I started out the day by walking 5 blocks in downtown Houston to take photos of Lt. General Harry Raduege. Portraits, Portraits, Portraits. It's a weakness...but I'm learning.
After taking photos of him I headed back to the Chronicle to get my new badge.
In the afternoon I headed to the Galleria...a huge mall in downtown Houston. I was there to shoot a feature of these trampoline/bungee things that kids jump on for a feature.
I was ready to rock, I had two photo assignments to turn in and as soon as I got back and did a rough edit, I took them to my editor. His first words were, "These are terrible." Which immediately followed with...I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, I'm just giving you a critique.
Although sometimes the truth hurts, it's much better than a dead silence and no explanation of why a photograph works or doesn't work. You can take a critique in one of two ways. You can get upset and dwell on it. OR you can sit there and really listen to what he's saying, what his reasoning is for why he likes or hates something. Because I made the choice to be here as an intern...I give myself one choice: That is to listen and learn.
On my portraits he explained lighting...how it works and how it doesn't. And how important it is to try not to be the sun. Lighting can make or break your photo. In many of mine, it broke it. But I will learn.
Then he mentioned positioning...Backgrounds need to be clean. Make layers. Keep it simple. If there is activity in the background there needs to be a reason for it.
He gave me some extremely useful advice and then sent me to Brett Coomer who was working down in the photo room on his photos. He gave me the same advice: layer your background, keep it clean, keep it simple, show the person's personality through the image. A lot of Coomer's photos are nice and tight - close up shots of these people. Coomer told me I should also talk to Michael Paulsen.
One of my photos was chosen to be cutlined and entered into the system. Mr. Gonzales said it worked and he liked it. I could take a deep breath. But I have a goal. I hope that my next portrait shoot is a bit more successful. It didn't run in the paper today. Maybe it will tomorrow, maybe it won't. But that doesn't matter. I took a photo that could have ran.
When we got to the feature photos, I watched as he went through all of them...one by one. He selected two and then gave me two options. A: We can run this one. B: You can go back and reshoot it.
He gave me ideas of using the windows to graphically tell the story through the photo. He talked about lighting and using it to richen the photograph. Get high, get low, get right up underneathe these kids and shoot the heck out of it. Get the expression of the person on the trampoline. He talked to me about seeing things different than others do - and why photographers are photographers. He said you want to point out things to people that they don't necessarily see themselves.
Tell a story by shooting the feature like it's an event...get the overview, get some tight shots, get some details, get the kids high-fiving their parents when they get off, get them walking away....get it all.
I think sometimes when you go shoot something like a feature, you are out searching for that one image...but you shouldn't change the way you do things you should always shoot for the story because that's what journalists do.
In the end, we both decided it would be best if I went back and reshot the image. So we'll see how it goes next week.
Others who helped me yesterday:
- Nick de la Torre looked through my take and talked to me about the portraits. He also showed me the photos he had shot that day and why he was choosing the ones he was choosing.
- Melissa Phillip kindly asked if I had everything I needed and if I got my internet working alright.
- Obviously Mr. Gonzales was extremely helpful and insightful in editing through my photos.
- Again, Brett Coomer talked to me about portraits - showed me some of his.
- Michael Paulsen's photos were pointed out to me to illustrate what Steve was talking about.
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