Category Archives: Photos

Hometown Holiday: 6 December 2013

Chelsea’s Christmas festivities happened over the weekend. It all started with the tree lighting in Pierce Park.

The reigning fair queen flipped the switch to turn on the lights.

As far as I know, that giant switch just sits in an adirondack chair sipping Mr. Pibb and watching Law & Order reruns the rest of the year. Can we find another job for that switch to do? Maybe we could use it to…I don’t know, turn on the ferris wheel at the Chelsea Community Fair or to start the first Sounds & Sights of the year or something?

Once the tree was aglow, Common Chords played Christmas music at the library. As usual, they drew a good crowd.

Santa spent time at the depot greeting the kids.

Veterans Day: 11 November 2013

On a cold, rainy Monday, Chelsea held its Veterans Day ceremony at Veterans Park.

A local third-grade class made the walk to the park to be a part of the ceremony.

A number of local veterans were there, too.

Reverend Jerold Beaumont spoke to the crowd.

After Reverend Beaumont’s speech, the third-graders sang.

After the song, the kids gave thank you cards to the veterans in attendance.

The ceremony ended with Taps.

Chelsea Football vs Dexter: 18 October 2013

The Chelsea/Dexter rivalry is a spirited one across many sports, but on the football field it’s been just sliiiiiiightly one-sided: Dexter’s last football win against Chelsea was in 1995, when I was 14, Waterworld was hoping it would just break even, Gangsta’s Paradise hadn’t yet been parodied by Weird Al, and this year’s seniors weren’t even alive. This year has not been good for Chelsea football’s streaks, but the Dexter streak is one the Bulldogs are always determined to protect.

That said, Dexter had to think it had reason for hope: Chelsea entered this year’s game with a 1-6 record, marking the first time since 1997 that the Bulldogs had taken a losing record into the Dexter game. (Dexter and Chelsea were 1-4 and 0-5 respectively going into the 1997 game. Chelsea won 34-28.) By all appearances, this was Dexter’s best chance at ending the streak since the Johnny Benjamin season. (Remember that game? SO STRESSFUL.)

Right after kickoff, the Dexter student section caught on fire (or whatever).

The banner in this photo sounds like a library cheering on good books:

My thanks to the cheerleader who covered up the D in DREADS.

The game was tight with no real scoring threats for the first few drives, but then Ty found a hole and took off down the field.

He didn’t make it into the end zone on that play, but a few plays later the Bulldogs had the lead.

Dexter has been using the slogan “Dread Strong” as a rallying cry for its sports teams. Chelsea students were not impressed.

Fun photography aside: I do not use a flash when shooting football (or any other sport). Some do choose to use a flash, though, and on Friday I happened to hit the button at exactly the same moment a photographer across the field fired his flash. This photo was the result:

Dexter kept the game close in the first half but suffered from a turnover problem. This was the aftermath of one Dreadnaught interception:

It made the defense happy.

Chelsea’s receivers made some outstanding catches on Friday. Here, Tim stretches to make a catch on the sidelines:

During one second-quarter drive, a Chelsea lineman suffered an injury.

Ty tried to score another touchdown…

…but the Dexter defense stopped him just shy of the end zone, so Scott took it in for the touchdown. Here, he shows that he does indeed have the ball in the end zone:

With time running out in the first half, Dexter drove deep into Chelsea territory and threw a pass into the end zone. Much to the delight of the Chelsea fans, that pass ended up in the hands of a Bulldog, and Chelsea took a 14-0 lead into halftime.

One of those outstanding catches happened in the end zone in the second half. Sadly, I was too mesmerized by the play to take photos — it’s hard being both a photographer and a fan! — but here’s how it ended up:

Dexter’s turnover woes continued with a fumble, resulting in this happiness:

Hey, take a look at the next two photos and take a guess at which quarter was about to begin.

Dexter managed to score a touchdown to make the score 23-8, but then Chelsea returned an interception for a touchdown to push the lead to 22.

Was Grant excited about that sack?

Yes.

Yes he was.

Dexter scored one more touchdown, but it wasn’t a 22-point touchdown, so Chelsea celebrated a meaningful bright spot in the midst of a difficult season.

Remember the lineman who was injured back in the first half? He was having a hard time getting around, so two of his teammates took it upon themselves to help him to the joyous postgame huddle.

The Bulldogs finish their season on Friday in Haslett. The game will be at 7pm.

 

Chelsea Football vs Tecumseh: 11 October 2013

Chelsea traveled to Tecumseh, where the colors are black and orange and the student section is…a triangle?

(It filled out into more of a rectangle, but that was too fun to resist.)

It was a rough evening.

The Bulldogs next travel to Dexter to take on the Dreadnaughts. The game is on Friday at 7pm. It’s always important to BEAT DEXTER, so be sure to show up and support the Bulldogs.

CHS Homecoming: 27 September 2013

As promised (a week late), here are the photos of the homecoming festivities around the Chelsea/Adrian football game. It started with a parade:

After the parade, we all ended up at the football field because…well, you know. Football and stuff.

Sometimes people take my picture. This is Jason, whose plan to take my picture was disrupted by my taking a picture of him as he was taking a picture of me.

It’s like the photography equivalent of mutual assured destruction, I guess. (Except we actually took the pictures and nothing was destroyed.)

Jason wandered in front of my camera during the halftime show, so…

At the end of halftime, the homecoming queen was crowned.

(If you missed the football photos from this evening, you can find them here.)

Chelsea Football vs Lincoln: 4 October 2013

Chelsea’s last home game of 2013 brought Lincoln to town.

With 5:55 left in the second quarter, lightning arrived in the area and brought the game to a halt. Officials opened the old gym so fans could take shelter from the lightning and rain.

The rain passed quickly, but the players had to wait for the lightning to move out of the area before the game could resume.

Much to everyone’s relief, this lightning delay was nowhere near as long as was the one during the Sexton game.

An interception got the Chelsea defense all fired up.

A few Bulldogs have been sidelined by injuries. Just before the second half started, they got my attention because they wanted a picture.

When Lincoln fumbled the ball, I got a fun look at what can happen in the pile before the referees can sort things out. This is how it started:

There’s a Chelsea hand on the ball, but it looks to be firmly in Lincoln’s possession.

This is how it ended up.

Chelsea fans got to cheer a pretty spectacular catch. Follow the ball:

Football is a rough game, and it’s a little bit rougher when your helmet comes off. On one carry, Ty took a hit that dislodged his helmet, and he hit the turf hard.

The score was close the whole game, but Lincoln managed to open up a late 9-point lead, and an interception at the goal line ended Chelsea’s hopes for a comeback.

The seniors took the loss hard.

It wasn’t just the players who had a hard time with the loss.

The Bulldogs are back in action Friday. The game is at 7pm in Tecumseh. Join us there!

Chelsea Fair Parade: 24 August 2013

The Chelsea fair parade was on Saturday, the last day of the fair. For as long as I can remember I’ve sat with my family and watched the parade go by, but this year…well, this year was just a little bit different. Okay, it was a LOT bit different. Because I was named the citizen of the year, I was invited to ride in the parade. How crazy is that?! THAT’S SO CRAZY.

I planned to take two things with me in the parade:
1: Candy, because anyone who grew up in Chelsea knows candy is an important part of this complete parade, and
2: My cameras, because I had one particular photograph in mind — I’ll let you know which one — and because…well, because that’s why I got to be in the parade in the first place.

(I ended up having my nephew Clayton ride with me, and that turned out to be wise because throwing candy in the Chelsea fair parade is a full-time occupation.)

The helpful people at the Chelsea Chamber of Commerce had called me to let me know where I needed to be and when I needed to be there. I wrote down the details:

At the appointed time, we arrived at the designated spot on East Street to find a lovely red Mustang waiting. (Varsity Ford was kind enough to provide a car and a driver — thank you, Varsity!) Here’s the car:

And here’s the sign on the side so people would know why that random guy was smiling and waving in the parade:

I also discovered my friends the Van Hoeks had made a fun sign for me:

As we were waiting for the parade to begin, Howdy Holmes — the man in charge of the company responsible for Jiffy Mixes — stopped by to say hi. When I mentioned that I was just a tiny bit sad not to be watching the parade because it meant I wouldn’t get a box of Jiffy, he walked to the Jiffy truck waiting on the next block and came back with not one but THREE boxes of Jiffy Mixes!

I know it’s easy to buy Jiffy at the grocery store, but I’ve always enjoyed getting the box from the fair parade. Having Howdy hand-deliver three boxes? It doesn’t get any better than that. Thanks, Howdy!

You may have noticed the odd symbols on my shirt. Those are old shorthand symbols from my grandmother’s Munson Shorthand Dictionary. Not too long ago I made a shirt featuring the Munson symbol for Michigan, and because of that, my friend Sara — a fount of awesomeness — said I should make a shirt with the symbols for “citizen of the year” and wear it in the parade. I wasn’t sure if she was joking, but I couldn’t resist that idea. Here I am with Sara and the shirt she suggested:

As 1:00 drew nigh, Clayton and I climbed into the car and waited for the parade to start. This was our view as we waited:

When we started moving, I thought hey, why I don’t I just take a bunch of pictures down the whole route? So I did. What follows is a sampling of those photos (with a more complete set compiled into a gif at the end of the post).

Here we are on Middle Street:

I was happy to discover who was directly in front of us in the parade: none other than the Monitor Base Ball Club of Chelsea! They were accompanied by a club from Northville — they had a match after the parade.

We continued on Middle…

…and approached Main…

…and turned onto Main.

The next photo is the reason I took my camera with me:

Here we are approaching the old post office:

And then the library:

Just past Summit Street:

At the now-vacant Federal Screw Works property:

It’s still a little strange to see that property without a huge factory building on it.

Just past Lincoln Street:

See those folks off in the distance on the left? I know those people. It has been alleged that I am related to those people.

Those two camera-wielding people on the left are my parents. Here’s a better look:

Here’s the rest of the rowdy crew:

We kept driving south:

We passed Pierce Park:

Somewhere in that crowd on the left are my friends Chris and Aubrey from the fabulous Chelsea Alehouse. They’re very friendly.

See?

When we reached Old US 12…

…we turned right and headed past the Wolverine toward the fairgrounds.

We turned left onto Old Manchester Road and stopped in front of the fairgrounds, and that was the conclusion of my first ride in the Chelsea fair parade.

As promised, here’s an animation of the series of photos I took down the parade route:

I thoroughly enjoyed my ride in the parade. Many thanks to all who had a hand in giving me that opportunity!