Images from the candlelight vigil on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, at Oak Hill Memorial Park in San Jose.

The third annual Zombie-O-Rama crawled through downtown San Jose tonight. I missed the big crowds, but managed to shoot a few.

Coffee, commute, paper, burrito, shooting, gas, meet with the boss, pack my stuff, beers with friends, bagel, coffee, morning in the office, more coffee, going away lunch, quitting tie, empty my desk, final mileage, leave Zork in charge, turn in gear, commute. My final days at the newspaper, told in iPhone snapshots.

Not to split hairs, but my nine-year career at The Salinas Californian covered eight full years and two half years, which leads me to this top ten list. I chose one favorite photo that I shot for the paper from each year I worked there.

02-13-11 — Tim Sawyer of Santa Cruz makes a turn Feb. 13 during the Central Coast Cycling Club mountain bike cross country races in the East Garrison area of the former Fort Ord.
 
 

03-23-10 — A suspect looks out from the back of a police cruiser Tuesday on Oregon Street after a shooting in which a child was killed in his home by a stray bullet. Five suspects were taken into custody on Oregon Street.
 
 

07-17-09 — Jake Pratt of Ellensburg, Washington, rides out of the chutes to a time of 14.7 seconds in the tie-down roping competition at Friday’s California Rodeo Salinas.
 
 

07-15-08 — Trevor John, 5, of Prunedale, winner of the Best-Dressed Cowboy award, takes aim before Tuesday’s Kiddie Kapers parade in Oldtown Salinas.
 
 

09-21-07 — Cody Vaughn does a chest pull Friday in Pacific Grove.
 
 

07-03-06 — Roman Schlick, of Gilroy, cheers for The Scorpions Monday night at the Salinas Sports Complex. Schlick has a Scorpions tattoo on his right arm, which he said he got in hopes of one day meeting the band and having them sign it — a dream he fulfilled before the concert Monday.
 
 

05-22-05 — Brittany Duyao accidentally runs over Amanda Volle after Volle fell just before the first turn during Sunday’s Golden State Nationals at the Manzanita Park BMX track in Prunedale. Both girls got up from the spill and rode away.
 
 

08-19-04 — Irmgard Wynn, 70, an member of the band the Alpine Echoes, shows off one of her accordions in her North Salinas home Thursday.
 
 

02-04-03 — Greenfield’s Carmen Salazar gets his face buried in ball during a first-half header in Tuesday’s game.
 
 

10-31-02 — Kala Robinson, 7, of Salinas, reacts while walking through the “Scary Corner” at Hartnell College’s Spooktacular Halloween Celebration Thursday night.

   Today I quit the best job I’ve ever had.
   There are a lot of people who will call me crazy for doing this. As a full-time newspaper staff photographer, I was among a declining number of people to hold a very coveted job. I get paid by a publication to make pictures for a living, a job that gives me steady pay, health benefits and front-row seats to some extremely compelling events.
   But my job, like many newspaper staff jobs across the country, is going away. Not tomorrow, but sometime. Newspapers are losing circulation and advertising and I’m not convinced that the industry has a solution. So instead of going down with the ship, I decided to make a little life raft and paddle away on my own. I’ll be an independent photographer, earning a living with my camera on my own.
   The decision to do this was made in the fall of 2008, during a discussion with my then-fiancé (now wife) in our kitchen, around the time my newspaper prepared to lay off fully a third of its staff in one fell swoop. Back then, I was pretty convinced that my job would be eliminated soon, too.
   But I’ve held on, as has most of the newsroom staff since that initial round of layoffs. And I’ve discovered that my prognosticating about the future of my industry has been largely off the mark, so I stopped guessing. Except for one hunch: Someday, my job will cease to exist. And I’d better prepare.
   In discussions with industry colleagues since that decision was made in 2008, I’ve heard a variety of reactions. Several freelancers told me to hang on to my staff job as long as I could. One signed off an email with a simple plea: “Keep your staff job.” A former staffer who got laid off and found himself suddenly freelancing — fairly successfully, by all accounts — took his old staff job back when an opening arose. Others said I was right to prepare, and a widely circulated blog post by the insightful Chip Litherland endorsed the path I was on.
   So, around the beginning of this year, after two and a half years of preparing to be my own boss, I finally found myself with enough work, savings and preparation to make the move truly happen. August 11, 2011, was my final day as a staff member at The Salinas Californian — nine years, one month and 11 days after I started.
   During the coming weeks, I’ll be publishing a series of blog posts looking back at my newspaper career. I’ll be talking about the volume of assignments I’ve done, some of my favorite ones, about the emotional impact of newspaper work, and sharing some of my best frames.