Week 2 Begins

Monday
After a rather relaxing weekend of fun with the girls, I was ready to head to downtown Houston this morning.

I started my day off shadowing Melissa Phillip. The first thing I learned from her is "Prepare for the worst, Hope for the best." We went into the assignment thinking that it was going to be controlled by PR and a complete portrait nightmare. But it ended up working out perfectly.


The PR woman was great and gave Melissa all the freedom she needed and wanted. The story was about a man who had a heart attack and practically died on the operating table and came back. He was a very bubbly man and very appreciative to the team who saved his life. They were reunited in front of us for the very first time. Instead of being a portrait - it turned into an emotional interaction, which is exactly what we as photojournalists live for.


After shooting the assignment, I was able to see what Melissa pulled off from it. She was really able to capture the emotions the people conveyed for us.


Melissa talked to me about portraiture and how she prefers to be the "fly on the wall" and take photos at events. I feel the same way so it was refreshing to know that it's okay to have that mentality - but it's also important to try and work at set-up portraits as well.


Once again, Michael Paulsen's portraits were brought up. I am really eager to hopefully meet up with him this week when he has a portrait shoot so I can see how he sets things up and his way of thinking.


Once we got back to the office, I was sent out to the Houston Community College Central Campus to take photos of a student who is the first in his family to go to college. It was a portrait of him on campus and I was able to turn in a photo that my editor approved of.


After that I went out looking for a feature that conveyed hot weather. I found a group of construction workers preparing to lay cement. Although they were open to the idea of me taking photos of them, they refused to give names. My editor selected a photo from the take to put into the newspaper, but once I told him that the men refused to give me names - they nixed the photo all together. Names, names, names.

I wasn't a complete failure at my search for a feature though. While driving around downtown Houston, I saw two men walking in matching outfits with backpacks. It was around 100 degrees out, so I was quite curious as to what exactly they were up to. I found a parking place and searched the area until I found them - eating lunch in a park.

I started talking to them and learned they were from Hungary, and are on a quest to walk around the world. World Walk Peace Tour is what they call it. In six years they hope to walk 25,000 miles. They've been doing it for two years and have already traveled around 6,300 miles. Great story. I shot photos of them and grabbed their number. I was really excited and wanted to do a more in-depth story on them and go back with video, but the city editors didn't want to do a story, so they just ran one of the photos I shot. - It was my first photo in the paper. I was excited.

Steve looked at my take and told me different ways I could have shotten all of the photos. He gave me more insight on portraits - put the subject in the foreground close to you, make sure the person is the focus of the photograph, layer the background, pay attention to the graphics going around, give the viewer something that people don't see, etc.

It was great insight and hopefully the next time I go out and shoot another portrait, it will be that much more improved.