Shooting

I had a quick conversation with York today about photography, and what makes a photographer. It wasn't really the main topic, but it worked it's way back to that, mainly out of my frustration and subtle venting. I guess you'll have to ask him if it was subtle.

Often, I hear people talk about wanting to be something. Not necessarily a photographer, but just something. In this case, we were dicussing photography, but it could be any number of things...and particularly things that aren't really assigned, or given titles. Rather, titles that are just inherited by behavior. Things like journalist, photographer, cook, singer, and musician come to mind. Things we can acheive by simply performing an action, either once, or enough to become known as such.

Most people don't really know me as a "photographer." In reality, I got my start fairly fast, and late. I liked cameras my entire life, but photography isn't something I was bred to do, necessarily. My start came mostly in California. I knew about photography and had some experience, but my main breakthrough came when I called up the Sacramento River Cats and asked to shoot their games. I walked in, rented a cheap 300mm lens and shot the opening homestand. I had never shot professional baseball. My camera didn't do well in the low light. But I learned a lot. I ended up being able to shoot for MiLB.com and having some work featured around the web. Not a big deal for some, but considering my lack of experience, I was proud.

Fast forward to today. I've been told numerous times by Independent staff that "there isn't a story there." That gets on my nerves. There's always a story. It would be easier to stomach if, perhaps, they simply admitted that doing the work isn't of interest. At least that would be more valid...or at least, undebatable. I've decided that instead of pitching ideas to certain individuals about coverage, I was just going to do it myself. The greatest things I have learned in college is that if I don't do it, it doesn't really matter, because someone else probably won't. I think that's a life lesson. Do it right yourself, for yourself.

Musicians Tess and Carson Henley visited the campus today. I didn't know anything about them, but they were pretty good. Both have something like 25,000 followers on Twitter and seem to be fairly established in the music industry. I thought it would be good experience to shoot some singing. I wouldn't really consider this a "concert" because there wasn't really any dynamic lighting, but still, a new dynamic to my portfolio, at least. I'd still like to shoot a real concert, so if anyone knows anyone...

Enjoy a few pictures below.

Terrible at Blogging

I'm terrible at blogging. Maybe I should take a queue from York and just put up pictures I take.

The problem with that idea is that, well, I haven't been taking many pictures. It's funny...as much as I enjoy photography, I don't like to go do it, as much as I like to go to events, with a camera. Maybe that makes sense. Lately, unless I have a specific assignment, I don't really feel inspired. To be truthful, I never do.

I'm not a photographer. In fact, I don't even really enjoy art. You couldn't coax me into an art appreciation class, or even an art museum with large sums of money. I'd rather be playing golf.

That said, I enjoy storytelling. I like baseball. Shooting professional baseball was fun...not because I was taking pictures, but because I enjoy sports, and I like capturing peak action.

Anyway, maybe I should use this as a tool for enabling my creativity. Since I'm not really shooting sports, I need to look around and find something exciting. And on a side note...I think these posts are severly limiting my job prospects.

A friend snaps a picture of Clark College's Gaydena Thompson next to her info board during the first ever hall of fame induction at Clark College.After the awards this weekend, it got me thinking. I felt like I had some pretty decent stuff. Looking back, I didn't really have much to submit...as the timing wasn't the best, but I felt like there was some quality.

According to the judging comments though, I have no clue what I'm doing. I know, take it for what it's worth. I've got writers and advisors judging photos...so I shouldn't be offended. I'm not. I'm more confused. Especially since we weren't shown what placed higher.

I even got scored a 1, out of 10, for "depicts subject matter" for a picture of a soccer player that accompanied the feature story about him. How is that even possible?

Oh well.

So, I realize this picture (left) has NOTHING to do with this post, but I figured that if I don't know how to format my blog posts right, at least I could throw up enough stuff so that it looks like I am actually doing something. If you've made it this far, you've caught me...but to the rest of you suckers who skimmed over all of this....gotcha!

Okay, in reality, I think the picture left is just a method to inspire me. Specifically, to look for pictures that happen by themselves. This could have been a really dull posed moment, had I turned the camera onto the "subject," but as soon as I saw her posing by her information board and people taking pictures, I knew there was an opportunity to still capitalize on the posed moment, but not in such a mundane way. Introducing another subject balances the picture, and tells a story that can't really be told with just the woman posing by her board. That can be done without anyone else there...but this picture needs interaction.

Confessions of a college photojournalist

There's a big problem when someone who works at the paper doesn't even want to read it. I don't. I can't really remember the last time I did, to be honest. Who's fault is that?

Lately in the newsroom, a few of us have been discussing why we think the readership may be unreliable or perhaps stale. I think it's fairly simple. The reporting is, and it's not going to give people much of a reason to pick it up.

I hate to be the one to say this, but no one really cares what some kid in a room up in the upper building on the campus thinks about something. I think we've lost the focus...and we think people care about our opinions.

I liken this whole thing to blogging. By posting this, I am assuming someone will care enough to read it. But what about the other 99 people who don't?

We can't get complacent. It's too easy to surf the internet and regurgitate things we're interested in. If we do that, we'll struggle, and I think it's pretty apparent. There are definitely those who are killing themselves to provide good information, but the sad reality is that they are overshadowed by those that leech onto the vehicle that is the paper.

If I had one goal in returning to school and working at the paper, it was to get versatile experience and broaden my horizons, photographically. I don't feel like I'm pushing that boundary, and I don't feel like the paper is, either. Are we solid? Yea, I'd say it was fair to assume we were pretty solid. Thing is, solid doesn't work for me. We are in school...we have chances to take risks. I hope that at least I will be able to say that I did, and I learned from them.

Tracking #1

So for my multimedia class, we're tasked with finding and talking to journalists to see what their current obstacles and victories have been in the age of "new media." I put that in quotes because I am sick and tired of hearing about "new media." It's become a buzzword that is thrown around constantly on webinars and techno-geek meetups, and it's time it stopped being used.

Media is media. I don't see the point constantly debating about topics like this. Move on.

That said, adding new technology and utilizing current trends like HD video is really important, especially in the newspaper industry. Deemed dead by many critics, traditional outlets like The Woodland Daily Democrat in Woodland, Calif. have been pushing for a larger committment into the world of the web.

"The company as a whole has created new mandates which stipulate that digital news comes before print news.
In other words, we're doing a lot of Facebooking live from the scene of events, blogs and videos," said photographer Matthew Henderson.

It seems to be the case at many of the surviving papers. The thing is, adapting isn't so easily done. Companies struggle to find the funding to purchase much of the new equipment that is demanded in order to make a full-scale adoption.

"The computers we're using, while top of the line ten years ago, can not handle the current innovations such as HD video and since the operating system is so far out of date, they can't run the new Javascript software. Since everything on the net runs Javascript, we're finding it harder and harder to do things online," said Henderson.

Henderson also noticed a troubling trend the calls into debate the accuracy of the reporting done online.

"Many times the urgency to get the story online fast via Twitter, Facebook or blogs leads to story errors and inconsistancies," he said.

I found this quite interesting, because it reflects what we spoke about in Multimedia Journalism with Bill Lascher a few days ago. It's not a revelation, but it just drives the point home even more.

Henderson is optimistic though, and sees value in the push to move to more of an online presence.

"The good news, is that the newspaper industry is catching up and beginning to learn the value of having constant Facebook and Twitter followers. We are starting to actually receive news tips and story ideas from the public, which means that the customer is out there watching, waiting for us to catch up and depending on us to still bring them the news."

Big Picture Week 1

This post will be kicking off a weekly series I will be trying to do that incorporates the pictures from the Boston Globe's Big Picture blog. If you're not familiar with it, I suggest you take a gander. Not only does it provide breaking news information, but it also gives people a largely photographic interpretation of the current events around the world.

Often, it seems like people post reactions to articles, but rarely do people react to the photography, outside of other photographers. Often even, most people who DO respond are other photojournalists, specifically.

While I would say that most of my experience tends to revolve around photojournalism, I think that the more people become aware of photographs, the more power news and reporting has. Don't get me wrong...I think typical writing has it's place, but I think it's high time that we start to look at the photography that accompanies it.

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This week, my pick is going to be the story on Violence in South Sudan

With the current lifestyle of many people in modern civilization, seeing images of struggle can bring us a huge shift in our perspective of life and it's troubles. I even find myself capable of beginning to feel irritating at life choices and outcomes. I'm not making the assumption that we're too busy to care about others, but sometimes it feels like life can swallow our objectivity.

Photo stories like this can be great reminders that stories that we read about actually involve people. Pictures that show us the realities of the news we read are important, because they show us what is happening, and keep us from editorializing on our own. While it's good that some of us can imagine stories in our heads, I don't think that does news justice.