Today's Assignment

Nadine Fechtner holds a photo of her daughter Buffie Rae Brawley and her granddaughter, Ebony, in her Portland, Oregon home on January 6, 2006. Fechtner's daughter, was found murdered in 2004 after being caught up in a Toledo sex trade ring. Brawley is 25 and Ebony is 4 in the photo Fechtner is holding.

I was assigned today by the Toledo Blade newspaper in Toledo, OH to shoot photos to go with a story they are doing about a women who was murdered a little over a year ago and was part of a big time prostitution ring in the city. The story talks with her mother (pictured) about what a sweet innocent little girl she was until she got caught up with the wrong crowd and ended up dead. Very Sad. This is the kind of assignment when you never know what is going to happen and you have to be real careful because the subject matter is very sensitive. The family was very nice and very open to talking about the situation, so it made the assignment much easier.

These are some of the photos the mom had lying around from her younger days.

On a lighter note, this also marks the last assignment I will ever shoot with my Canon 1D series cameras. As soon as I arrived back home, my new Mark II N's were arriving at my door! They will get a full workout tomorrow when I shoot a wedding at Timberline Lodge in a blizzard (its suppose to snow 8-12 inches tomorrow).