A first

Bentonviille Gold guard Austin Haggard (4) shoots in the lane over Gravette Junior High's Alex Lovell (34) during the second half of Gold's 41-34 win in the Benton County Invitational at Siloam Springs High School.

After 16 years, this was my first trip to cover basketball in Siloam Springs. The gym is really nice and it lit up well, don't you think?

Advent

Patrick Pilkington, left, of Fayetteville helps family friend Aaron Callahan, 11, center, and Pilkington's son, Jordan, 11, with the construction of an Advent wreath at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Fayetteville. Members of the church gathered to make the traditional wreaths which mark the beginning of the Advent season, and of the Christian calendar. Each of four candles arranged in the wreath are lit weekly, one by one, until a fifth candle is lit on Christmas Eve and burned on Christmas Day.

I grew up Catholic. I was an altar boy with the white robes, communion wine and the ringing of the bells during the Miracle and everything. So we had Advent candles at home that we lit, though the invention of the fifth candle is a relatively new thing. We just had the standard four; one for every week. Dad was supposed to light the first, second and fourth candles, which were purple, as the weeks of the Advent season progressed, and Mom was supposed to light the pink one on the third week. I'm not sure if we did that right, I just remember turning off the lights and eating by candlelight. That's when we had candles or a tree full of lights to make the house glow. I love that. That's Christmas to me.

Not much has changed.

Lucky

Bill and Carol Eaton work to decorate their Fayetteville home along East Lafayette Street in preparation for the Junior League of Northwest Arkansas' 11th annual Winter Dreams Tour of Homes set for Dec. 6 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. to raise funds for the group's community projects. The Eatons' home is one of 11 area homes on the tour that will be decorated for the holidays. For more information, contact the Junior League of Northwest Arkansas via the Web at www.juniorleaguenwa.org or by calling 751-7054.

I was in a real need of a stand alone photo and was so glad to meet the Eatons and to make this photograph. They are such nice people and the photo helps out a good cause. I've been curious about this house since it was renovated a few years ago and it is amazing. The Eatons added a pavilion in their back yard that is astounding.

Shiloh Christian 51, Nashville 49

Shiloh Christian junior quarterback Kiehl Frazier (15) slips out of the grasp of Nashville senior defensive tackle Josh Wiley (95) during the second quarter of the Saints' 51-49 Class 4A state tournament quarterfinal win at Champions Stadium in Springdale.

It was really amazing to watch a team, down 35-0, claw its way back into the game and see them win. Amazing.

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Preview

Bentonville Black forward Nick Smith (33) collects a rebound over Ramay Junior High guard Quinn Simkins as guard Collin Roberts (15) reaches to help during the second half of Black's 55-48 win at Ramay.

Smith is talented and he seems to have good Basketball IQ. More than anything else, though, he is tall and what is termed 'long' in basketball circles. This means he has long limbs and a very long reach and at this age, that alone would allow him a chance to succeed.

Being talented in addition to tall makes him dominant at this level, even when Ramay had several kids who were much more athletic than he is. He's the kind of player that coaches love to have and I suspect I will be seeing more of him in the coming years.

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The Springdale "Zone"

CJ Wilson, 13, of Springdale, left, takes a shot as Logan Aaserude, 13, of Hindsville reaches to defend while Juan Cruz Manrriquez, 12, of Springdale watches during a game of basketball on Harve Street in Springdale.

I am one of three photographers who work on the weekends and I am assigned to cover both Springdale and Fayetteville papers, or "zones" as we call them. With little going on as far as planned events, I was asked to shoot wild art for both.

These kids were really fun and I like this photo quite a lot — much better than the photo I got for the Times. It's probably the shadows on the pavement and the fill flash on the rim and net. It's too bad that I will miss it in print since it will only appear in the Springdale Morning News and I'm not going to be in Springdale today.

Lights of the Ozarks

Visitors watch the parade during a lighting ceremony for the Lights of the Ozarks display on the Fayetteville downtown Square. The 16th annual display features nearly a half million lights — 75 percent of which are energy-efficient LEDs — and draws an estimated 300,000 visitors to the Square each year. The display operates from 5 p.m. until midnight nightly through New Year's Eve.

We held the paper for this photograph, since this is normally well past our deadlines on Saturday nights. That meant that I had to rip my strobe off the street sign that I had it clamped to and run down the hill from the square and back to the newsroom to send this up to the desk in Springdale.

That's a fun sort of pressure. I laughed the whole way down from the Square.

Har-Ber 30, Russellville 7

Russellville senior receiver Cole Smith, center, upends Har-Ber senior free safety Houston Pruitt, left, as senior cornerback Levi Copher reaches for the batted ball during the first quarter of the Wildcats' 30-7 win at Jarrell Williams Bulldog Stadium in Springdale.

It was odd, once again, to shoot a team other than Fayetteville High, but I'm getting used to it. What is not fun to get used to are the lights at Jarrell Williams Bulldog Stadium. They cycle, or appear to dim or grow brighter from frame to frame, worse than Harmon Field. There is probably a three-stop difference between frames that catch the lights at their dimmest and brightest.

Grrrrrr...

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Beauty Mark

Suphan Gingsumrong, owner of Thep Thai Restaurant, left, listens as Karon Reese of the Fayetteville Council of Neighborhods shows to him the council's fifth annual Beauty Mark Award which was given to Gingsumrong for the gardens that surround the Fayetteville restaurant. The award, which is sponsored by the council and the Northwest Arkansas Times, is meant to recognize a business that has created an exceptional outdoor or indoor garden. "I love Fayetteville," Gingsumrong said.

So do I.

Bikes, Blues & BBQ

Nelson Driver, event director for Bikes, Blues & BBQ, speaks during the event's announcement of its charitable donations at the Fayetteville Town Center. The event's board of directors handed out $48,500 to local charities.

This event, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors from all around the country, failed to donate any money in 2008 after it became necessary to pay off its debts following last year's event. So it's no surprise that quite a few of the area's residents were curious how much would be donated to local charities after a year of failing to do so.

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Eating with two hands

Maggie Jones of Fayetteville smiles as she pushes her son 2-year-old son, Colton, along Razorback Road as the two participate in the Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. The event, which featured a 1-mile walk and 5-kilometer run, raised nearly $5,000 to benefit the Arkansas Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation.

The promise of runners and walkers in costume sort of fizzled out on this one, but I still like this if for no other reason than he is eating with two hands.

Bummer

Charisma Henderson of Little Rock, center, helps show fellow cast member Derrick J. Brent III of San Antonio, Texas, to apply makeup as cast members Rajeeyah Shahid of Mobile, Ala., right, and Jaselle Martino of Aruma, Trinidad, laugh before the production of "The Women of Strong Hope" Sunday at Dwelling Place Church in Fayetteville.

I shot this last week for a religion story which ran today. This was an original play put on at a local church that, at least so far as I could tell, tackled the issue of homosexuality in American Black culture. Space issues forced the designers and editors to run only one photo, and this wasn't it. I liked it so much though, I thought I would run it here at least.

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Too much Xavier Acklin

Conway senior quarterback Xavier Acklin (12) stiff-arms Fayetteville junior cornerback Donovan Ragland during the first half of the Dogs' 45-42 loss in the first round of the state tournament at Harmon Field. Acklin threw a 48-yard touchdown pass with six seconds left in the game to pull out the win.

Acklin is without a doubt the best athlete that I have seen play this year. Unbelievable.

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Ouch

Fayetteville senior forward Adam Nobel, right, is fouled by senior guard Taylor Cochran, left, as Colton Primm defends during the Dogs' Purple-White game at Fayetteville High.

Nobel, probably the Dogs' third-best player, broke his nose during the game and could miss some action in the first part of the season. That's the hard thing about scrimmages. It's quite a risk as the season begins.

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Who can resist a penguin?

Kim Fuhrman, right, dresses her 4-year-old daughter, Laney, and her 6-year-old son, Noah, in penguin costumes as the two prepared to represent the continent of Antarctica as a part of the 6th annual Holcomb Hornets Around the World Multicultural Celebration at the school. The event celebrates the many cultures represented in the school's student population and features dance, song and demonstrations from cultures around the world.

While looking for something to shoot as the kids got ready for the event, I saw this mother dressing her kids in penguin costumes. Adorable!

Singing Men of Arkansas

Members of the Singing Men of Arkansas perform sacred music during a concert in honor of the service of U.S. veterans at the Gardens at Arkanshire in Springdale. The event featured sacred, pop and patriotic music under the musical direction of Michael J. Bedford.

As is always seemingly the case, the strobe that I installed up on a balcony that overlooks the area in which these men were to perform pooped out about three frames into their performance. I thought about going up there to change the batteries, but I doubt that the photos were going to look any different than this one. These guys were really impressive, and had a great selection from which they sang.

Lucky ducky

Frank Arellano, center, of Rogers leads the pack at the start of the Veterans Memorial 5K Run at the Fayetteville National Cemetery. Arellano went on to win the inaugural event in a time of 17:44. The race was organized as a fundrasier for the Regional National Cemetery Improvement Corporation, Inc., which is heading an effort to secure additional land for expansion at the facility.

We covered this from a news angle instead of a sports angle, so having the start was probably better than focusing on the winner. Still, it seemed odd to not have a photo of the winner of the race somewhere in paper. For the first time in a long time, the person leading the pack at the start turned out to be the winner, so one photo does it all. How lucky was that?

Perfect, again

Shiloh Christian junior receiver Zann Jones (8) stiff-arms Farmington senior safety Logan Boudrey (2) during the second quarter of play at Allen Holland Field in Farmington. The win capped a perfect regular season for the Saints.

With the changes at the newspaper, I stayed in Washington County to cover Shiloh and Farmington instead of following Fayetteville up to Rogers as I would normally have done. It's a change, but I had fun.

Moms and the chest bump

Woodland Junior High School football player Brooks Ellis, left, and his mother, Shelley Ellis, perform a chest bump prior to the Cowboys' game with Ramay Junior High School at Harmon Field. Shelley Ellis is a graduate of Woodland Junior High and was participating in a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the school.

I wish that I had had time to adjust my camera in such a way so I would have been able to get this without any motion blur, but I still like it. How many of our moms would give us a chest bump before a game? Mine would, I have no doubt about it.

Pretty light, if nothing else

Alicia Salina, a janitor at the One East Center building on the Fayetteville downtown Square, mops the floor on the first floor of the building.

Today, with little to do until the evening, I went to the Square to find some wild art, and found this woman mopping. There was a really cool patch of sunlight across the floor across the building from her that I wanted to wait for her to mop into, but it was about 60 yards away. I would have been a half hour or more of waiting until she reached it; time I did not have. I think I like the moodiness of this one better.

First day

Matt McKnight, a senior University of Arkansas physics student from Fort Smith, demostrates the power of static electricity using a Van de Graaff generator during the annual Haunted Lab hosted by the UA Society of Physics Students at the Physics Lab on the UA campus. The event featured demonstrations of physics.

Today was my first day to shoot for Northwest Arkansas Newspapers, LLC., and the combined effort of the newspapers in Northwest Arkansas. It's different. That was expected and it's going to be OK.

Newspapers are very dear to the hearts of those who make them. And it's hard to see them change and become something different. But it's not something less. This will allow us to keep doing what we have been doing for 150 years.