It’s high school football time in Texas and that means that each Friday evening through the end of summer and the early fall fans will make the pilgrimage to see their home teams perform.

The Dallas Morning News provides the most comprehensive coverage of north Texas high school games and as a Fort Worth-based editorial photographer, I get to photograph this weekly Texas ritual.

This week I was in Argyle to see the Argyle High School Eagles do battle with the Mineral Wells Rams. Argyle won 39-14.

Texas DPS roadblock on Highway 16 just northeast of the Possum Kingdom fire on August 31, 2011. Photo by Fort Worth photographer Robert Hart.

My client The Dallas Morning News, hired me to shoot an early morning assignment in Weatherford, Texas. It put me about halfway to Possum Kingdom Lake where this brush fire has been raging out of control for the past two days. I made the trip on my own to see if I could get access to the burned areas. Unfortunately, I arrived after the Texas Forest Service’s press tour, so I was stuck trying to make the best photos possible from four miles away.

I’ve been fishing and canoeing the Morris Sheppard tailrace for 25 years and it’s one of the most beautiful stretches of the Brazos River.

It was painful to watch.

The wind really began to howl around noon and the smoke plume from the main fire quadrupled in size. It appeared that, at least today, the firefighters were losing the battle. According to the Texas Forest Service, 6,200 acres and 30 homes have burned in this fire. They’re saying another 400 homes are threatened.

These and other images by Fort Worth photographer, Robert Hart The Robert Hart Studio are available in my searchable online archive:

Erin Flavin, a senior religion major at Texas Christian University, reacts to her dance partner, Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, during a Flash Mob at Daniel-Meyer Coliseum Thursday August 25, 2011 afternoon on the TCU campus in Fort Worth, Texas. Cuban was supporting Frogs for the Cure, which benefits Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the fight against breast cancer. Photo by Fort Worth photographer, Robert Hart.Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, joined students at Texas Christian University Thursday, August 25, 2011 to rehearse for 1,500-person flash mob sponsored by Frogs for the Cure, which benefits Susan G. Komen for the Cure. Photo by Fort Worth photographer, Robert Hart.

Cuban danced with the mob and posed with every student who asked for a photo-op. I watched him pose with a couple hundred kids during the hour he was there.

Cuban clearly had a blast.

These and other images from The Robert Hart Studio are available in my searchable online archive:

Advertising Age writer, Simon Dumenco, aka: The Media Guy, bitch-slapped AOL’s The Huffington Post for stealing data from his story, then providing a “disingenuous link” to his June post titled, “Poor Steve Jobs Had to Go Head to Head With Weinergate . . .”

It seems The Huffington Post picked the story up, cherrypicked the best data and wrapped it up with a flaccid, “See more stats from Ad Age here” link.

THP has thrived by “aggregating” and “curating” content from real publications with real reporters, real editors and real overhead. The New York Times‘ Bill Keller calls it piracy. Here in Fort Worth, we have another word for “aggregating” and “curating.” It’s called rustling and Arianna has assembled an impressive herd since launching THP a few years ago.

When accused of piracy/theft/plagiarism/rustling, etc., Huffington’s defense is that THP’s link drives traffic to the offended sites. It’s this point that Dumenco disputes and disproves with Google Analytics numbers.

The numbers, unlike Huffington, don’t lie.

Read the entire Dumenco story to see The Huffington Post‘s apology for getting caught.

Ken Maxwell’s home in Exposition Park was the subject of a recent The Dallas Morning News story (WARNING: DMN is behind a paywall) and I was hired to shoot the interiors. Ken’s aesthetic is both elegant and edgy. He commissioned every piece in the home and I could have spent days photographing that space and his art but this is a newspaper client and we squeezed the shoot into just under three hours.

 

The DMN devoted two pages to the images and was able to use more than half of the 15 photos I submitted.

Ken is a delight to work with and his knowledge of contemporary art is encyclopedic. Oh, and I forgot to mention, Ken is from Fort Worth. So that’s yet another thing to love about Fort Worth.

These and other images from The Robert Hart Studio are available in my searchable online archive:

Yet another thing to love about Fort Worth: Van Cliburn. Read about his recent return to Moscow in the New York Times.

Favorite quote: “He loves the whole world,” she said. “There is enough of him for the whole world! This is a great heart!”

Stealing from an artist is nasty. But when an artist steals from another artist, that’s reprehensible. It seems that Rihanna is being accused of stealing from a 19-year-old Parisian fashion photographer, Philipp Paulus.

Check out the story on the Photo District News website.

My favorite quote from Paulus: “Why a worldwide celebrity is not able to afford a creative director…is incomprehensible to me.”

Here’s an excellent story from Rob Haggart’s APhotoEditor.com blog by photographer Bill Cramer on how he and Fast Company photo editor Lisa Parisi negotiated changes in the magazine’s contract that worked for both parties.

There’s also a brief interview with the magazine’s photo director, Leslie Dela Vega.

Tom Martin, the New Orleans-based marketing sage, uses external microphones and interchangeable lenses on his iPhone to create video for all his interviews.

Interchangeable lenses, lavalier mics??? Who knew? Okay, well I didn’t.

In addition to having his own company, Converse Digital, Martin blogs for AdAge.com.

Martin is working on a series of interviews with digital thought leaders and is shooting all the interviews with the iPhone.

Bootsy Collins brought his band to the Palladium Ballroom Friday, June 17, and despite taking the stage an hour later than scheduled, he rocked the house. I shot this for The Dallas Morning News and was only able to shoot one song before heading to car to send my photo via my Clear 4G connection.

Typically, we’re allowed to photograph three songs, but Bootsy’s 10:15 arrival didn’t allow me time to get more than one song in the camera. I had an 11 p.m. deadline and made it with minutes to spare.

This Bootsy Collins photo and other images from The Robert Hart Studio are available in my searchable online archive: