Life was a bit unruly during the week before spring break. I’ve lived through some turbulent times, and that week definitely ranks among the worst I’ve ever had in my life. However, my well-earned break came with a fanfare and now I’m feeling quite like myself again. Good thing, since there’s a lot to be done in the next six weeks.

So while I was in DC, I worked on the fill and balance project a little more. I was rained out while in New Jersey early in the week – more like flooded out by a monsoon – so I waited to really concentrate on it later in the week. I had hoped to shoot in at least two different places, but I hit quite a bit of ‘culture shock’ while working on it.

Here in Columbia, we feel safe behind our cameras. The town is so small, I’d guess that half the population has been photographed or knows someone who has been by a journalism kid. But in the Washington, DC area, the percentage is a lot less. Enough to where working on a project is not easy at all, and I learned that the hard way with a lot of ‘no, please don’t take my photo’ and ‘no, I won’t give you my name.’ Thankfully, the ladies in this photo recognized the Missouri School of Journalism as a credible source of students and eventually gave me their first names. Not many new frames, but definitely getting the hang of balancing indoors and outside.

From left: Gina and Martha, both of whom did not want to give their last names, take a look at a gift display inside Cheesetique on Mt. Vernon Avenue in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia on Saturday, April 3. Many people were out enjoying the nice weather on the avenue, which is home to a number of individually owned boutique stores and restaurants.

Multiple Flash

Nathan Moore checks his line while members of the Mizzou Climbing Club look on after repelling down the bluff at Capen Park on Wednesday afternoon. Moore, a freshman at the University of Missouri, has only been rock climbing specifically for two months although he says he’s always been a climber of trees and other scalable objects. When asked whether he prefers climbing here or at the rock wall gym, he said, “The outdoors, definitely. Just for the sake of being outdoors.”

Life was a bit unruly during the week before spring break. I’ve lived through some turbulent times, and that week definitely ranks among the worst I’ve ever had in my life. However, my well-earned break came with a fanfare and now I’m feeling quite like myself again. Good thing, since there’s a lot to be done in the next six weeks.

So while I was in DC, I worked on the fill and balance project a little more. I was rained out while in New Jersey early in the week – more like flooded out by a monsoon – so I waited to really concentrate on it later in the week. I had hoped to shoot in at least two different places, but I hit quite a bit of ‘culture shock’ while working on it.

Here in Columbia, we feel safe behind our cameras. The town is so small, I’d guess that half the population has been photographed or knows someone who has been by a journalism kid. But in the Washington, DC area, the percentage is a lot less. Enough to where working on a project is not easy at all, and I learned that the hard way with a lot of ‘no, please don’t take my photo’ and ‘no, I won’t give you my name.’ Thankfully, the ladies in this photo recognized the Missouri School of Journalism as a credible source of students and eventually gave me their first names.

Not many new frames, but definitely getting the hang of balancing indoors and outside.

From left: Gina and Martha, both of whom did not want to give their last names, take a look at a gift display inside Cheesetique on Mt. Vernon Avenue in the Del Ray neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia on Saturday, April 3. Many people were out enjoying the nice weather on the avenue, which is home to a number of individually owned boutique stores and restaurants.

Freshman Matt Brannen (left) watched the people go by and listened to music while sitting with his roommates Alex O’Brien (center), a junior, and sophomore Zach Angelacos (back) on the old Jesse Hall columns on Friday, March 19. “It’s just a nice day, so we decided to come out here and hang out,” Brannen said.

Doug Taylor shows off his award -winning basset hound’s impressive “wingspan” at the 2010 Columbia Kennel Club Dog Show on March 14. Three-year old Cannon Ball won Best in Breed and surprised Taylor with a Best in Group 1 (Hounds) win as well.

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For an assignment that’s supposed to test both your flash color balancing and color correcting skills, I did almost no color correcting to this photo. The biggest thing was doing a spot color correction on a white part of the dog near his neck – my remote trigger (the pop-up flash), while turned off in-in camera, still emits a teeny bit of light. It was enough to throw the color off slightly.

I think I would rather have been told to photograph something in a nasty light with no flash and have to make it work via the photoshop controls. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to do that editing for Vox and the Missourian already. Salvaging someone’s poorly lit take is a very important skill when you NEED those pictures and someone shot it wrong.

Bounce Flash:

Mayoral candidate Bob McDavid answers a question at the forum held Wednesday evening on the University of Missouri’s campus. Audience members provided the questions for the candidates at the event jointly sponsored by the Missouri Students Association and the Associated Students of the University of Missouri. Renters rights and downtown security cameras were hot topics for discussion.

Direct Flash:

Missouri freshman J. J. Bowles, an ambassador of the Associated Students of the University of Missouri, created cards to signal to the candidate speaking that their time was running out for the question at hand. The mayoral forum held in conjunction with the Missouri Students Association on Wednesday featured five of the six candidates running for election in April.

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In full disclosure, the bounce flash photo above ran on the Missourian’s website today as part of the full storyon the forum. I’m covering the mayor’s race for an independent study, and although I didn’t want to do it, I photographed the forum for both class and the Missourian. After much deliberation on which images to hand in for class, I ended up selecting the bounce flash photo above, even though it had already been selected for the online package. It really was one of the best-lit photos with a real, journalistic moment.

This assignment was a rollercoaster of emotions towards my flash (don’t laugh), but I definitely have much more respect for it now. I’ll tame this beast . . . someday.

“Bad Dog”

A news aficionado’s nightmare – coming home to find that your dog Rocco or Princess let loose on the house and destroyed the Sunday paper before reading it – may soon change with the  industry’s uncertain future in print.

And here’s the lighting plan.

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Part of me wishes this photo came out more stylized, and the other part LOVES that it could pass as natural light. Every bit of light was deliberate, from making sure the bone is bright to adding a tiny bit of fill on the food in the bowl to get rid of a shadow from the bone. I’m finding that I really like this studio stuff. It’s HARD. But it makes me think, and it feels so rewarding to come away with a frame that makes me happy.

Also, now Scott and I have to get a dog someday. We already have the bowl!

Missouri senior Jonathan Hinderliter shows off his sunglasses during a portrait session on February 13, 2010. Hinderliter balances his love of fashion, shoes and shopping with his sharp personality, cynical tendencies and a penchant for arguments.

Lighting diagram for my single-light portrait. I like arrows and stick figures. Reminds me of this.

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Sorry for the unannounced intrusion, blog friends. I’ll be updating on occasion with posts like this – it’s part of my assignment for my photo class. Anything that’s prefixed with “Advanced Techniques” in the title is for the class. The purist in me thought about keeping these kinds of posts relegated to an old blog location, but then I figured it might be fun to keep all my posts together. You’ll see outtakes from various assignments throughout the semester, plus now some finals for submission. Hooray for process! Hooray for blogging!

At least it’ll give me a guaranteed post every so often. I have a list that’s about four topics long of photos I want to blog. Soon, I promise.

My first semester as a graduate student is complete.

Holy moly and little fishes, it’s complete! It’s hard to imagine almost, remembering how I’d sit around all day long – when I wasn’t in class – reading article after article for class, falling asleep while reading said articles, and writing papers every week on what I read. Or how I’d have a photo assignment due every week or so and how nervous I’d get finding subjects but end up with fantastic situations.

But many hours, projects, papers, readings and naps later, I’ve come out on top. For one of the few times in my life, I am a straight “A” student – and it feels good.

In addition to all the classwork, I also managed to staff the 61st Missouri Photo Workshop and be on the volunteer reporting team for the 2009 APME Conference. Oh, and I sang in a choir through school with three performances throughout the semester.

No wonder I’m thoroughly enjoying my few days off by cleaning, baking, archiving and website building. Counting from the end of the semester on Friday, I have five days here of nothing, then Scott and I are off to Seattle to visit his family for the holidays for six days. West coast, here we come!

On our return, I will start work at the Columbia Missourian as a staff photographer for three weeks . . . and then semester #2 begins! Oh, how time flies.

But for now, I’m enjoying spending a lot of time right here.

While this mess has since been cleaned up (mostly) and the paper handed in (I got an A-), it pretty well illustrates how my semester has been (and continues to be).

Right now I’m waiting for 162 RAW files to process to place into a time-lapse of contra dancing. I hope it works. I’ve never done a time-lapse before. I’ve also never done an audio slideshow this in-depth before. Sadly, I’ve done stories before, and this project isn’t really turning out to be one.

I don’t know why I’m getting so worried about this project. Maybe because I feel that a final project should be stellar. Or maybe because I’m just a perfectionist and can’t settle for handing in a “draft.” I took a look at a previous project some by some convergence students – which I didn’t want to see, but now I’m glad I did – and even in it’s baby stage, my project just looks better and sounds better. Maybe not better, per-se, but cleaner for sure. (Okay, I’m going to be honest. It’s way better.)

What I need is an editor. Thank goodness we have a work day tomorrow in class. I hope to get some feedback on the photos and perhaps some of the audio bits too. I’ve edited down a few nice chunks that I can play. Maybe I just need one more point of view about the dancing. Saturday’s it. Crunch time, last dance before the due date.

(I think I can, I think I can, I think I can … )

(one of my favorite photos from the second shoot.)

Last week seems like a blur.

One minute I was running around my apartment making sure I had A. enough clothes and B. all my photography equipment while trying to finish up a Fundamentals project, go to class, attend meetings and apply for next semester assistanships. [more on the Fundamentals project later.]

Then I found myself driving out to St. Louis, checking into the hotel, and starting coverage of the APME conference via Twitter and through photos.

Whirlwind doesn’t even describe it. Not quite frantic, but definitely intense and fast-paced. From one session to the next, our team blanketed the convention with coverage for those members who could not make it this year. It’s a shame they didn’t – the sessions were fantastic.

Wednesday night, I was scheduled to cover the opening reception at the City Museum.

The place is incredibly beautiful – and massive. This is just the first floor area. There’s so much more. I can’t wait to go back.

There was a tank with turtles. Lots and lots of turtles. They got a lot of attention throughout the night.

A joke was made about being able to brag about attending a conference where they served peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, in light of the current economic landscape of the news world. The really did serve little sandwiches.

No reception is complete without a silent auction. The best part was the live auction, when the caller was trying to get people to bid on a $6,000 vacation. See above photo caption for irony.

Then Wednesday, I photographed two other sessions, the Associated Press Report and the APPM’s Community Journalism and Innovation.

Members of the audience reacted to the playing of Julie Jacobson’s video and audio diary of the situation when she took the controversial photo of the injured Marine who later died.

The panelists watch a presentation on some of the AP’s most innovative and exciting storytelling work.

In the APPM session, attendees were asked to write out the core principles they believe in as journalists.

Yes, we even watched a segment of The Colbert Report to illustrate just how far the Commercial Appeal’s story on public records (gun licenses) went. The clip is at that link.

So yeah. It was a blast to cover, and fantastic to meet some inspiring people. Don’t listen to those naysayers out there. Journalism is NOT dead – it’s just changing.

And from what I saw at this conference, there’s a bright future ahead. We just need to make sure we can get there.