St. Mary's Picnic

Shooting for Bryan Moss's Web site, LifeinCorydon.com is one of the most rewarding of the freelance jobs I have. He's an old-school photojournalist who is rather bare-bones about his work, and instructs his freelancers to adopt the same principles while shooting for him. He doesn't use a flash, so neither do I. It sounds restrictive, but it just forces me to open my eyes, pay attention to available light and exercise more patience. It's improved my photography and turned me into a bit of a snob. Sometimes, I cringe a little when I notice the flash fired in a photo.

I don't really have a limit of photos to constrain me, so I don't have to worry about what I'm shooting or what's likely to run. It's wide open, and there's not a singular image required to encapsulate every event. It doesn't hurt to look for one, but I get at least 24 frames posted with every gallery. It's a form of visual storytelling and there aren't a whole lot of mediums willing to dedicate that kind of space anymore.

Last Sunday, I shot a church picnic at St. Mary's in Lanesville.

So what? People eat and play bingo. What's so great about that?

It's too easy to overlook all the little moments in between, that's what I'm after. How does the food get to the table? Who does the cooking? What are people doing to stay cool? The chicken was cooked on-site, where are the fryers?

There's a lot more to every moment than people generally pay attention to, so that's where I come in. I document the glances in between, or the little boy eying his mother's chocolate cake.

Even though I get plenty of pictures posted every time I shoot for Bryan, there are still a few frames I like that don't make the cut. Part of it's because of space and I think the rest is a taste issue, but I plan on putting a few frames up with each assignment that don't make it online or in print. I'll also give a little critique with each photo.

So, here goes, round one. Click for larger previews.

This man was the emcee for a game of bingo, but players used kernels of corn to mark their boards instead of traditional bingo ink markers. This photo probably doesn't make what he's up to very obvious, even in a multi-photo gallery, but I still like the portrait.

These men were breading the chicken before taking it over to the fryers. The excruciating heat coupled with several fryers running made the work difficult, but they kept going until everyone who was interested had eaten. I can see how this one missed the cut because of the thin, white columns on either side are a little distracting. It's still a nice moment, though.

I love the scale of this one, showing how small the boy is in comparison to the people on either side of him, and his legs off the ground. I'm not offended this one didn't make the cut, but I really like it.

It seemed those who won the cake giveaways had to get through a council to receive their prize. Absolutely no exchanges, either. I never knew free cake was such a serious undertaking.

There were a few more I liked, but I don't want these posts to get too long. Maybe limiting each entry to four that didn't make the cut is a good guideline. Let's stick with that, shall we?

Either way, that's all for now. I have a short feature to finish for one newspaper right now, and another story to report on and write by 10 p.m. tonight. I better get cracking.

Inagurals

This isn't the first time I've ever posted something on the Internet. I used to vent about personal problems or reflect other happenings on another site. Years of writing about angst-ridden and not-so-angst-ridden situations were probably good for me, but I'd like to think much of my angst is resolved.

Now, I want to write with a different sort of purpose. Typically, I save my fingers and limit my typing to messages on Facebook, e-mails, and from time to time, a news story. The captions for my photos are quite minimalist, and I need to keep my skills sharp. Not only do I want to keep from getting rusty, but I'd like to chronicle my work and how I feel about it.

Tonight, I thought about some of my time as an editor for The Horizon, my student newspaper at IU Southeast. I went back through some of my old columns, especially the last few I wrote about my frustrations with Student Government. They were really my proudest, and it made me think a little about how much I loved writing them. Columns were a challenge, and it felt good to take them on.

Well, in retrospect, anyway.

Coming up with column ideas was rough sometimes. I often worried I'd write about nothing, or at least nothing of any importance. I always charged myself to write something dealing with some sort of effect on students. I pined over word choice. I dug through stylebooks, dictionaries and thesauri to make sure I was correct, concise and insightful.

Of course, most of this happened on Friday nights when the other editors and I would work on page design, and my columns really should have been completed the night before. That was compounded by the fact I had to design the front and the jump, so I usually had twice the workload of everyone else. Then there was the proofing of each page on less-than-tabloid-sized paper. Headaches were pretty common between that and staring at computer screens for hours.

Even if the process was laborious and often thankless, the product was more than worth it. One of my last columns addressed Student Government going into executive session when they should have left the doors open to students and everyone else. The two members I mentioned, who had always worked to keep SGA from going into unnecessary closed meetings, approached me afterward and said they agreed with me. They said they regretted contributing to the unanimous vote to boot non-members from the room. The minutes from that closed meeting were promptly posted outside their office. Most likely, there weren't a lot of students who stopped to read them, but something I wrote still caused someone with some kind of authority to make a positive change. That always felt good.

Writing doesn't feel primary anymore. It barely feels secondary, for that matter. Most of my work happens while I'm looking through a viewfinder and composing an image, waiting for the right moment to push the button. Making good, candid photography happen requires empathy and patience. Maybe I can reveal a bit about that experience here. I can not only release some about my work, but also keep my writing skills honed.

But what's the point of talking about visual storytelling without doing a bit of it here? Keep checking back for favorite images, pictures that didn't make the cut, and other images I produce. Here's to starting something new.