The "Through The Viewfinder - Stories Enhanced By Photography" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Sunday, December 17, 2023, and I had just opened my front door to grab my LNP Sunday News.  Newspaper has so many sections in it and is so heavy that it takes close to half-a-day to read all the sections and needs a dolly to bring it into the house.  The "Local" section gives me the news of Lancaster city and county and features the "THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER" section which weekly features a fantastic photograph taken by one of the newspapers great photographers as well as a story that tells the story of the photograph.  Today's photograph was taken by Blaine T. Shahan and is a photograph of a Bald Eagle snagging a large fish from the Susquehanna River, just below the Conowingo Hydroelectric Generation Station at Conowingo Dam.  

The photograph had been taken 10 days before it appeared in the newspaper.  I have stood at the exact location with my camera in hand where Blaine recently stood, but have never seen anything like the fantastic photograph that you see in the newspaper today.  Blaine tells readers that the bird grabs the fish with one set of its talons and pulls the fish forward and grabs it with both sets of talons.  At this point, the eagle looks down as if it's looking to see what was caught.  That is what you are seeing in the accompanying photograph.  From here the eagle flies off to a tree where it perches to eat the fish.  At times, if other eagles are in the area, they will attempt to steal the fish from the eagle which could lead to a confrontation along the riverbed.  Luckily, that didn't happen, Blaine reported.  Lancaster newspapers has some of the greatest photographers on staff.  Not just one or two, but all of the photographers who work for them.  Most of Lancaster Newspaper's fabulous photographers have visited my high school photography classes I taught, before I retired several years ago at Manheim Township, to share their stories and skills with my photography classes.  Their trips were always the highlight of the day for my classes.  A few of those fabulous photographers have retired in recent years, but many more still carry their camera equipment when they go to work in the field for the daily newspaper.  The city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and its surrounding communities doesn't realize just how lucky they are to have professional photographers with the skills and mindset that Lancaster Newspapers does.  We are blessed to be able to have newspaper stories told not only in words, but in photographs.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.