Perspective and patience pays off with a front page Toledo Blade photo

Placement of this photo is front page,  top of the fold of the Toledo Blade.  Hydrant 3. (Photos by Lori King/© Toledo Blade)

Taken holding the camera over my head. Hydrant 2.

   Perspective. It is a compositional tool both my Owens Digital Pho 1 and Wayne State Digital Photojournalism classes are currently learning about.
   Perspective is one of many tools in a photographer's compositional toolbox, and I pulled it out for the above photo of a Toledo city worker digging out fire hydrants. Perspective is allowing the viewer to see a scene in a different way; from up high, down low, etc.

Taken from normal perspective. Hydrant 1.

   There's a lot going on in the published photo, so I'm going to break it down.
   This series was shot on a frigid, clear day in a neighborhood east of Broadway Ave. I was instructed to find a "rover," which is our slang for roving around town in hopes of finding a decent feature photo that would fill an empty space in the newspaper.
   I like to troll through the neighborhoods that are on the outskirts of downtown Toledo because people are more out and about, compared to suburbs. So I turned off Broadway and eventually found Ron kneeling by a fire hydrant. I got out of my car and asked if he would mind if I took a few photos of him doing his job. He was a little hesitant, as many people are when a Blade photographer approaches them, but with a little sweet talking he agreed.

   He told me was clearing snow away from 20 hydrants, so I decided I would follow him to his next hydrant because I wanted the shoveling shot.
   Patience is another tool in the toolbox that is often overlooked, and it paid off here.  I had decent shots on the first two hydrants (seen above), but I envisioned him knee-deep in snow so I followed him to three hydrants. On the third one I had a plenty of blue sky in the background, so I set a narrow aperture on a wide lens, put the camera to the ground, waited for him to shovel near the hydrant, and shot blindly away.
   It's a little crooked because I couldn't see through the viewfinder. I initially straightened the horizons in Photoshop, but my boss Dave Zapotosky suggested I leave a little room around the photo. This made sense because when the layout people crop the photo, we didn't want them to crop the top of his head or any of the snow at the top or right side.
   There is also nothing I could do about the wire going through his back. It's an accepted fact that in photojournalism there are imperfections. We are bound by the NPPA code of ethics to not manipulate our photos in any way, so the line and the street lamp remained.
   I was rewarded for getting out of my warm car and spending time with my subject with a front page rover photo today!

Screen grab of the series of photos from a low perspective.

Recapping the first week at Owens CC and Wayne State University

   One week down.  And what a great week it was!

   The first week is always my favorite because I meet new students, and it sets the tone for the rest of the semester.

   Here’s a quick recap:

·      The Digital Photography at Owens has 12 students, and they are already learning the nuts and bolts of their digital cameras. But they won’t get into the specifics of shutter speeds and apertures for another few weeks. But they will be learning how to meter this week.

·      The Owens CRT Digital Video class has 10 students. I’m co-teaching it with a young, bright and recent film graduate from the University of Toledo, Andrew Jex. He brings fresh shooting ideas into the course, which we are designing a bit.

-  They learned the basics of the Final Cut Pro X interface, and went through the first two chapters of the textbook.

-  Throughout the course they will be shooting assignments that include animation and classic storytelling. They will also be shooting an assignment or two for the Owens Outlook student newspaper.  It’s exciting to add video to the online student newspaper. The photo editor, commercial photography major Sean Ferry, will determine what videos will actually make the online newspaper. 

 - The course was also rewarded a $9,000 grant for equipment. We spent that pretty fast. Within a month we should be getting new DSLR camera kits with video capability, Sennheiser mics, tripods and a portable light source.

·      My largest class to teach ever is the Digital Photojournalism course at Wayne State University in Detroit. Nineteen students, mostly journalism majors, showed up Friday morning, eager to use their cameras as another storytelling tool.

Screen grab of Sandra Svoboda's profile on the WDET website.

-       We also had a guest speaker attend the class. WDET radio reporter Sandra Svoboda has given us an offer we can’t refuse. The students will be ‘unofficial’ photographers for the radio station’s website.

-    They will also be doing assignments for the South End student newspaper. Practical experience is the best way to learn, and there is no better way to give them real-world experience.

    Let Week Two begin.

WDET reporter Sandra Svoboda explains shooting opportunities for the digital photography students. (Cell photo by Lori King)