Life Is Real

I read a really good quote today. It went something like this:

“Emotion is the language of documentary photography. Without it, a picture has little value, except possibly as evidence in court. Most of us look for a different kid of evidence: the evidence of life and living.”

Torsten Kjellstrand

This isn’t Torsten Kjellstrand, it’s Fannie Gloster. I hope I look this good at 93.

And how could I pass this up?

Do I look tan? It’s probably because I am.

By All Accounts (Today Was A Disaster)

Originally written on 6/23/2008

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I’m an intern. If my boss tells me to stand in a parking lot for an hour in 95 degree heat, I’ll do it with a skip in my step because I know that I’m the bottom of the food chain and that’s what I’m there to do. My job is to take the menial tasks from the staffers so they can a) have a break and b) focus on the more important assignments.

But sometimes doing what my boss assigns me is hard to do with so much as a smile.

I don’t think disappointment aptly describes what I felt on Friday. Here’s why:

First Few Desparate Hours

The paper, she is awesome. Nobody on the photo staff is over 30 and they are all awesome at what they do.

I showed up today and was shown my desk (I know, right?) which I will share with fellow Scripps intern Courtney Potter (she’s cool). Then I had my mug taken for my ID badge and I was introduced to various people around the office. The toners, the designers, the managing editor… the usual. Then they gave me my equipment.

One (1) Canon Mark II

One (1) Canon Mark II N

A 16-35, 70-200 IS, 1.4 extender, 50 1.2 and a 580EX.

And on top of that, they’re letting me use a MacBook Pro G4.

They’re treating me way too well

After that I sat around all day and learned the system, which is vastly more complicated than I expected, but I think I’ll get the hang of it.

I have my first assignment tomorrow to shoot a portrait of a D-Day veteran. Should be interesting.

Oh, and I shaved for the first time in a while.

This is what work will do to you

I started out the day under the impression that I had a centerpiece. The story was about stressed out students, and I figured we could do a pretty cool photo illustration to get the idea across. I figured I’d shoot a few test-frames using myself as the subject to show Keith, the Editor-in-chief, my idea rather than try and explain it to him. Keith looked at the photo and said, “It’s a good photo, but that story already ran.” That means at all of a sudden, at 4pm, I no longer had a centerpiece.

It’s funny that at the end of the day I was sitting at the photo desk in the exact same pose as in the picture.

On to the fun stuff: The photo was shot with a 70-200 on a tripod set on a 10-second timer. I lit the photo with one flash straight overhead triggered with Pocketwizards. The books were all borrowed from behind Jim’s desk.