30-Day Final: On the Run

My 30-Day is probably the project that I'm most proud of to date. 

This is the type of project I want to work on in the future, this kind of story is the reason I got into documentary photography. I want to find real people, get unlimited access to their lives, and tell their stories. This project is exactly that. Travis is a real person. He is a high schooler, a teenager, a man, a skater, a stoner, and I wanted my pictures to show this.  He lives the life of the reckless 18-year-old that everyone knows. He lives above it all, beyond the law, parents, teachers, no one is stopping him. Such characters should not go unnoticed.

The trouble with a story like this is that it is never finished. The subject's live continues to evolve, their world continues to turn. So, where do you stop? When do you stop shooting if there is always more to shoot? Sure, I can go out a couple of times, gather the necessary pictures to tell the average 8-10 picture story, but there's always more. I could always improve the story, I could keep shooting and probably make hundreds of relevant pictures that only add to the complex life of this kid. No matter how mundane their lives may seem, everyone has so many small details, and so many facets to every aspect of their life that 8-10 pictures really don't do them justice, but no one wants to look at 150 pictures in a single photo story, right? 

I'll keep shooting until I leave Columbia and see what I get. Until then, here's the final edit I turned in for Rita. Thanks to Brian Kratzer for giving the story visual direction, and thanks to all those who looked through my stack of tiny black and white prints and helped me narrow the story down to these nine frames.

Also, for a more trendy, horizontal scrolling, linear version of this edit, click here.

WIP 30-Day Part Two

Some slides of possible selections from my second and final shoot with my subject for my 30-day project. 

Final edit on its way. 

WIP 30-Day Part One

Photos from my first shoot with my 30-Day subject. More to come. 

One-Day Story

Shooting my rally story was probably the best weekend I'd had in a long time. I travelled to a backwoods part of southern Missouri and drove 90 mph at night on gravel roads with other fans between stages. There's nothing like being in the woods in the pitch black Missouri night waiting for the next car to come barreling past at 100+ mph, sitting about 3 feet off the track hidden behind a tree. This event was like nothing else I've ever seen in rural Missouri and I would love to go again next year. The weekend was complete chaos trying to navigate to all the stages before the race was over. Some of the most fun I've had on an assignment. 

Link to the story on my website.

Job Profile Reflection

When I first took on this story I was really excited about it. I imagined an ornate sanctuary and powerful images of Fr. Michael, but didn't consider how obnoxious a guy with a camera could potentially be in the middle of a worship service. This was my downfall, and the reason I don't personally consider this project a total success, yet. 

I tried using the PEN system, which was quieter, but not much quieter, and also much much worse in low light, which didn't help at night church when there was basically zero light present. But, I can handle grain, I like it, actually, so it wasn't as much of an issue as the shutter noise. 

My biggest struggle was sitting through church service and seeing beautiful photos happening right in front of me, but instead of shooting I just sat there, because I didn't feel comfortable making the necessary "crick" to get the shot. 

This was a first for me. 

I'm used to shooting noisy events, things outdoors, or more intimate subjects where I'm free to explore every possible angle and shoot every photo I see. I'm not used to seeing a photo and not being able to capture it, and I'm an over-shooter so this hurt even worse. But in the 150 frames I actually gathered from countless hours of church services, I was able to scrap together some usable, and even good stuff to fulfill the requirements for the assignment and produce a video that I am proud of. 

Father Michael was a great interviewee and gave me some awesome audio, so that helped a ton during production. He was also an amazing subject and granted me all the access I wanted, but it was my personal adherence to disrupting the service that set me back.

Here's the finished product: https://vimeo.com/63256527

2013 POYi Reaction

The judging session I want to talk about was the Science & Natural History singles category. I was there for the entirety of the judging for this category and had some strong opinions about the outcome of the judging.

This is always my favorite category because I would like to eventually shoot Science/Nat. History stories, so I rarely miss the judging, but usually I’m happier with the outcome.

I remember the final round of this category. There were some amazing photographs that I felt really fit the category. I was happy with the judges’ decisions and knew the way the judging should proceed, but then they started picking the photos which I thought would for sure be voted out before the Award of Excellence voting.

The selections made for the judges’ top 3 were photos I thought could have probably been voted out, maybe receiving Awards of Excellence, but definitely not my winners. The photo I have a problem with in particular is the photo of the space suit.

The photo is beautifully toned and powerful considering the content, however, I feel like anyone with a DSLR could’ve taken the same photo. It didn’t take months of planning and research, or bravery on the part of the photographer. There were amazing underwater shots that must’ve taken the photographer months of scouting to find, but those got voted out. So, I thought it was kind of ridiculous that they picked a simple overhead of a space suit, possibly shot on Aperture priority or even full Auto settings and boosted in post.

This is just a matter of preference, and I know this doesn’t affect the quality of a photo, but I was also a little thrown off that they selected three verticals for their winners. When I think Science/Nat. History, I think Nat. Geo., Joel Sartore, Nick Nichols. I want to see beautiful photos from far corners of the world, shot in a traditional horizontal orientation. I love horizontals, and National Geographic has a lot to do with that. Verticals are for portraits, not night landscapes and shuttle launches, but again, that’s only my opinion.

The next category I would like to talk about was one that had a lot of arguments between judges, feature picture story. The two old hats fought hard and strong for the black and white stories, and they ended up winning. This wasn’t the best outcome for me because I agreed with Emilio, who argued that black and white has become a cheap trick to hide bad color and add artificial mood to the photos. He said that a photographer needs to be able to shoot a good story, and handle color, because this is modern photojournalism and our cameras shoot in color. I mean, I love black and white, but I agree with Emilio, color is the format of today and people should stop taking a shortcut by converting their ugly light photos to black and white.

The hog story was really strong, I loved it. Also the racing story was worth mentioning. They were both such strong stories, but I also have no idea how they would’ve looked in color because the photographers chose to take the B/W road. The hog story would have been especially nice in color, with that detail of the blood-soaked knife, some nice soft, slightly desaturated toning on the knife and background would’ve really made the red blood pop and given the photo a lot more power in my opinion.

The color vs. black and white argument continued into the Photographer of the Year/Newspaper category, but this time color seemed to prevail, with only the photographer from Jasper who shot the hog story winning third for the black and white team. I was happy about this outcome, and agreed completely with the judges’ selections.

Reading review for 2/13

Jay/Hurn 

I really enjoyed this reading because I feel like it changed the way I look at subject selection. Before when I've chosen subjects for stories, I chose what I thought would make a "good story." I now realize that was the wrong approach. By not choosing something that interests me I cheated myself out of the "good story" that I was looking for. It makes sense that a photographer would perform better with a subject that they have a deep understanding of, or a topic on which they are an expert. This would be sure to make the picture-making process a lot simpler and more exciting. For my final project in this class I will most likely try the list idea from this reading. If I am narrowing down a list of everything that interests me into a few ideas that can be carried out locally I will be sure to find a good story that I will look forward to shooting. 

Lamott

The Lamott reading was especially good. The chapter about the Polaroid gave me some good insight on how to approach the storytelling process. Personally, I tend to get frustrated with a story when I begin to struggle with it, or I lose direction. This article compared it to the the slow, anxious wait for a Polaroid photo to develop. She wrote that you have to stick with a story until the muck fades away and you begin to see the whole picture. 

Editing Layout

Here's a layout for the Little Miss Precious story. 

...And here's a linear edit we put together.