Another day in paradise.

I used this phrase jokingly with Mary Hattler, one of the staff photographers, yesterday, Thursday, after the full day I had that day. But first I'll start with Wednesday.

John David told me about a small park off a country road near Fairhope that had a creek and rope swings where kids would swing from trees into the water. I decided that I would find it and make some pictures there. So I did.







It was a pretty uneventful day after that though.

Thursday, however was full of activity, as I already said. It started out with me going back to the pier from my previous blog post for the official opening (the previous post was only the "soft opening"). There were a lot of big wigs there, including the Gov and the Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Mayors. New York Times bestselling author Andy Andrews was there to participate in the opening ribbon cutting ceremony and he gave me an autographed copy of his book.

















Some helicopters flew by while I was on the pier:


After the pier opening, I rode the ferry over to Dauphin Island, then up to Mobile. Monika came with me to Mobile as I was only expecting to file images quickly and then be done. Little did I know that someone would decide to rob a bank, engage the Mobile PD in a police chase across the county and wind up getting shot. That tied up my day a little bit in an unexpected way. But I'll get to that in just a minute. First, a ferry picture.



Once in the newsroom I filed my pictures and was getting ready to walk out when the scanners exploded with what sounded like a commercial for the next Grand Theft Auto video game. MPD was chasing a bank robbery suspect. They used spike strips to blow the tires and then the guy wrecked in a church parking lot. By the time I got there the car was riddled with bullets and the suspect was confirmed dead.

Here you can clearly see all the bullet holes. The building in the background is a child daycare center, which had its bathroom window shot out by a stray bullet.






The dead suspect is still in the vehicle while the police processed the scene.


Anyway, another day on the job.