The Power of Photographs

Sooooooooo, it's been quite a long time since I have posted on this thing. I apologize.  I've been incredibly busy. Since I last posted, I have the had the grand opportunity of photographing many, many different events and sports.  Check out some of the best I've done in the past two months! (Click the image to cycle through)

No joke people, I've fallin' in love with my practicum and know the media route is a route I want to take in student affairs. In these three months, I've come to notice a lot of different things about photography and how it's used around campus and online.  Here's how the process works: I get an assignment, could be a portrait, sporting event, whatever. I go to that assignment and take pictures.  I choose about 30 of those photos and then upload them to a server, where someone else picks what gets showcased online.  You see that gives me a lot of power as a photographer. I am the one pointing the camera and hitting the shutter, after all. For example, let's say I was shooting sports. I'll use Volleyball to give an example. Let's say the Volleyball team wins, I've taken about 500 photos and I need to choose some of my best thirty. My best. Given they won, I might choose photos that look like this:

If I didn't tell you what happened during this match, you'd probably guess we'd have won. So what happens if we were to lose? `What images do I provide? That may look something like this:

What are you thinking about now? Maybe the the player being showcased had a great game? Maybe we scored a lot? Maybe it was a tough game? This is branding. Despite the loss I would never give an image that looked like this:

Why? We did lose after all. Branding. It's all about the images and the images have power. That is what I have noticed in three months. You really have to know your work setting and how marketing wants to portray their images. 

I've learned, as a photographer and student affairs professional, the images I create can hold a lot of power.  That's a little scary.  Considering I am still learning a lot about media in student affairs, I am sometimes afraid of the images I put out. How will they be portrayed? Did I capture what the client (campus personnel) wanted in the images? Thankfully I have great practicum supervisors, which have guided me on the process of creating images and portraying them. Despite them thinking they are just photographers, they are much more. We can't just be photographers when we know so much more. We are also cultivators of a cultural craft. We understand culture and sub-culture, even if we lack the jargon to speak about it or even realize we know about culture and sub-culture.

Anyways. I'm having tons of fun here and will be posting more often now that I am 'less' busy. Ha! Like that will ever be a thing. #TheGradLife

Requests or comments? Let me know. You know where to find me. :) Oh, and thanks for reading!

Take Two

Miami played Eastern Kentucky University, so I had another opportunity to shoot some good ol' American football.  First off, I'm really thankful for having a great supervisor.  He really lets me explore the world of sports photography for myself and learn by first hand experience. Let me tell you though, there is so much to learn and I feel like I could spend years on this and still have so much to learn.

This time around I got to use the 300mm prime lens for the duration of the game.  Seriously peeps this lens is massive.  I am legit sore in my left arm from carrying this lens.  Here's an idea of how massive it is:

It's basically three 6D's big and basically the same girth. Massive. I may end up having some ripped arms after this season. Ha! I got jokes, I know, I know.

Anyways, today I learned about positioning. I was actually fine with getting used to the lens and it didn't feel like I was new to photography again.  Things were going fine up until I started missing shots because people were in my way. Honestly, I was missing good shots because I was not in the right position.  Here are some examples of what I am talking about (click on the photo for more):

You can see how sometimes the cheerleaders were in the shot, or even the referee was in the shot.  I played a lot with positioning today, in terms of where to be and when to be there.  It's actually really critical to understand what is happening in the game, so it's not just simply pointing the camera at the QB and pressing the shutter as much as you want.  It's important to understand what down you're on, how close to the goal, quarter, players, trends, etc. 

I've realized how fortunate I am to have this opportunity and it's turning out to fit in so well with what I am learning in graduate school.  I mean there is an entire subculture existent within football at the university and even a subculture within sports photography. I'm getting real excited because of how well this experience is turning out to be. It is definitely refining the fact that I want to go into student affairs media and communication.

Here are some of my fav's from today's game (click on the image for more pictures):

Next week there is no home football game, but I will be shooting cross country and a Latin American festival.  I plan to keep this blog up weekly.  At least one post a week about my adventures in photography.

Thanks for reading! If you got some time find me on some social networking found at the very bottom right of this page and on the sidebars. :)

Until next time friends!

Something New

I have been given a very unique opportunity to photograph sports here at Miami University.  Today was my first time photographing a sporting event.  I won't lie, I have a new found respect for sports photographers.  First off, lugging all of that equipment is exhausting, but that's not what is difficult about sports photography.  Following the action of football through the eye of a 300mm prime lens is much more difficult than I anticipated.  The weight of the lens didn't make it any easier. Here is an example of me getting used to it:

Seriously? Where the heck was I aiming?! It took me at least ten minutes to finally get the hang of it, but jeez is that 300mm f/2.8 lens a monster.  Seriously, the quality of the images needed almost 0 processing.

Well, I spent the entire game shooting away and getting in some good practice.  I really enjoyed the experience and I am hoping to go back and see if I can do better, because, honestly, the nerves were definitely getting to me.  Nonetheless, it was an experience that was much needed. Failure is part of the learning process, right? At least we should be striving for this growth mindset (gross).

I am very fortunate, though, to have the opportunity to do this kind of stuff for my practicum experience.  I am also very fortunate to have such great photographers to learn from.  This media kick I am on has definitely taken over my studies and I feel I've found a way to interweave my passions. Looking forward to the next shoot!

Here are some of my fav's from today (click on the photos for more):

P.S. Sometimes autofocus is terrible... :( DANG! That could've been a good shot!