Pictures of 2009

I am not a photographer, I only play one, at times, when on assignment and a real one is not available.

Going back over a year's worth of stories and pictures that was 2009, these images strike a resonance with me because they help in reliving a certain moment in time.

1. If you wait around long enough, something is bound to happen.

I learned this listening to photojournalists: find an interesting background, and wait.

In this instance, and as luck would have it, 9-year-old Elizabeth Burdick walked in front of the window display at G. Willikers toy store on Broadway in Saratoga Springs, shortly after sunrise on Black Friday, 2009.

2. Hundreds of job-seekers traveled from as far as an hour away to attend an October Job Fair at the City Center. Ed O'Connor was one of them. O'Connor has worked in the accounting field for 20 years. He has been searching for a job since March, when his employer downsized and he was let go.

3. A Sept. 11 Remembrance Day Ceremony in Saratoga Springs.

Wearing pristine white gloves, members of the city Fire Department set the flag to fly at half-staff.

4. In March, Congressional candidate James Tedisco took reporters on a caravan tour through the muddied fields of the Luther Technology Park, where Global Foundries will be setting up their billion dollar plant.

Several vehicles got stuck in the mud.

The image was captured by pointing the camera at the rear-view mirror while traveling over one of the paved areas of the complex.

Tedisco eventually lost the race to Scott Murphy.

5. After a number of unknown vandals/graffiti artists broke in to the city's skatepark and

decorated it with their vibrant scrawl, a local power washing services company came to the city's rescue to remove the "offensive" paint prior to the opening of the skatepark's 2009 season.

--- Thomas Dimopoulos