All the best from The Oklahoman Photo Dept.

Best of 2010-The rest of the months

I’ve strung this out too long. I think that by Jan. 12, 2011, we should be looking at pictures from this year and not looking backwards. So this is it. A colossal blog post featuring some of our best pictures from the last four months of 2010. Click on all the links to past posts, galleries and slideshows and you’ll be all caught up on 2010.

We’re always busy in the fall with high school and college football, RedHawks baseball, feature stories and the usual newspaper assignments. We produced slideshows about Route 66 Bowl, Moore High School football Head Coach Scott Myers, and Kody Turner, a high school football player who died after football practice in September. Sarah Phipps worked on a story about Oklahoma City Firefighter Kent Collins, that was published in October, and there’s a nice slideshow about the 2010 Bedlam football game.

Our interns, Miranda Grubbs and Mitch Alcala left us at the end of July. We wrote about their pictures, and we had some other interesting posts toward the end of 2010. Some of our memorable pictures and posts include Welcome to the South Pole, OSU and OU pictures just days before Bedlam, 5 years at The Oklahoman, Happy Halloween, the State Fair, black mud and minnows, the most photographed rainbow of the year,  Bryan Terry’s pictures, and Of Light and Shade.

If you haven’t already, click here to see our best news and feature pictures of the year or click here to see our best sports photos of the year. We publish new photo galleries everyday at this site and this page holds an archive of our slideshows going back to Feb. 1, 2008.

I looked through thousands of pictures from 2010 to write about them for Alternate Crop. If we had a Photographer of the Year Award at The Oklahoman, I would nominate for Bryan Terry. His name is the only one that made the final edit during every month of the Best of 2010 series. He routinely brings back compelling pictures from a wide variety of assignments. In 2010 he he got nice images everything from Division 1 college football and NBA basketball to junior rodeos, candlelight vigils and neighborhood picnics. If such an award actually existed, Bryan would likely received a refurbished soccer trophy from 1984 during a banquet that would be held on my back porch.

So, that’s it for 2010. We’ll get back to concentrating on our newest pictures and multimedia projects.

-John Clanton

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Best of 2010-Part 2 of 12

I’ve written before about searching through Merlin. About how memories of assignments come back as you scroll through the images. Unique or unusual assignments can stick with you, make you feel like you photographed them just a few days ago. Other times assignments feel very distant, like you wouldn’t have remembered them without searching through Merlin to find the pictures. The Perry High School wrestling assignment is one that feels like I was just there a few weeks ago. You can click here to watch the slideshow I made about the history and importance of wrestling in the small Oklahoma town.

Chris Landsberger revisited Catherine Titus, who lives in Wilson, Oklahoma with her dogs, while Sarah Phipps began a story about an injured firefighter. His recovery took most of the year and she checked in to photograph him through the process of getting back to work. If you want to skip ahead to that slideshow click here, but I was going to save it for October. Sarah published another slideshow in February about a wheelchair basketball team, you can watch it by clicking here.

I wrote yesterday that we’d try to squeeze in a few of our best pictures from each month and so far we’re on pace to do that. As always, you can click here to see our current photo galleries.

-John Clanton

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Kent Collins

Ten months ago Kent Collins was a broken man, literally.

His elbow was shattered into 15 pieces. His pelvis was crushed.  Parts of his back were broken. His wrist and upper arm were broke.  All injuries from a 20-foot fall while installing Christmas lights at a local church.

But, Collins spirits were not broke.

“It really made me appreciate what faith can do. What strength, hope and God can do for us,” he said. “So it has taught me not fear as much with changes in life, and that I can get through just about anything and that my family can get through just about anything.”

Collins was determine to return to fire fighting. The doctors knew he would be able to walk again, but his left arm was severally damaged. It was the limited mobility in his arm, not a broken pelvis or back, that could end his fire fighting career.

“My doctor told me if you get to a point to where you can feed yourself and wash your hair with your left arm, that is the most you will be able to hope for,” Collins said.

Collins endured several surgeries and months of grueling rehabilitation to put his body back together. Nine months ago he was bound to a wheelchair.

Thursday he walked into Oklahoma City Fire Station 34 to report for full firefighter duties.

“I kind of feel at home. I have been a firefighter for 17 years. So a lot of who I am is tied up with being a firefighter. In all that time off, I never felt like a firefighter because I wasn’t sure if I was going to be back.” Collins said.

“But the fact that I am here I feel like I can say ‘yep I am firefighter’”

Around 3:30 p.m, Thursday, the station’s radio squelched out.

“Engine 34 respond on a medical call … ”

Collins sprung to action, grinning from ear to ear, Collins pulled on his medical gloves as the fire engine raced across the Northwest Expressway.

“I’m back, ” he said.

You can see an audio slideshow about Collins here:

Be sure to check out the audio slideshow from this story here:

— Sarah Phipps

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