My book has 19 flags in four colors hanging out the side. We’re only four chapters in.

Each one of those flags marks a place where Anne Lamott wrote something so perfectly about the creative process – well, in her words, the writing process. But take out the word “writing” and put in “photograph” and we’ve got a manifesto, folks. Even in just the introduction, from her admission to seeing your name in print to the desires of her students to get published, but not necessarily to write, she’s nailed it on the head. All I could think about was my first day of class in Fundamentals, thinking, “Why am I in this class? I already HAVE experience. Can’t I move on and shoot for the paper already?” (Yes, I thought this. David Rees humbled me by the end of that first week.)

And I find it quite fitting that I’m so full of words and love for this book that it took me quite a while to sit here and actually write about it. All these words are just flying around my brain, trying to process everything that she writes about and I can’t quite make sense of it all. I bookmarked all those pages to try and remember pieces, but I think the most resonant idea that I can take away so far is that to write well – or in our case, to take good photographs – is to practice. To start small. Like our one day story project. Something simple to get us into the rhythm of making photographs that tell a story, so that by the time we’re faced with the final project, we’re already feeling the groove.

She likens the process to musicians. “What’s real is that if you do your scales every day, if you slowly try harder and harder pieces, if you listen to great musicians play music you love, you’ll get better.” (p.14) If we take photographs every day, if we try for more and more complex storytelling, and look at some amazing photographers’ work because we can’t get enough, we’ll all get better at telling the stories we need to tell.

And she tells us flat out – there will be shitty first drafts. We need those rough edits and first day’s takes to know where we are in a story and where we need to go. In order to kill our puppies, we need to have a brood to kill first. (For those of you who don’t understand that phrase, it has nothing to do with real killing. It’s more about editing out your most loved photograph because it doesn’t help the story along.) No photographer goes out on assignment and comes back with an entire take of portfolio quality images. It takes a first edit, and a second edit, and many times three or more edits to really discover the beauty in the full take.

The final chapter we were to read was on perfectionism. She writes, “Perfectionism means that you try to not leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.” (p. 28) I need to learn to embrace this idea that a little bit of mess can be a very good thing. I can get so nitpicky, so anal, so . . . perfect-obsessed about assignments and photographs and stories and portfolios and websites .and ohh, yeah. I need this. “… we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here – and by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.”

And photographing.

Next. Langton.

I have to laugh here. The book on photojournalism makes me want to gouge my eyes out, and the book on writing has me dreaming about adventures. Not that Langton writes anything truly dull or incorrect, but that he’s writing about everything we hear, day in and day out, at a journalism school. Real people don’t talk about photojournalism like this. Yes, we talk at length about the importance – or the existence – of objectivity and symbolism in photographs, but outside of these walls, it’s just not so academic. He brings up some great points for discussion, how money drives the business while passion drives people, how editing can change the context and content of a story wildly, and how photographs can become icons and symbols out of context. I just wish it didn’t sound like a dissertation.

(Oh wait. I think it was one.)

And finally … the podcast.

Short, sweet and right to the point. Talent can only get you so far. You gotta put in the effort behind it to be really great. And when you start to reach that point, or at least understand it and work towards it, you’ll be noticed. Or we hope so. Do we put in enough hours in our program to get us on our way to really thinking about what we do and why we do it? What makes it good, and what makes it suck? Have we really devoted our lives to our craft, or are we coasting by on so-so grades and so-so effort?

But as we’ve seen on so many bad photographer’s websites – there needs to be a baseline of talent. That’s what will make you stand out among the crowd of time-investing enthusiasts. That little spark of brilliance we all know and see in each other every day.

I could use some ruby slippers right about now. And a conch shell to put sound to this image.

Also, if anyone invents a story idea detector, please let me know.

My first assignment for Picture Story (or capstone, as the undergrads call it) is to list some picture stories that I’ve seen that either work or don’t work, things that inspire and influence, and write a little about each.

1. The first I thought of immediately was by a colleague in DC, Amanda Lucidon. (No, not Amanda Lucier, the MU grad.) It’s a picture story of a deaf dancer. How much harder can you get in illustrating the non-visual concept? While I feel like the story could probably go for a tighter edit, I think the point is brought across to show that yeah, she’s different – deaf – but she still does everything that any normal ten-year old would do. Being able to tell a non-visual story (or a one-photo literal story as in this case) is an incredible talent. Perhaps someday I’ll give it a try.

http://www.amandalucidon.com/Site/Deaf_Dancer.html

2. I’m sure everyone will link to this story by Maisie Crow. It won (did it really win, or was it just a contender?) for CPOY, and it deserves all the attention the story has received since publication. It’s simple, beautiful, and so moving. Every time I look at the images, I want to cry. I can feel the love and loss in every frame. Somewhere, there’s an article about her experience photographing this story. It’s worth a read. This story also inspires me to try and find a touching, personal story someday. I mean, really personal. In depth. Caring. Illuminating life. It’s a lofty goal, but I’ll get there eventually.

http://www.maisiecrow.com/gallery.html?gallery=A LIFE ALONE

3. So, for my third story I wanted to find something that did well in a contest, but if I were a judge, I would have voted it out. I came across this one from CPOY 59 by a guy named Denis Rochefort from RIT. The story won an award of excellence. While I really like the opening frame, it just seems like a collection of photographs taken on a night out. It seems like there’s possibility for a great story in a club that’s drug and alcohol free, where kids can just be kids. But for me, there’s something missing. I’m interested to see what others think in class.

http://www.cpoy.org/index.php?s=WinningImages&yr=59&c=59&p=4.1

Before classes start, an incoming freshmen tradition is to participate in the Tiger Walk. The band, Marching Mizzou, plays. The deans of the school speak. The basketball coach riles everyone up with a rousing “MIZ!” And with a countdown, the kids sprint up over the little hill, through the columns, and finish at department tables set up with banners and piles of Tiger Stripe ice cream set up in front of Jesse Hall.

It’s supposed to signify the entrance into Mizzou and the start of their college careers.

In four years, these kids will be slowly sauntering away from Jesse Hall, up over the hill and through the columns, not running but barely able to inch forward and start their lives as graduates.

Tradition is huge at Mizzou. Some may call it lame, but for most – it’s just a way of life here.

Welcome, class of 2014.

There is a delicate balance between theory and reality in chemistry, as a formula that works on paper may not behave in predicted ways when applied to actual experiments. For instance, Depakote, commonly known as valproic acid, is synthesized through several chemical processes, some of which are difficult to produce due to variances in temperatures or pressures or in efficiency of the reactions. “This synthesis works in theory, but the trouble is in getting the conditions right so it works in reality,” said Phil Silverman, the lab coordinator for the University of Missouri’s chemistry department.

***

To me, the image looks too dark for the effect we were going for in the lab. Here’s what I think would look a little better. I’ve moved the white point up so that there’s a bright white in the frame.

Here are a few fantastic projects by Missourian photographers from this and last semester.

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/multimedia/video/2010/03/29/boone-life-missouri-monk/ (Caitlyn Emmett)

http://www.voxmagazine.com/stories/2010/02/04/job-cleaner/ (John Schreiber)

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2010/02/15/boone-life-down-barber-shop/ (August Kryger)

http://vimeo.com/10454664 (Mito Habe-Evans)

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.”

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.

****

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.