PHO245 students participate in art show at Toledo Museum of Art

 

Opening reception for a student art show at the Toledo Museum of Art attracted lots of attention from family, friends, instructors and art lovers. The show is called 4 Art: Student Art from Bowling Green State University, Lourdes University, Owens Community College and the University of Toledo. (Photos by Lori King)

Former PHO245 student Kathie VanNess, left, with family members, shows her Ballerinas, a digital print.

Former PHO245 student, Katherine Cedoz, takes a photo of her photo, Toy Camera Triptych/ All in a Day. Holga C-print.

This great studio portrait is by current PHO245 student Amy Everett. This is what I'm talking about!

This digital photo, entitled Honey Pot, is by current PHO245 student Cheri Guthrie. It wasn't her favorite, but my mom
likes it!

    Congratulations to the former and current PHO245 students who were among 100 college artists chosen to display their photography in the new exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art.
   The free exhibition will be shown through Jan. 12, 2012 in the Museum’s Community Gallery.
  

So it's raining...that's what trash bags are for!

Reaction can be just as powerful as the action.

Southview vs. Northview in district semi-final Oct. 26.
Metadata = Lens: 300mm / ISO: 2500 / Aperture: 4 / Shutter: 1/500

   I stood in the pouring rain for nearly two hours shooting a soccer game for The Toledo Blade last night.

   It was cold and miserable, but that didn't prevent me from enjoying the game. In fact, every time I poked my head out from under the cover of a large trash bag that I used to protect my 300mm lens and Canon MarkIV camera, I marveled at the beauty of the fall colors that surrounded the field, and how the rain looked like falling snow in the stadium lights. I kept thinking how lucky I was to be there. 

   We are in Week 10, and it's time for the students to shoot their sports assignments. I gave them two weeks to find a sport and shoot the heck out of it, which includes covering the fans, coaches and players.  Because they have to produce a Soundslides photo story, they must have at least 20 photos that document the entire game, on and off the field.

   Their biggest challenge won't be what to shoot. There's plenty of exciting action at any game at any given moment: angry and happy fans; yelling coaches; injured players; winner and loser reactions; and, of course, the peak action. As long as they keep their eyes open and pay attention, they will have moments to capture.

   The limitation will be their lenses. All of them have decent Canon and Nikon bodies, but most only have a wide to medium variable lens. If they shoot football or soccer with a 55mm lens, there's little chance they will get the shots  displayed in this blog post. They are aware of this, and have expressed concern in class. I told them to make up for the lack of peak action with great fan coverage.
    Make lemonade out of lemons!

   Next week they will post three photos on their blogs: the best action, best coach and best fan shot, as well as produce a Soundslides project. Check out their blogs to see how they did!

  

A photojournalist's portrait studio is...everywhere

To overcome her fear of photographing strangers, Amy took a deep breath and began chatting with her subject, the owner of an optometrist store. "It's amazing how fast you can complete these assignments once you find your subject and overcome your fears," she said. Read her story about her portrait assignment experience on her blog: http://amyeverett2.blogspot.com/

   When my students were told they were going to shoot portraits for their next assignment, they probably imagined using a studio, where hot lights and background paper are standard equipment. It’s natural to link portraits to this controlled environment because that’s where many families and high school seniors often go for their portraiture sessions.
  Portraits are also a part of a photojournalist’s daily agenda, but instead of subjects coming to a studio, we go to them. This is called environmental portraiture because we, the photojournalists, capture the personalities of our subjects in their natural environment, whether that be in their homes, businesses, schools, sporting venues, etc.
  Shooting portraits is not easy. There are many factors to consider, like light and background, but the most important element is that the photo tell their stories. Who are they? Why are we taking their photos for the newspaper? What's their environment like?
  Students have a hard time with shooting portraits because it can seem so...intimate. To shoot a good portrait, you have to get to know the person a little bit in a short amount of time. Social people don't have a problem with people photography, but shy people do. Serious scholastic photojournalists who are in their junior and senior years accept this. However, community college commercial photography students, like those in this Intro to Photojournalism course, are just wrapping their brains around the "getting to know your subject" concept. They're used to shooting things like trees, stuff in their apartments, old buildings and their kids.
  I'm trying to coax them out of their comfort zones, to find people they don't know with interesting hobbies or jobs, but it's not easy. Some did, some didn't.
  Because of this dilemma, I've decided to add a new instructional block next semester on how to find stories on campus. This will force them to cover their own community, which is Owens. That way, the students will feel a connection to their stories, which will be available to our school online newspaper, the Owens Outlook: http://www.owensoutlook.com/. I guess the lesson learned for me is you can't expect a baby to walk without first teaching her how to make those first steps.
  I encourage you to visit each student's blog. I have faith they will all eventually stray from their own backyards, but at this point, I know they trying hard to stand on their own two feet, and that's what counts.

It's true...shooting features 'is hard'

This weather feature photo was captured by Jessica, a student in the PHO245 course. She conquered her fear of strangers and shot this photo without a panic attack! Read about her panic attack experience in her blog: http://jessicaverhoff.blogspot.com

       Panic attacks. Excuses. Pictures of dogs, cats and decapitated toes.
       These are what the PHO245 students experienced or shot this week for the feature shooting assignment. One student summed up the whole experience in two words: it's hard!
       The working life of a photojournalist constantly consists of turning bad light and cluttered backgrounds into wonderful captured moments of time.
       Seldom do we show up on a scene where everything is picture perfect. It takes work. It takes knowing how to handle light, whether it be too much or too little. It takes being able to scan the area and instantly know which angle is best. It takes getting photo subjects to be comfortable enough to ignore you, and then get them to tell you their life stories. All of these things take experience and knowledge.
      Experience comes with time. Gaining experience is totally up to the will of the student photographer. But knowledge, well, that's currently my responsibility. It's my job as their instructor to give them the basic tools they need to go out into the community and tell stories with their camera. The tool kit includes, but is not limited to, knowing their rights, being ethically and legally aware, understanding how their camera works, and knowing how to shoot different types of assignments, like features, portraits, sports and photo stories.
      Doesn't shooting stories for a living sound like fun? Honestly, that depends on the photographer. One student admitted she suffered panic attacks when she had to approach strangers for a feature assignment. Another tweeted this comment on Monday: "I learned that when shooting in photojournalism...don't try to be creative."
     What? Actually, it's the complete opposite. You should be creative in photojournalism, but the integrity of the photo/story needs be the first consideration.
     Students, don't beat yourselves up. It will get more fun and a little easier as you add experience into your tool boxes. After all, isn't that why you took this class?

Addition of pages

   I just discovered blog pages, which are like chapters in a book! So, I've reorganized the class blog by adding pages in the tab bar. Now you can easily view the syllabus and the class blog roster without having to search for them.

Ready, set, tell stories!

One of my favorite feature photos I took years ago.

   It's finally time to pull out that camera and push the shutter button. You are ready to tell stories.
   You've been busy the past six weeks learning the journalism part, which concludes this week with lessons on how to write accurate, concise captions using the Associated Press Styleguide. Now it's time for the photography part.
   You're first shooting assignment will be hunting for features, an integral task of all photojournalists. What are feature pictures? Features document life around us in a positive way. They are the photos that make readers smile. They are the snapshots of people that end up on refrigerators and office walls.  Feature pictures also help take the sting out of the hard news photos, and that's why photojournalists like taking them - for the balance of good and evil.
   Keep these things in mind when I send you out there Monday to find people doing everyday things, like flying kites, fishing, enjoying an ice cream cone on a hot day, or fighting with a broken umbrella on a rainy day. Whatever the subject matter, try to remember that you're not just taking a photo for yourself, you're actually freezing someone's moment in time, and how cool is that?

Teaching what the heck reciprocity means

   We officially ended the law and ethics portion of study today with a fitting conclusion - a 40-point test. I'm happy to report everyone passed! So, with a basic understand of what news is and what their rights are, we are moving on to my favorite part of the course: explaining camera controls, exposure metering and compositional elements.
   This morning, when I asked the students what reciprocity means, I mostly got blank stares. I understand that, considering it took me a few weeks just to learn how to say the word. I know what they were thinking: what the heck is reciprocity? It's a math miracle! The concept of taking these weird sets of numbers (ISO, shutter speeds and f/stops) and making them work in unison is amazing stuff, and I love teaching it. OK, I admit the reason I enjoy teaching is because it makes me feel, well, smart.
   I started out as a journalist. I'm pretty good with words and have a knack for spelling. So, when I started taking photos for my stories (when I was a cub reporter), the camera controls were totally confusing to me. It wasn't until I was an assistant instructor at a two-week Army photojournalism workshop in the early 1990s that it clicked. I've had a yearning to be a teacher ever since.
   Maybe it's a good thing that a word person is teaching a numbers game...because I can sympathize with the blank stares and the resistance to memorize 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16 and 22. Brilliant.

Our First Amendment rights

The First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


   The First Amendment is only 45 words, but among those 45 words are five personal freedoms that guide how Americans have governed our lives since 1791. 
   This first amendment in the Bill of Rights is uniquely American, though I think this world would be a far better place if it was a document that governed every nation on the planet. Can you imagine if leaders in Iraq, Africa and Syria were committed to The First Amendment of the Planet Earth? 
   The freedom of the press is especially valued by our democratic nation because it allows journalists to report on our own government without fear of being arrested or murdered. This is not a right we should ever take for granted, which is why the PHO245 students dedicated this past week learning and understanding what the First Amendment means to them, as scholastic journalists.
   Check out their most recent blog posts to see what they have to say about this very important subject. Links to all of their blogs are available at the top of this blog.

All blogs accounted for

  I'm proud to announce that all nine student blogs are available for your viewing pleasure. Just click on the links above. Thanks.

Let the blogs begin

   It's already Week 3, and the students are busy tweeting and blogging. I couldn't imagine teaching photojournalism without social media.We must adapt and embrace technology as the delivery system of the news changes. And it is changing. In fact, a few days ago I received the Buckeye Guard Magazine in my snail mail box. It came to me the old fashioned way, but on the cover was the announcement that it was the final issue. The hard copy of the award-winning monthly military magazine is going online. This sentence in the article titled Farewell to an icon: Buckeye Guard in transition on Page 4 says it all, "Please join us and engage in our social media space at...Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Flickr."

   I'm keeping this issue because not only does it represent the future, it reminds me of my past. I was a military photojournalist for that magazine for 13 years.
   Social media is not the future anymore. It's the present. It's here right now, and students need to be prepared to share their photography, stories and experiences anyway they can in order to compete in a point and shoot world. This is my justification for teaching them to be engaged in social media.
   As of late Monday night, there are only two students who have their blogs listed in the blog roll, but there will be nine by the end of the week. I can't wait to see what they all have to say!

Tip 2: shooting through fences

 This is the backstop fence at Fifth Third Field. String is medium thickness. 

    Tip 2: Did you know you can shoot through a fence as if it wasn't there? It's not a miracle; you just have to consider the following things:

1. It depends what lens length you're using. Wide lenses, like a 35mm, won't work, even at 2.8. Long lenses are the key. I recently shot these photos to illustrate this point:

16mm lens shot @ 2.8, 1/2700 of a second, 400 ISO

300 mm lens @ f3.2, 1/1600 of a second, 800 ISO

   2. It also depends on the aperture. Using a long lens, set your f/stop to around f2.8 and put it right up against the fence and focus on the subject on the field. The closer you are to the fence, the more invisible the fence will be. (Don't forget to set the shutter speed accordingly.) If the lens is not close to the fence, you will end up with faint lines, like on the photo below:

      This was taken with a 300 mm lens at f2.8, but the fence was about 20 feet or so from the pitcher.

   3. It also depends on the thickness of the fence. A thick fence might not be completely invisible, so you'll have to look through the lens and place your subject in the middle of the fence lines.
   So, next time you think a fence is an obstacle, experiment with different lens lengths and f/stops to solve this problem.
  

Tip 1: Grap that camera when you need it!

Sunset beyond the I280 turnpike (Photo by Lori King)

   Tip 1. This is a beautiful reason of why you should always carry your cameras with you. If you're worried about theft, keep the cameras in a camera case in the trunk, not in your front or back seat where they can be seen!
   Photographers never know when a moment will happen in front of them. For this shot, I was driving on the turnpike and noticed the sun setting rather quickly. I knew I only had a short amount of time to take this photo, so I pulled over and took the shot. Within minutes the moment was gone.
   Lesson here: Be prepared. This includes keeping a loaded, fully-charged camera nearby. That doesn't mean you have to have it hanging off of your shoulder every second. The trunk is fine, as long as you don't have vanity plates that give you away.
   Sunset pix metadata: Lens = 300mm  ISO = 640 / Aperture = 5 / Shutter = 1/1250  / Exp. Comp.: 0.0

  
  

Hear that? It's a tweet!

    It's a new semester, which means a new crop of students. There are nine enrolled in this course, which is nearly double from last semester!
    In a few weeks this blog will feature an updated student blog roll, as soon as they create their blogs. Believe it or not, not a single student has a blog they currently maintain. That has been the case for all four PHO245 classes.  
    In the meantime, yesterday they created Twitter accounts. They will have their individual accounts, but the primary course username is @PHO245, managed by me. All PHO245 tweets will be hash-marked with #PHO245. Have something to share with them? Drop them a tweet. 
    Next up:

• How to manage social media, which includes being ethical and responsible with these public, power communication tools;
• Learning about the history of journalism, and what news is.

Welcome back!

    Greetings scholastic journalists! 
    Prepare to be educated about the field of photojournalism and the growing role social media plays in our lives. Here are a few highlights from the course:

• Learn how to shoot feature, portrait and sports assignments;
• Know your law, ethics and photographer's rights;
• Use social media to share yours stories and lessons learned;
• Work as a team to document an event and produce a Soundslides story;
• Build a portfolio.

    New to the course this semester is the requirement to tweet. Blogging and tweeting are essential skills to learn in a very competitive market. 
    I struggled with the decision on whether to add Twitter to the curriculum, considering this is only an intro class. Since my goal as an instructor is to prepare the next generation of citizen communicators, how could I not include it? But tweeting is not an additional lesson; it simply replaces the discussion board, which students were required to use last semester. The discussion board is a good tool to practice writing skills, but their comments were enclosed in a bubble. That changes with Twitter, a micro-blogging tool that is a nice addition to the storytelling toolbox.
    So, let's get to work, shall we?

My aha moment

Click here.  
This is for all of the past and future students who make my classroom experience so enjoyable.

The End

   The semester is over and grades are posted.

The new poster for the PHO 245 class,
designed by CRT student Brian White.

   It was a wonderful class. They all worked hard, yet seemed to keep their sense of humor. You need that balance of work and fun.
   This list sums up what they've learned in a nutshell (which is actually a journalism term):

• What journalism means
• How to write AP style captions
• Learned press ethics, rights and the First Amendment
• Created their first blog
• Learned to capture live sound and how to edit audio using Audacity software
• Shot sports, feature and photo story assignments

     Three of the students blogged about their overall experience and offered advice to the Fall 2011 class. There is nothing like learning from your peers.
     I hope these students continue to respect truth in visual storytelling.
     This blog will continue in the Fall with a whole new set of student blogs.

Holly and Teri edits sound using Audacity

   These photos of the students (and Dave Cantor) in the classroom demonstrate teamwork in action.

   I couldn't be prouder of the students as they worked on the Bittersweet Farms multimedia project together. To recap - they all shot at the farm, which serves autistic adults. Back in the classroom, they took on different duties for photo editing, sound editing and caption writing.
   The final Soundslides project was amazing. I will post it here as soon as I figure out how to do it. I need a website (I don't have one) to convert the Soundslides Publish to Web folder into an embed code. Once I get over that hurdle, I will post the show.
   This team project helped prepare the students for their individual final project. They also learned they are not alone in the world. Learning to work with others is as fundamental as learning how a camera works.
   There is only one more week of school. I will cherish it while it lasts.
   I also want to take this opportunity to thank Dave for his assistance throughout the semester. His photo editing skills are greatly appreciated by the students!

Dave Cantor, back, assists Kathie, Katherine and Dennis with their photo editing.

Breaking News Pulitzer Prize 2011
This slideshow will not pass the breakfast test. In other words, watch it while not eating. Though grim and sad, these stories need to be told so the rest of the world can respond.

A thanks to those who came before you

    I want to take a moment to thank former PHO 245 students who took this class during its infancy. I also want to apologize to them, as well. There is no doubt this current class benefited from 'experimenting' on them with course content.
   The first class in 2009, initially designed by Margaret Lockwood-Lass, didn't offer blogging. It was more traditional by focusing on how to shoot different types of assignments, like features and sports. There were no quizzes or tests. They wrote very little.
   The second class (Fall 2010) was more modern. Blogging was introduced, but there was no team project like we did this semester at Bittersweet Farms. Still no quizzes. Tardiness and attendance were problems, but they wrote more, and NewsU courses were added.
   However, the Fall 2010 class offered great constructive criticism that I totally took to heart. Mentioned below are a few improvements this semester:

•    One student said a group project would have been appreciated. Thus, Bittersweet was born. They worked in teams to produce a Soundslides project with audio that will be posted on their blogs next week (read previous post). 
• Most of the students admitted attendance was a problem, and suggested I be more strict. So I adopted the sponge quiz, a concept I learned in one of my grad classes. Students who show up the first five minutes of class are given a simple 1-point quiz that counts toward their attendance. This works well because not only do they get credit for the day, I get to tap into their psyche a bit more.
• Quizzes were added to make them more accountable for their reading, and mandatory Blackboard discussion board posts allows them to share their ideas with each other and me).

   As I watched the students work as a team on the Bittersweet Farms project this week, it occurred to me that I owe part of the success of this semester to the former students. So, thank you for helping me improve this course. It wouldn't be the same without your honest input.

Student teamwork a joy to witness

Holly, right, shooting Bittersweet resident Danny and recording live animal sounds - at the same time! 

   Okay. I'm going to brag now. Oh, not about myself, but about my five Intro to PJ students. They make coming to class every Monday and Wednesday morning enjoyable and inspiring.

Dennis in the woodshop

   Their latest shooting assignment was a wonderful example of student teamwork. It was a group photo shoot Monday at Bittersweet Farms, an 80-acre farm that serves autistic adults. Students roamed the farm and captured the Bittersweet residents making artwork, tending to animals, cutting and splitting wood, planting vegetable seedlings and decorating cookies.
   But this assignment is more than just photographing subjects and turning in their best work for grades. It's a multimedia project that requires teamwork. Though all students shot, they had additional duties: Kathie will captions for the chosen photos; Kathie, Dennis and Katherine are editing the photos; and Holly and Teri collected the sound at the farm and are currently editing the sound using Audacity.
    The Soundslides project will not be completed until next week, but when it's done, I will proudly post it to this blog.
   Good job, students!

From left: Kathie, Holly, Julie Horn, Teri and Dennis