The pages

Here's how the layout worked in Sunday's paper for my story about Steven. I was really happy with how much real estate we were able to get. It's definitely the first time I've seen a 6 column photo appear in the Dispatch/Argus since I've been here. Getting to work on this story was a beautiful way to cap off my internship and was certainly the largest and most compelling story I've produced thus far in my career. I'm looking forward to working on a follow-up in a few months.

Today was the last day of the internship. It's definitely been an awesome experience working with some great photographers, reporters, and editors; really an invaluable learning experience. Although I'm very excited to move on with my next plans, I'll definitely miss coming into the office and seeing all the great people at the Dispatch and the Rock Island Argus.

Fighting for life

After hooking himself up to his dialysis machine, Steven reaches across his bed to turn on a lamp so he can read before going to sleep on Thursday night, December 4. The dialysis machine works in stages during the night, filling and draining specific amounts of fluid; the first stage pictured here is a drain cycle that requires Steven to remain relatively still and limits his movement for about 15 minutes until the first fill cycle begins.




Barb Rench gives her son Steven a kiss on the cheek while they make a batch of Christmas cookies at home on Monday evening, December 6. Steven and his mom make cookies together every year as a holiday tradition.




Steven washes his hands before hooking himself up to his dialysis machine on Monday night, Dec. 8. He washes his hands for a full three minutes while wearing a mask to prevent contamination when connecting the tubing with his peritoneal dialysis catheter attached to his stomach.




Steven reads one of his books about cars before going to bed on Monday evening, Dec. 22.




Barb Rench rests her head on Steven's shoulder while sitting in the waiting room of the University of Iowa Children's Hospital Pediatric Specialty Clinic in Iowa City on Friday morning, Dec. 5.




Steven Rench lines up with his classmates before gym class first period at Washington Jr. High School in Rock Island on Tuesday morning, Dec. 16. Steven hadn't yet told his friends or teachers about his condition, saying, "They'll ask too many questions."


I just finished up the biggest project of my internship. Dawn Neuses, one of the reporters at the Dispatch/Argus, and I have been following Steven Rench, 13, of Rock Island and his struggle with end stage renal disease. Every night Steven hooks himself up to a bedside dialysis machine that filters through his body, cleaning his blood during the night, and disconnects in the morning before going to school or taking a weekend trip with his family. Although the dialysis is bridging his life, Steven will die if he does not have a kidney transplant, an operation he will likely undergo in early 2009.

It has been an amazing experience being able to document this family's life for the last month. I probably saw the Rench's just as much as my own family while I was working on this story and even though I've only known them for a short time, it feels like much longer. It's looking like I'll be able to do a follow-up story later in the spring when Steven is further along in the transplant process, which I'm looking forward to very much. I am so grateful to the Rench family for allowing me to get such an intimate glimpse into their lives. Hopefully our words and images do justice to their amazing story. Thanks again.


Slide Show


Video Interview with Steven


Story


-Thanks for looking


All images copyright Patrick Traylor/The Dispatch and the Rock Island Argus

Holiday People

This neighborhood in East Moline has a tradition of dressing up in these awesome hand made costumes every year and waving at the busses of senior citizens on the Christmas lights tours that the Rock Island Police Department puts on. These are a few outtakes that ended up looking pretty eerie.

Backstage at The Nutcracker

I had a great time today shooting backstage during a performance of The Nutcracker at the Adler Theatre in Davenport. See the audio slide show here.

Remembering Travis Hearn

Reshanda Johnson watches people stream into the Rock Island High School Fiend House for the funeral of Travis Hearn on Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 10. Family, friends and members of the community attended the service to honor the former Rock Island football player who suffered a severe spinal cord injury during a game on Sept. 22, 2006, and was paralyzed from the neck down. Hearn passed away on Thursday, Dec. 4.

This was a huge event for Rock Island and really all of the Quad-Cities. Travis Hearn was the focus of media attention for over two years while battling his injury and it was pretty amazing how all different parts of the community came together to support him and his family. This shot is a quieter moment from the service before everything got started.

Another staff photographer, Paul Colletti, and I covered the events leading up to the funeral and the service. See the audio slide show here.

Online Ninja Lessons

An outtake from yesterday.

Ken Gullette conducts a weapons lesson with student Colin Frye of Milan, Ill. while his wife, Nancy Gullette, films the lesson for his online martial arts instructional site, www.internalfightingarts.com, in the basement of his Silvis, Ill. home on Sunday afternoon. Gullette has studied martial arts for 35 years and recently began running his instructional Web site full time after moving back to the Quad-Cities after being laid off from a job in Tampa, Fla.

Preparing for Our Lady of Guadalupe

Today I made pictures of dancers preparing for the Mexican celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. This group practices in a vacant store building on 4th Ave. in Moline. They ran extension cords from a neighboring building to power a small space heater and two light bulbs. It's amazing how people can turn a building with no heat or electricity into a culturally-rich space filled with music and dance. These are a few outtakes, but I'll be building an audio slide show in the next few days and I'll definitely update when that's done.

It's assignments like this that make all the product shots for the ad department and cheesy parades worth getting through. Here's the slide show I did for the paper. I took audio too but sadly didn't have enough time to get that in.

Basketball Portrait

An interesting portrait from today of one of Rock Island's top basketball players. I wish there was some more emotion in the face but since he could only hold the balls out like that for a few seconds at a time, I think it turned out pretty well.

Juletumtes and the search for the Julbock

Today I went to Bishop Hill, Ill. to make some photos of Julmarknad, a traditional Swedish Christmas market that they have every year. Amid my search for things to take photos of, I was assaulted with volleys of snowballs by a group of often mischievous characters from Swedish folklore, the Jultumte (pronounced Yule-tumpty). It turned out they were just children wearing costumes, but it was exciting none the less. Also, reporter Brian Krans and I searched for and eventually found the Julbock (Yule-bock), another Swedish folk character of Christmastime. But too bad for the Julbock, it too had an encounter with the snowball toting Jultumtes.

Festival of Trees

I've been shooting the annual Quad-Cities holiday event, the Festival of Trees, quite a bit lately. There are lots of different events stretching across a few weeks. Mostly I've been shooting stock kids doing holiday stuff, but through this mirror the standard merriment looks a little weird.

More River Trail Holga

I got another Holga roll developed and scanned, this time at a place I found in Rock Island. The scan quality isn't as good and they're a little bit cropped so I might have them rescanned at some point. But they turned out well enough, especially at less than 1/3 of the price to send them to Chicago. These shots were all made on November 4th on the portion of the trail between Sunset Marina and the Casino riverboat in Rock Island.

Basketball

Here's an outtake from shooting a girls basketball preview at United Township High School in East Moline the other day.

The Pelican Left Behind

Some excitement today. This American white pelican was left behind a few weeks ago when the rest of the flock migrated south for the winter. Animal activists and volunteer firefighters captured the bird today and took it to an animal hospital for examination. Watch the multimedia piece here.

Season's End

I traveled to the Chicagoland area today to shoot Rock Island High School's IHSA Class 6A Quarterfinal game. They got trounced 38-0, which was really tough on all the players. They end the season with a record of 11-1 and two wins short of the state champtionship; it was a great team to cover. See the game slide show here.

Fog

The foggy country road I drove down coming to and from an assignment yesterday near Reynolds, Ill.

Leaves and a Head

It was a slow day today so between my single assignment and a false report of someone about to jump off a bridge, I took pictures of the remaining bright patches of fall leaves around Moline and Rock Island. Again, thanks to Andy Wicklund and Dragon Fire Parade, I used one of their great tracks over the photos and made a pretty feature for our website. See it here.

Also I found this awesome dummy head in an alley.

More Election Night

Here is some more stuff from election night. Before I went to the election coverage party was covering a voting location in the west end of Rock Island and at Four Brothers Clothing in Rock Island where they were grilling and selling Obama shirts. We didn't end up having room in the paper for any of this stuff.

Election Night

I spent election night with a very fun, energetic crowd at Rexie's Gourmet in Rock Island. It was excellent.

See the audio slide show here.