Living with Cystic Fibrosis - Photos and Video

I had the pleasure last week of meeting with Kara Fierro, a local nurse in Ogden who is living with cystic fibrosis. When she was young, doctors never expected her to make it to high school. At 29, she remains active and works to constantly battle the disease. A shot some photos of Kara at her aerials classes where she spends several hours a day (in addition to work and treatments.) Check out some photos below, and scroll to the end for a video.

Kara Fierro warms up at the start of her pole fitness class at Kairos Fitness in Ogden on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014. Fierro is battling cystic fibrosis, a deadly genetic disease that has been getting worse in recent years. "Sometimes I do feel hopeless and depressed, but exercise has really helped me a lot," says Fierro.

Kara Fierro kisses her husband Isaac Eaves after Fierro's first attempt at a difficult new move in their pole fitness class at Kairos Fitness in Ogden on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014. During Fierro's recent hospital stays, she set up a pole and a hope in her hospital room to help stay active and positive.

Instructor Lacey Knighton holds Kara Fierro's oxygen tube out of the way during her aerial class at Kairos Fitness in Ogden on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014. Cystic fibrosis causes mucus to build up in the lungs and makes breathing difficult. Fierro takes part in aerial and pole dancing classes with a small oxygen can in a bag on the ground below.

Kara Fierro puts her oxygen tube back in after it fell out during an aerials class at Kairos Fitness in Ogden on Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2014. Fierro has always been an active person, but just got involved in aerial classes in the last 16 months.

A Utah Summer in Video

I spent a lot more of this summer making videos than ever before. I've together a few of my favorites below from wildlife to rodeos to rainbows. It has been a busy Utah summer. Enjoy:

Mutton Bustin at the Ogden Pioneer Days Rodeo.

Golden Eagle Research in the West Desert

Rainbow Gathering in the Uinta Mountains

Daughter honors father with difficult hike to 1977 Davis crash site

Looking for bats on Antelope Island

Searching for Bats Video

I recently spent some time with wildlife biologists out on Antelope Island as they were trapping and surveying bats. It was a great experience, especially since I used to spend my summers working on bat research projects while in college.

Watch the video below:

Making the Grade - Episode 5

The latest chapter of the Standard-Examiner's documentary series on education in Northern Utah is now available. In this episode, I looked at the growth of charter schools around the region. Check out previous episodes here, and come back next week for the final episode in the series.

Watch the video below:

Making the Grade - Episode 4

The fourth episode of the "Making the Grade" documentary series was published today. This latest chapter looks at the politics and changes in the Ogden School District. These issues were the seed that started this whole video project. If you haven't been following the series, you can catch up on www.standard.net or view Episode 1, Episode 2 and Episode 3 here.

Watch the new episode below:

Making the Grade - Episode 3

The third episode in the "Making the Grade" documentary series is now online. For this episode, I spent time down the street in Central Ogden and in rural communities on the Utah-Idaho border in order to look at the outside community factors influencing education. You can watch previous episodes from the series on school grading and early childhood education. New episodes will be published every Monday by the Standard-Examiner.

Watch the new episode below.

Making the Grade - Episode 2

The second episode of the "Making the Grade" documentary series has just been published. "Making the Grade" is a six-part series looking at education issues in Northern Utah. This episode looks at early-childhood education both locally and nationally. New episodes will be coming out every week at the Standard-Examiner through the end of the school year. You can also watch the first episode here.

Watch episode two below:

Making the Grade - Episode 1

For the last few months, I've been working on a documentary series for the Standard-Examiner covering education in Northern Utah.  The series features six videos on different topics facing local schools and families. The first episode is up now and you can see watch it below.

Making The Grade Trailer

You may have noticed that the posts have been fairly thin on the blog over the last few months. Now you can see why. Since January, I've been working on a new documentary series for the Standard Examiner. We put out the trailer today. Take a look below.

Homeless Outreach Video

I just finished a video on the coordinator of a new homeless outreach program in Weber County as he looked for winter camps and met with local homeless residents. Take a look.

You can read more about the program and see photos from the day here.

High School Mountain Biking

Over the weekend I photographed the new Utah High School Cycling League. Over 600 riders from around the state converged on Snowbasin for the third mountain bike race of the season. Enjoy the photos and video. More images can be found here.

©BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

©BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

©BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

©BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

©BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

Cross Country Video

I was shooting photos for a high school cross country meet this week and had a little extra time and created this video. To be honest, I ran cross country in high school and our soundtrack was all early Metallica with "Eye of the Tiger"thrown in occasionally. Hopefully the music here isn't too much of a stretch.

After Charlie

Last week I went out to Black Island Farms in Syracuse for work. In addition to photographing a surprise pig race, I also spoke with the owners about the late Charlie Black and followed some kids on their tour of the farm for the video below. Enjoy.

You can read more about Charlie and the farm here.

Logan Canyon Cattle Drive

This video is a couple weeks old, but I wanted to get it up here. I put this together as a side piece to go with a large article and photo package on cattle in Northern Utah. I hope you enjoy.


Standard.net Video Player

edit: Due to the hosting from the newspaper's website, the video may not be visible on some phones and tablets.

A Great Blue Heron and Sumo Wrestling Robot Walk into a Science Fair...

Everything fell together last week and I was able to create three short science videos for work over the past week. Between a couple of science fairs and the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival, I was able to embrace my inner (and outer) science nerd.
Great Salt Lake Bird Festival: Standard.net Video Player
Sumo Wrestling Robot:Standard.net Video Player
Egg Drop at the Science and Math Olympiad: Standard.net Video Player

I recently spent a week at the Missouri Photo Workshop creating videos about the photographers and editors from around the world who annually descend on one small Missouri town. Most of the videos from the week are now posted online. They range from short documentaries to conversations on the state of photojournalism to whatever strange things came up in the midst of a stressful, sleepless week.

Special thanks and credit goes to the other photographers on the multimedia team: Parker Miles Blohm, Tatiana Fernandez and Nick Michael.

CoMo Cyclocross Film

After taking a camera to the new CoMo Cyclocross league last month, I recently returned to try and make a 60-second film on one of the stranger branches of the bike racing world. Enjoy. 

CoMo Cyclocross from Benjamin Zack on Vimeo.