PJClass: Portraits

Members, from left, Matt Galler, Andrew Cohen, Rory Pettinghill and Trevor Simpson of Gatsby Gets The Green Light hang out in their "green" van, which has been modified to run on grease .

To say that the most recent issue of the Towerlight had a few portrait shots in it is an understatement. We would have run more if the stories weren't rescheduled for later issues.

The shot above is probably my best portrait to date. I had to use a fisheye out of necessity because of tight shooting quarters, but I think it added to the image. It was also one of the first times I used my umbrella to reflect rather than to shoot through. I got some praise from my fellow photogs as well, which is always a good morale booster.

I enjoy the following portrait because it uses two strobes (one far camera left with a red gel shot through a fake tree, the other high camera right shot through a white umbrella at 45 degrees to Mr. Letts). The red strobe was the idea of my photo editor, Pat.



There is one more portrait of mine set to run on Monday, so I'll post that up then.

I'll have to admit, I was nervous shooting these. Two of them were on the same day along with another assignment down in Baltimore, so the pressure was on to get them done WELL with a new flair each time. I managed them professionally, IMHO. The parts I didn't do so well on, like having to rush out at the end of a portrait, probably could have been handled better. Live to learn, right?

Even though they were somewhat hectic, these assignments couldn't have come to me at a better time. With the "Portrait" assignment given to me in my MCOM 391 (photojournalism) class, I was at first uncertain of what to do for it. I don't consider it cheating to be given a photo assignment at the The Towerlight that happens to also be my homework. Just coincidence. Right?

One of these days I'm going to plan ahead and have a friend let me do a portrait of him during a sunset here at Towson. They are remarkable, particularly from the viewpoint of the window in the lounge on my floor.

I also have to mention that the passion and enthusiasm that my Photojournalism teacher, Monica Lopossay, brings to the class is extremely, might I say uber inspiring. The way she talks about watching people and their actions and expressions, and the way people interact with one another and being able to capture that all is almost enlightening. It's doing well to guide me in choosing a major. I love it.

-Later-

PJClass: Familiar Person

Alison Marsh, a sophomore at Archbishop Spalding High School, fixes her hair before eating breakfast, Saturday, September 8, 2007.


So I'm taking MCOM 391, Photojournalism 1. Not bad for being a sophomore, eh? My teacher, Monica Lopossay, is a staffer at the Baltimore Sun. Having grown up in a hick part of the country, she's actually a really interesting, passionate photojournalist. I hope to learn a lot from her and her colleague, fellow Sun staffer Christopher Assaf, who occasionally stops in when Monica is not available.

Our first assignment was "Any familiar person." We already had our class of editing the images and questions about "Is this good enough?" or "So I can crop the baseball out of this, right?" And of course there were the people who had dogs as their subjects, or people who shot their familiar person from a good 30 feet away.

But hey, we're all learning.

I had a hard time choosing which one to submit out of my take. I chose this one (see beginning of post) because it is more natural to me. It is my sister, and she knew I was there (I was literally a foot behind her). She doing what she always does in the morning, so there's a simple caption.

The hardest part for me was choosing content over quality. I had another image of my fiend Dan that would have fit the bill just fine, not to mention it was more clear and more in focus than my final decision. However, it was not as intimate. Here it is:




Choosing images is the hardest part of what I've had to do so far. I don't suppose it gets any easier.

Speaking of choosing images...

There are some days when everything I shoot just seems dull and rote and "by the books." Nothing seems to be in focus, the composition is terrible, and the images are just...well, in layman's terms, blah. Then there are the days that rock. You're on your game, with images just pouring through your lens like butter in an oven (hey, analogies are a lot like bad days sometimes...).

Today I thought I had a pretty good day. I shot field hockey at Villa Julie, which gave me about 20 images I could have used. Sweet. The choosing: not so sweet. But I managed, and this was the image that will run tomorrow:



Nothing crazy, but not too shabby, IMHO.

Ok, Sunday night at TU. Time to go do all my homework for las...this week.

-Later-

Reflect.

Reset.

It's funny how people can do something without knowing why they do it. Sometimes peer pressure comes into play, or maybe a celebrity model presents something that demands imitation.

That's how I feel about this blog.

At first I thought this blog would be a cool idea because of blogs I saw a few of my friends and colleagues using and updating. One of my former colleagues, Brian Stelter, did so well with his blogging that he ended up on the top as a New York Times reporter, straight out of college.

So why shouldn't I give it a try? I'll just do something similar to what my friends do, write similar things without any of my own personality and see how it works out. Of course I used my own images, but it still felt static to me.

I've decided to try this again. I'm going to "reset" my blog, without erasing the old. I thought about creating an entirely new site, but I figured that I have a perfectly fine one to work with. Besides, I think that the old stuff will be a nice reference when I get some new entries in.

I could be cliche and mention something about opening new doors or something, but I won't. This blog is now going to be my thoughts written down how I'd like them to look like, within reasonable grammatical structure (I've got to set some standards).

-30-