Katie’s Blog

So it’s the last week of classes and every final course assignment is coming due. I think I’m about finished shooting for my photo story. There’s really only one area I still lack photos from, but my question for you today is: do you think this picture is acceptable?

This is a photograph of my subject getting ready to wait tables at a local restaurant. I think the angle and harsh lighting is kind of artsy, but I’m not sure if it would be acceptable to turn in as part of my project.

Here are some other follow-up photos I took when I went back to shoot her teaching.

What would you say my strongest and weakest points are with these images?

I also commented on Danica Baker and Betsy Shrader’s blogs this week. They both have some amazing stuff they’re working on.

This week I’m going to be talking about Tony Overman, a photojournalist for the Washingotn newspaper The Olympian, and Immediate Past President of the NPPA. I have to do a presentation on him for my Photography class so I’ve learned, and come to admire his technique. I posted a photograph from his 1st place win in the 2007 Best of Photojournalism competition two weeks ago, and now that I know a little more about him, I would like to revisit some of his other pieces.

Overman, while he does work with wide angle lenses when appropriate, is known for his work with telephoto lenses. The crispness of the dominent subject starkly contrasts the blurred background giving his photos a deeper level of intimacy. He also uses minimal lighting equiptment. Being an in-field photojournalist, he doesn’t have time to set up soft boxes (or other external equiptment) on scene at a burning building. As a general rule, he prefers working solely with available lighting, which is evident in the third picture I posted above. If enough isn’t available, he will use an external strobe - not unlike the ones the journalism school provides for its students- to fill in the shadows. While listening to a guest lecture by freelance photographer David Weintraub, I learned a trick to be able to tell which type of lighting is used in a photograph. If available, look for the catch light in the eyes of the subject. In them, you can see the lighting equiptment. For example, if you look at photo #2 above, you can see the strobe in the left of the animal’s eyes.

An up-close look at what Angela has in store for her later that day.

A close-up of Angela showing her student what happens when a plant is placed in a plastic bag

One of Angela's students excited with the results of her project.

Angela explaining how to do the upcoming science experiment

Angela checking her class's work before letting them play outside

There is still a lot of work I have to do to make this a complete project, but I think I’m off to a decent start. I  would like to get more photos of Angela interacting with her students. I also want to take some pictures of her getting ready to work her night job at a restaurant to show how difficult holding a full-time, unpaid position can be.

On a totally separate note, I’ve been browsing through various other photo blogs this week. Check out Brandon Autry’s blog for some other cool info.

This week in my photography class we were assigned our final project for the semester. The project requires us to make a photo slideshow overlaid with audio to tell a story about something creative that we find interesting. When I heard about the assignment, several ideas came to mind. However, I learned with this assignment that ideas are easily conceived, but not so easily executed. Being able to gain access to a location and a subject is obviously a fundamental aspect in determining the success of your project. A big part of gaining access comes with knowing the right people. For example, my first idea was to shadow a zookeeper and document the responsibilities he/she has in their day to day life. Unfortunately, at the last second, I was denied access due to some logistical issues. Gr. Back to the drawing board.

Later on after a few more ideas got shot down, I started playing with the idea of doing something that involved elementary schools. The first school I called said no because they didn’t know me and the effort involved in sending out releases to parents would be more trouble than it was worth to them. Then I remembered that I knew a student teacher in a nearby school. I called her and within the hour she had approval for me to go photograph her class. Success! It really came down to someone I knew that pulled some strings. It’s also a good example of how any contact can potentially be helpful. It isn’t just the CEOs, managers, and in this case, principals that can help you out.

The photograph I want to share today is a bit unrelated to my topic. It’s an image by Tony Overman, a photographer for the Olympian in Washington. This image was part of a still photography story series that won him first place in the Best of Photojournalism 2007 competition held annually by the NPPA. I like it because I find the subject and angle to be visually interesting. I also like it because it’s happy. I so often feel like some of the most visually interesting photos taken by newspaper photographers are of something dramatic (mainly because the news is usually dramatic), and it’s nice to see the softer side of this breaking news photographer.

This week I thought I’d share a photo I took for my Spring Break series. I was working with the idea of love. I was also playing with exposure and backlighting my subjects with window light. The one below it my favorite.

Mike Conway and Julia Anderson share a tender moment on a Sunday afternoon

I wanted to get the halo-like effect that the window light would give to the tops of their heads. Getting the exposure the way I wanted with the window directly behind them took some practice, but luckily, the two in the photo were more than willing to cuddle up while I played with the settings. ) In order to achieve this look, I used a telephoto lens and set my camera on f3.2, 1/250, with my strobe firing at -1.

Recently, there have been a lot of medical issues in my family. The kidney transplant that was suppose to, but did not, go to my dad on Friday initially left me feeling kind of down. I’ve since taken a more hopeful stance by learning about a promising new program my parents are involved in known as the Paired Donor Program. For those of you who watch Grey’s Anatomy, remember the domino surgery? It’s basically that. This research caused me to discover my favorite photographer of the week, Mark Tuschman. Mark photographs several social topics, one of which being medicine.  I like the emotion that he captures in his subjects- not just in their faces, but in their posture and presence. His lighting is also excellent. He’s also given me an idea for my final photography project.

This week our assignment was to take photos at a sporting event. I chose to go to the Men’s Lacrosse game today and boy was it cold! The lighting was wonderful though. It was bright, midday light, which I usually try to avoid because of the shadows it creates, but since the players were moving so fast, I liked the way it lit up the photos and focused the players’ movements. Also, may I just say that I pretty much love telephoto lenses. I’m discovering more and more that I’m a big fan of shallow depth of field. I like the intimacy you get with it. Plus, I think blurry backgrounds look kind of cool. Anyways, here are some of the photos I took!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today I went to a Valentine’s Day event at the Riverbanks Zoo, because what better way to spend V-Day than with cute, cuddly lion cubs? It was rainy and cold, but it was still pretty fun. Little kids and their parents came out in large numbers to watch the baby lions get their Valentine’s Day treats. Our assignment as a class was to shoot candid photographs of people that told a story. So we all dragged out our telephoto lenses and started taking pictures of people’s kids (hopefully it was flattering and you know, not creepy). Overall, everything went great. Below is a photo of some of my classmates working on their assignment to give you an idea of the weather conditions today.

This was my first experience with a telephoto so it took some getting used to, but I liked what it did to the depth of field. It made each picture seem so much more intimate.

Anyways, that’s all for now!

This week in my photography class, we had to shoot a portrait assignment. The only stipulation for this project was that strobe be a major light component in the image. While this doesn’t sound terribly tough, it is much more difficult than I thought it was going to be.

Some of the things I learned:

~fill flash techniques rarely work indoors
~bounce flash, if you can, is the way to go as long as you know your angles and bounce it off of something off camera
~the task of washing someone out is much more complex than it seems

Kelly Parker, Olympia Mills, 2-12-09

This is my favorite picture taken for this assignment. The lighting in the space where the pool table was located was dim (lit only by small ceiling fill lights), so I bounced my strobe off the wall to the right. This, I think gave the photo a warm glow. It is, admittedly, a bit yellow (a problem that  can be flushed out in Photoshop) but I think it gives it an interesting feel.

Last year around this time I was in Savannah with my mom. While we were there, we visited the Jepson Art Museum where they were hosting an Ansel Adams exhibit. Up until that point, I knew who he was, but wouldn’t have been able to put the name to the photograph if I was asked on the spot. Now that I got to see his originals up close and personal, I’ll never forget him.

This week I decided to share with you some of his photography rather than my own. If you click on this link you can go to his website and view all of this images. With Adams’ photography, not only to do I like the content, but I like how he shot with only  a wide angle lens.