone although most camera phones come with software that mimic the look of a digital single lens reflex camera.

Most people who shoot DSLR use the 70-200mm lens that comes with the package. That is a good choice for most sports photography since most parents are restricted to the bleachers and that is the only way they can get half decent close ups. The problem with those kinds of lenses is that the pictures you get often look flat. That is because you are condensing all the foreground and all the background into one shot and that's a lot to pack in. Here is an example.

In this picture all the cheerleaders are on an even plane even though in real life they are staggered from front to back. (or side to side) The long lens condenses them into a flat plane that makes the picture look flat as well.

If you were to use a 24mm wide angle lens and get as close as you can the picture (although a 2D image is still flat) will look less flat and give the illusion of the dimension of distance. Here is an example of a 24mm lens close up.

I was probably 2 feet from Domenic's face when I shot this picture, surprised he didn't punch me, but as you can see there looks to be some distance between him and #4 Seth who is standing behind him to our left. It is an illusion but you can tell there is a space between them.

In the next example the football players also look compressed like there is no space between them. This was shot with the telephoto lens F4 (which accounts for the short depth of field)

In this last example again I used the 24mm wide angle as close as I dare get to get the shot of the coach's huddle.

You can see the coaches and players have some distance between them and don't look smooshed flat like you would get with a telephoto lens.

So lens choice is important if you want to convey a certain kind of look. I prefer the wide angle lens for many shots and if you see me out covering games you will notice I alter between two camera bodies, one with a 70-200mm telephoto and the other with a 24mm wide angle. I do this most at volleyball and basketball games where I need a variety of shots.

If this article goes over well I will consider starting up writing more photography articles in the future. Let me know what you think.

Keith

Don't give up

I don't have a sport that I follow, I don't know what channel ESPN is on, never been to a Nebraska football game and barley know the rules to most of the sports I cover but somehow run a reasonably successful local sports page. The last sport I went out for in school was 5th grade football where I played guard and although I'm 6'4" never played basketball.

Even I find this odd.

But I have learned a lot over the last 3 years and I know a lot more than I used to about the games, matches and tournaments I cover. Over the last 3 years I basically posted photos and let the world tag whoever and that seemed to work out pretty good. At the beginning I only covered Fairbury and didn't shoot photos of the opposing team unless they happened to get in the shot by accident.

Things have changed a lot since the first time I covered Fairbury football 3 years ago and now I do interviews, cover both teams, (now there was a marketing move), and have tried to build Trimm Photo into something that people would take seriously.

My background is in journalism, photography and videography and that is where this all came from. The sports came second and has been a struggle. I remember talking to someone asking about why there is 1 volleyball player who is dressed different that the others. When I was in high school I didn't recall that and learned that volleyball had a few changes since the stone age.

Now that the NSAA is also taking me seriously I feel like I have to step it up another 3 notches so I can maintain the press pass. I know I have a different perspective than the other media sites when it comes to sports coverage because I know nothing about sports reporting. I don't know the lingo, I don't want to know the lingo and have found a way to get around it that I am comfortable with. I think as long as I give the score of the game and a lot of photos for the parents I'm probably doing it right. (and a few interviews along the way.)

So why am I writing this? It's because it's Wednesday and nothing is going on. I try to post something new each day and today I got nothing. Well, except for this. Sometimes I think I over do it because I don't have a staff to rely on and want to be taken seriously but all in all I'm having fun.

So encourage your friends and family to follow the page and see what else I come up with in the future and thanks for supporting Trimm Photo.

The importance of being humble

A while back I stopped over to do some pregame coverage of the Lady O volleyball team when I heard head coach Melissa Carper address the team to discuss the importance of being humble. At the time I didn't understand why this was that important to stop practice to talk about the subject but she was adamant that the team act with some dignity and respect and not make fools of themselves acting out.

So why do I bring this up now?

I follow many sports teams on Twitter and have noticed a lack of humility in some if not many of posts of at least one of the teams I cover. I'm not going to name the team and it's not even volleyball but now I understand what Carper was talking about. If you're good at what you do that's great, just don't brag about it online.

I've been guilty of a lack of humility on this page and catch myself and try to tone it down. We've had a few good things on the page that I'm very proud of but bragging and arrogance just looks bad. We need to practice what we preach.

But back to being humble. I think teams need to be aware of what they are posting and how it looks to the public. If you are good at what you do that is awesome, but let people on the outside be the ones that brag on you, don't do it in your pictures, videos and comments. If that's the sort of image you want to portray then fine, it's your team. But I probably won't be back to cover you again.

Why it’s important to click the like and share button.

Over the years we have received messages from families complaining that the local media doesn’t cover their programs and games and ask us if we would, We usually say yes if we can make it. Trimm Photo was founded on filling in the cracks where other media didn’t show up and we have no problem getting you the coverage that you want.

But we have noticed that in some of these instances these games get little views and shares in return. Maybe there was a reason why the other outlets weren’t covering the games. It is a 2 way street, if you want media to cover your event you need to click the like button and the share button to make it worth the effort.

I have a great example shooting SCC volleyball and Softball last year. We were one of the few media that showed up and there was almost no response. We were even asked by the athletic director why we were there. Shocking to say the least. We don’t plan to come back to SCC anytime soon because we don’t feel they bother to promote their own programs.

We have also heard that the local paper quit showing up as well and we can see why. It goes both ways.

It’s easy to look at the pictures and stories we produce and move on to the next thing but we want you to know how much work goes into the shooting, interviews, editing and posting of the work. And there is little to no money in it.

 We don’t know how much our fellow journalists are making but we blew through our sponsor money a long time ago and we're basically back to doing this as a hobby again.

So what we're am asking is that you help us out and play your part. If you like what you see like it. There is a button just for that. If you think the work we do is share worthy click that button as well.We prefer the share button to the like button any day. If you are new to the site like the page. The more followers the bigger the footprint and the further our content goes.

Media personality

Every media outlet has its own personality, I hope you agree with that observation and Trimm Photo is no different. There is a lot of local media around the Southeast Nebraska area and I bet you wonder why we added ourselves to the mix. It’s a long story but Keith Trimm had planned to work in the media since high school way back in the stone age and went to UNK to pursue that dream but quickly realized that paying bills with that occupation may be a problem so instead went back to school to get a career in the medical profession and decided to do the media thing to scratch that itch on the side.

Back to the topic. I recently read a post on our site from a longtime fan that Trimm Photo doesn’t dwell on the negative and does a great job of promoting our youth. That was nice to read and yes we’re not interested in the negativity. That wasn’t anything we planned (we being Cheryl and myself) but over the last 3 years that’s seems to be one of the things we’re known for.

Like I said there is a lot of local media from the Fairbury Journal News, to NCN/KUTT, to the Daily Sun to 1011 news and we are all different. We may cover the same events, and I do see a lot of local media everywhere I go to cover events but I think the end result is often a bit different.

Maybe it’s because we are not tied to a printing press, or the Nebraska Press association and we allow ourselves more freedom but I think Trimm Photo is different than the other local media. We can probably get away with a lot more than anyone else because we are our own editors, reporters, videographers, photographers and what not.

The final decision is usually handed down at supper time, (or sooner) depending on what my wife and I decide to publish. We know a lot of teachers, coaches and students because our sons are in school and Cheryl used to be the President of the Fairbury Booster club. We have also done a gazillion button pictures and Cheryl works very hard to shoot, design and make the buttons herself. She deserves a lot of credit for that.

So what I think is very cool is that the teachers and coaches treat us like they would any other media outlet. For the 1st and 2nd years Trimm Photo has been around we didn’t have an NSAA media pass and relied on the schools to let us on the field or on the sidelines to cover their games and events. Now that we have the credentials we feel like we made it, although I think we actually made it a long time ago.

I spent the last few weeks running around to different high schools taking pictures, shooting video and getting interviews and all the coaches are awesome. They look at my hat (which says Trimm Photo) on it and they know who I am and treat me like I was from ESPN or something.

We plan to keep covering the local scene, not only sports but any school related events and love the interaction we get with the fans of our page. I was just telling Cheryl the other day that I prefer to post messages on the page for everyone to read instead of making personal contacts because I want Trimm Photo to be interactive. We speak on the page and you respond and that is awesome.

We also realize who our audience is and as long as moms keep liking the page we will grow grow grow. Now I’m not coming down on dads but according to Facebook analytics moms make up the majority of our followers by about 80%. I think is says our top fans are women 35-44 from Beatrice.

So, keep checking out our page and look for your kids, we plan to keep doing what we’re doing and maybe add some new things along the way. With modern technology we can always up the game. Maybe we’ll get a drone someday so we can shoot games from the sky. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Behind every 4-H’er

A mom

The high light of our year and maybe the longest week of the year as well. THE FAIR. Our kids work all year long, going to club meetings, volunteering, raising money for club projects, working on fair projects, taking care of their livestock/ pets. It all comes together (sometimes the morning of) but none the less it’s done. The kids work so hard all year and it’s about to all pay off.
4-H has always been in my families blood. My grandpa and grandma on both sides were in 4-H. My father and mother were in 4-H and my siblings and I were in 4-H at a young age. Unfortunately one year I decided to take on a different summer activity which meant I wouldn’t be able to make it to the fair any more.

So at the end of that week, we packed up all of the ropes, the shovels, hoses, buckets, and brushes. We went home unloaded everything into the barn and walked away. Well the years passed and the dust on my show box got thicker and thicker until I had forgot about all of the stuff that was behind the main Show barn at the Gage County Fair.
Now as an adult I go to the fair and I walk threw the livestock barns and for some reason I don’t remember all the long hot days of doing chores and washing cows but I remember the year I feel asleep on one of the biggest cows in our club while doing barn duty, the fun we had playing with the other kids in the club down at the campers, and the famous water fight on the last day when we were cleaning up!

This year will be my sons 2nd year in 4-H. He is the Vice President of the Blue River 4-H club and watching him take care of his animals and the love he has for them fills my heart with joy. Its not all fun and games, it’s hard work, dirty work, you sweat a lot and there are many late nights. Sometimes tempers get short (his and mine) Which now I know why it was so easy for my parents to say “it’s ok to be done” because now as a parent I see how much work it is to be a 4-H’ers parent. But that is why it is all worth it.

It’s not always about the ribbon that he takes home but one day I hope he is able to look back and see what a impact all his hard work has taught him. Threw his club he is learning life skills that will stick with him for a life time. In his short 2 years I have seen his leadership skills grow, his love for others and wanting to help others, and with time and practice he will learn the ins and outs of livestock and agriculture and with the knowledge..........O the places he will go.

x

Way back in the 60's my father Don Trimm ran a photography studio out of our house. I was a little kid and I don't remember any of it except we had a room in our house called the "Dark Room," which was a pantry by the time I knew it but was where my father had previously developed negatives and prints. Hence it was a photography dark room at one time.

I remember seeing stacks of his photos and many of them were from the Miss Fairbury contest which must have been a big thing back in the day. On the back of all his photograph proofs was stamped, "Don Trimm Photo." I don't know if because of the size of the stamp they couldn't fit "Photograpy" but that stuck with me for years. I started photography back before high school and had a working dark room as well, (way before digital) where I processed negatives and made proofs.

Currently we have been working with the Miss Jefferson County contest which just goes to show that some things never change. 50 years later we are carrying on my fathers legacy. I wish I had some of those proofs but they were destroyed years ago. He was fond of black and white portraits with dramatic lighting.

When we decided to start Trimm Photo I wanted to honor my father by using "Photo" instead of "Photography" and also decided to make it a media site instead of a photography studio because I had planned to  be a journalist back in college. I am a Registered Nurse by profession and me and my wife Cheryl run Trimm Photo as a hobby on steroids.

In the modern age of the internet, anyone can be a journalist and we jumped on the opportunity. We have covered many high school sporting and special events in Southeast Nebraska  and have got to know many coaches and students as well as visited many schools. We have a child who is a freshman at FHS and one that just graduated who are very active in sports. We have covered many sporting events (most of them actually) where our sons were not participating.

As a media site we do not sell prints. Some do, we chose not to and ask for sponsorship instead. That has worked well for us as we'd prefer to give our work away instead of trying to sell it. You can download prints and print at home or take them to Wal Mart in Fairbury or Beatrice to print. We have permission slips at both.

 We also produce a lot of video content and were the first in Fairbury to do so. We provided video for the Fairbury Journal News website before they created their version and have over 800 local content videos on our YouTube channel.

We seem to have found our niche and have created a good following, heading towards 3000 as of the writing of this article. We hope to gain many more as we have at least 4 more years to do this before our son graduates. I don't want to give away all our secrets but the motto I often use is that everyone has a mom and that Trimm Photo was built on the support of mothers.

Thanks moms for making us what we are.

Keith and Cheryl Trimm.