Finishing up the semester

Personally, the stress hasn't gotten to me yet, and I hope it doesn't. This is my last semester of college, I want to space everything out, well-planned and organized so I can move into the final few weeks with as little stress as possible. The website is close to finished, I have photos already edited and ready to print, I just need to shoot a few more games/lacrosse before final critique, see if I can get a few more solid images. I don't want to stretch out the final number of photos too much, but it would be nice to assure myself a well-rounded body of work. I'm shooting over the weekend, lacrosse and baseball, I'm also going to try and shoot some more "staged" lacrosse photos of my nephews playing around with sticks. It will be kind of posed, but I wanted to show a younger age group in a less formal environment, rather than playing on a team, just show people play lacrosse whenever and wherever. We'll see how it goes. Besides that, I just need to start jumping on the editing for the photos, once they're editing for the finals, I can crop down a little bit in order to fit them into the portfolio, shouldn't take much time at all. If I can get that done, it should make the rest of my semester much easier. I'll just bring the rough finals into the Fine Arts Building and use they're nice macs to edit, shouldn't take me much time at all. I just want to make sure I finish strong at the end of the semester and not taper off. I need some good grades at the end to pull myself up a little, I've been posting a bunch and giving a lot of participation, which I think will help.

Hitting a snag

Well, the plan was to go out and photograph some high school girl's lacrosse, only it didn't work out all according to plan. I wake up yesterday morning, only to find that my car is nowhere to be found, and I had no idea what happened to it. Turns out, my car got towed, so I spent the whole day calling around, trying to find out where it could possibly be. It was a real pain in the ass, but these things happen. The game was scheduled for 4:30 yesterday, but having no transportation, I had to skip the shoot yesterday. There are plenty of remaining games in the season, so I'm not stressing too much, I'm going to a huge lacrosse game over the weekend. We're going to show up a few hours early, do some tailgating, I'm sure there is going to be tons of people doing the same, my plan is to try and document people coming together before the game, hanging out, throwing around lacrosse, get the interaction between fans and the game, father and son, stuff like that. Thats one thing I'd really like to follow, because at that age, a lot of sports are father, son kind of activities, so being able to capture that would be great. I have a family event going on this weekend also, which means lots of my little cousins will be there to play around, and the weather should be perfect for lacrosse, i was going to bring a few sticks, get them to play around with each other, see if I could stage a few shots, it should work just the same. I think getting the younger age is important for the series, I need to get a big range of diversity with age for this to be as successful, otherwise it still does feel like stock photos, which is want I want to get away from a little in this series. I think going with something completely separate from sports would've been easier for me to gain an outside perspective, but I can't find myself getting away from sports anytime soon, I absolutely love them.

I do think my photos are turning out good though, I'm not stressing the end of the semester all that much. The website is coming to an end, just need to do a few minor things over the weekend, I should be able to wrap up the majority of the site though, just need to get a domain name and hosting. I may be able to talk my brother into hosting it for a few weeks, then once the show is over, just take it down, not a big deal to me. Besides that, I just need to edit my photos, which some are already done, so that helps, but just size them differently, one for the final prints and the others for the portfolio. Can't say theres much more that needs to be done, I'm pretty good to go.

Hard work paying off (AP)

I just wanted to write a few short words about some great news I've got for my future. I know some people find it a little discouraging that I'm going through a fine art photography program, but my primary focus is sports photography. Honestly, I don't see the problem, I've worked the hardest in the genres of pohtography that I want to excel in, and its starting to pay off. A week or so ago, I got an offer to work as an assistant for a photographer shooting the Nascar race in Richmond. Well, I've got one better now, just last week I got an email from my boss, Scott Brown, turns out that instead of assisting the upcoming Nascar event, i'm shooting freelance. But its not just any freelance job, I got a job offer from Associated Press, which is a HUGE opportunity for me, especially because i'm not even out of college and i'm pulling jobs like this. So I get into contact with Associated Press, they wind up sending me a freelance contract for a FULL YEAR! So not only am I shooting a professional race, but I will have plenty of other great sporting events to shoot in the future, and you can guarantee they're going to pay well too. Just wanted to reflect on this opportunity for a little bit, I've been extremely excited about it and felt the need to write it down. I always try to stay humble, but sometimes its hard when it seems that I've been working a ton lately and some people don't feel the need to support what I'm doing for the future. All I can say, i'm living the dream, making it happen, and others are going to be working a desk job, take that.

Semester Recap

Looking back on this semester's body of work, I do feel there were some areas I could improve on. Overall, I would say I created a lot of work that I was happy with, however, it did not follow the kind of structure that Paul wanted me to follow. He wanted me to take a different approach to photographing sports this semester, rather than shooting stock sports work, he wanted a more photojournalist approach to my work. I agree with his comments, trying to expand my range of photographs would help make my photographs more diverse, but at the same time, it is my decision to photograph whatever I want. Honestly, the reason I chose to continue with my current route in work was based on the amount of work I had already done. I had stuck with sports, because it is what I want to pursue for a career, and I'm already have lots of success. I still have some time to pull the body of work together and try and capture the sport of lacrosse, I'm going to a big game next week and I'm hoping to photograph some local youth games soon, I just had other events to photograph this past week and didn't have the opportunity to make it out there recently. As of now, lacrosse season is in full swing, so it shouldn't be too hard. I only need 2 or 3 photos for the senior art show, and final critique for class is in May, that gives me a good couple weeks to work still.

I did want to shoot a wide range of sports, as i'm doing now, for my senior portfolio work, but it seems like people weren't as interested with that. Honestly, I don't care what they think, but I feel like by shooting different sports, I have more diverse photos, which I particularly like. I feel like shooting just one sport isn't really doing it for me for a body of work, but I really didn't want to shoot anything but sports for this class, plus we were supposed to continue our work from last semester. I'm actually really happy with the work that I've done over this semester, I've stayed productive, learned a lot about shooting photographs and made some great contacts. Not to mention, picking up some big photo jobs already. Everything seems to be coming together for me, i'm pretty siked about my future. Just because I haven't created a cohesive, conceptual body of work, doesn't mean I haven't made an impressive sports photography portfolio, and at this moment, thats all I'm really concerned.

Submission: Anderson Gallery

Here is proof of my submission to the Student Art Show at the Anderson Gallery. The artworks that I selected are a little older, but I felt were some of my stronger pieces that would stand a good chance at making it into the show.

Slaughterama

I had the opportunity to attend Slaughterama (spelling) over the weekend, which really turned out to be a great event. Basically the whole idea behind it is to go down to the river (Belle Isle), drink beer and enjoy the day. Oh yeah, and bring a bike, because there are all kinds of crazy events that require one. The events ranged from jousting, the gauntlet, team chug, all kinds of races, even a quarter pipe where bikers were getting some ridiculous air. I spent the day trying to get the best photographs possible that would document the entire day, as accurate and honest as possible. Besides that actual event, I spent two days prior to that sitting over my cousin's apartment, shooting away as he prepared all 20 of his bikes to go down to the river. Because I'm so close to my cousin, I tried to shoot objects that portrayed him indirectly, things like his bikes, tools, environment around the apartment. Of course, he did want actual photos of himself, but those turned out to be pretty posed and I'll probably never use them. I felt like this was the kind of event I needed to get away from sports for a little bit, shoot something with a different feel, people and completely different setting. I do think I got some great photos out of it, at the same time, I'm hoping I can get together a series of about 10-15 photographs that can completely tell the story of the day. This is really what I've been striving for the majority of this semester. I'm great at capturing an action from a sporting event, but I've lacked the ability to form narratives within a body of work. I'm hoping this will do the trick, I just needed to pull away from the stock sports genre for a bit and focus on different aspects of photography. I am happy doing so, but at times, it seems like people just keep telling me what to shoot, and by the time I'm supposed to be showing work, it doesn't even feel like its my own, but what everyone else wanted me to shoot. In conclusion the photos never feel completely cohesive to me, which comes as a disappointment. I am still in the process of narrowing down photos, but I will definitely have some posted by tomorrow. Keep checking the blog, I am going to want some feedback because I may want to include some of these within my works to show, haven't really decided yet.

Artist Lecture: Alan Berliner

When I had originally stepped into the lecture of Alan Berliner, I really had no interest in being there, I was tired, wasn't in the mood to watch a film, really wanted to just walk out. But I'm really glad I didn't, he wound up showing his film entitled "Nobody's Business" which made a real connection with me during the viewing. I feel like recently I have been growing up a lot more lately, and by doing so, I can relate to specific issues that I probably wouldn't have been able to, or just didn't feel was as important. Family has always been a huge part of my life and having viewed Berliner's film made me think about a lot of things. It made me think about my relationship with my dad, which is great, me and my dad are very alike, we get along great and he completely supports me in anything I do. I think having me and my brother go through art school may have made him feel a little hesitant, but see how far we've come and how successful we're becoming, he's realized we're exactly where we are supposed to be in life and that theres nothing to worry about. A lot of my dad's characteristics have definitely rubbed off on me, he's a very intricate, technical person, he's the kind of person who gets into a hobby, but has to know everything about it, he can't go into anything half-assed, I'm the same way. For example, when i started playing lacrosse, it took up my whole life, i was obsessed with it. Not only did was I part of a team, worked out and practiced regularly, but I bought around 6 different sticks, learned to hand-string them, all with a completely different style. There is no stone I leave unturned, which is the same route I'm going with photography. At this point, I'm definitely trying to make myself as well-rounded as I possibly can, which should help me out greatly in the future.