Project Presentation on Officer Frey in EPJ

Today I presented part of my project on Officer Frey. I had just two little parts done for it. The first part talks about the explosives and the second part is about the search at the football stadium. They are right after each other in this presentation but they won't be like that in the final project. I also don't have ambient audio of Enzo and Officer Frey yet. I have some but I am getting more later this week.

Here is the link to the project so far. Not even near completion yet but this isn't a bad start.

http://web.missouri.edu/~celr62/enzoproject.html

Enjoy and leave comments on what you think!

Final EPJ Project Update

My final project with the MUPD k-9 officer is almost finished. I have to present what I have so far on Monday in class and get feedback from my fellow classmates. I am meeting today with Officer Frey to take photos and get audio of a demonstration/ q&a thing he is doing with Enzo for figs. I was excited that he was doing this because if it turns out good, it is going to be my second chapter for my project. I am meeting with him Friday to get some portrait shots. I am enjoying working on this project a lot and glad I chose to do my project on a k-9 officer. I have most of my photos picked out that I want to use and have to still go through the audio and get some of that organized. I'm hoping today will provide good audio and I also want to try and incorporate some of that too.

Start of Thanksgiving break

I just got back from Georgia early Monday morning. My group for Advanced Techniques decided to cover the SOA protest down in Columbus, Georgia. We followed a group of four MU students down there and covered them at the protest. It was a fun time. The car rides seemed to last forever though. I really don't want to be in a car for that long again..lol

We arrived in Columbia Monday morning and by the time everyone was dropped off, I didn't get back to my apartment till 4:30 am. I had an interview with Officer Frey's supervisor at 10 am that morning so I knew I would be running on little sleep. After my interview, I had to run to pick up my laptop from the shop and then had to meet Officer Frey back at the station at 11:30. It was a busy morning but I stopped in between and got a carmel frap. from Starbucks which kept me moving. I got home around dinnertime, hung out with the parents for a few then hung out with Erich for a bit.

I had to be to work this morning at 8. way too darn early for me. I used to be more of a morning person but I hate the mornings now. I never want to wake up before 9 now. Thankfully there are only a few more weeks left to the semester. I was excited to be back at work but then again it's work and if I had the option, I wouldn't work but I know that will never happen. I made lots of Turkey cookies. I am sick of making them..lol. They are easy to make but I can only make so many before I get sick of them.

Over break I have to work on two ten page papers and a book report. Not really that excited to do any of them but they gotta be done. I have to also start working on putting my project on Officer Frey together now that I have completed an interview with him. Just thinking of all the work I have makes me not motivated to do any of it.

Multiple Flash

Andreea Dane, a senior at Stephens College, poses in a dance position on November 18, 2009 in the dance studio on the Stephens College campus.

Our group went to Stephens College to photograph senior dancers. I had two great teammates, Tim and Alex to work with. It was frustrating at times but a good experience.

Balance/Fill Flash

The Lewis and Clark Boathouse, located in St. Charles, Missouri, displays scenes from the time of Lewis and Clark. On the level below the displays is a replica boat of what Lewis and Clark used on their journey.

Here is my take for Balance/Fill Flash assignment for Advanced Techniques.

Me in a firesuit

I was looking through photos that I have taken and ones that have me in them searching for a new facebook profile photo. I came upon the photo of me in a firesuit taken last semester after I finished a project on a CFD captain at station 1. I had to chuckle a little because it was fun to see what it is like on the other side. You really have to be in tip-top shape for this because after all the gear was on me, i could barely move. The oxygen tank combined with all the clothing weighted me down quite a lot. I enjoyed doing this project. I learned a lot about the fire department and got to know some pretty neat fire fighters. Enjoy!

Multimedia Video for Advanced Techniques

http://www.viiphoto.com/video.php

It is the Paparazzi video.

Adventures with Officer Frey

Today I spend a good amount of time working on my video project and taking photos of Officer Frey and Enzo. In case you don't know, I am following Officer Frey and Enzo and working on a project on them for my EPJ class. It has been so much fun and I have learned a lot. Today we were walking to the Quad to take a portrait photo and Enzo met another little friendly dog. The other photo is one I really like of Officer Frey and Enzo.

Enjoy!

Color Correction

Betty Youtsey, secretary at MUPD, sits at her desk while talking to Officer Brian Frey on Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Here is my color correction. This was a horrible assignment for me as I didn't do all the requirements but here is my photo.

Multimedia Critique

I chose to go to VII’s web site and critique one of their projects. I chose a project entitled Paparazzi because I thought it might be interesting. I thought it wasn’t interesting at all and boring. I don’t like how they opened the project with two men talking. You can’t see but the torso of the guy in the green shirt and that is very distracting. If they would have moved the camera a little bit down or something it would have been better cause you would be able to see the guy’s face. I just don’t know that it really fits in with the project terribly well. Focusing on the guy’s green shirt instead of on the face of the guy in the car is really bothersome also.

Some of the people in the project don’t talk English at times. Those parts just disinterest me because you don’t have subtitles or anything to tell what he is talking about. If you are going to include someone talking in another language you need to have a voiceover or subtitles to help the viewer understand more. When you get to the part where they are in a noisy place talking about Jack Nicholson it is hard to hear the voices of the people over the sound of wherever they are.

I feel like as they go from scene to scene it gets choppy. There are no smooth transitions from one part to another. The project starts using a subtitle in the middle, which I didn’t understand because you could understand the person talking. There really was no need for the wording at the bottom.

Overall I don’t really understand the concept of this multimedia. Yes it is about paparazzi but I feel a much better job could have been done. The video wasn’t of that great of quality either. I felt like they could have focused more on the rush of getting to photograph a celebrity or shown more of the paparazzi following people to get the point across. At times, I feel like this same project could be told in stills and audio.

The user does have control of the project by play and pause buttons at the bottom of the screen. I’m not sure how this fits in with VII’s website. It does talk about Mexican paparazzi but I don’t see how that fits into the site. The site seems to have more moving pieces or more important issues and I feel like the issue of paparazzi isn’t as important as other multimedia they have on the site. In the above paragraphs I talked about what I would change and what I didn’t like about the project.

Painting with light

104,625 patients have been wait-listed for organ donation as of October 29, 2009. Everyday, 17 people die from waiting for an organ donation. The four most needed organs are the kidney, liver, heart and lungs.

Single Flash

Officer Brian Frey trains with Enzo on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at MUPD located in Virginia Avenue parking garage. Each day Officer Frey works with Enzo on bomb tasks. Officer Frey will put Enzo's leash on the door handle while he goes in the other room and hides the bomb material for Enzo to find.

Single flash was difficult. I'm not really happy with my select but felt my other photos had shadows and hotspots so I chose this photo because it seems to have a relatively even distribution of light and not really any hotspots. It isn't the best composition by any means. I shot this at iso 100, bounced flash off the white ceiling, shutter speed of 1/125 and f5.6.

Multimedia Critique

Here is the link to the video.
http://video.on.nytimes.com/
You have to scroll down to "Turning Rockets into Roses."

The video I chose to look at is called “Turning Rockets into Roses.” It is on the NY Times Web site. I chose this video because the title of it stood out to me and made me want to know what exactly turning rockets into roses was all about.
I think this story is very appropriate for multimedia. I think that if this story were a written story you wouldn’t have the same effect. This story needs to be told with visuals and audio so people can understand it better and see exactly how this man does what he does and why.
I did have control of the project when it was playing. I could play and pause it and also make it full screen if I chose to do so. I could also control the volume. A progress bar was at the bottom to show how far through the project I was. The navigation and design were clear for me to follow and the design was simple which I liked.
The overall color scheme of the project is simple. When you view it on the page you have a medium grey background. The one thing I wish they did is when you click on the video that it would go to its own separate page to view. If you just want to view it on the screen you have all this writing around it that makes it distracting. You would have to put it in full screen mode if you didn’t want to have all that extra.
The audio for the most part is clear to understand. Since this man is from the Middle East he is a little hard to understand at times. The images are clear on the smaller screen but on the full screen they are a bit blurry but that is expected most of the time when you go to full screen to view a video.
I wish they had focused on the positive part of this man making roses out of rockets. They included one woman who didn’t agree with what he was doing and it was out of place to me. She was the only one they interviewed who objected to what he was doing. I just think it detracts from the focus of the original concept of the story.

Metal Assignment

Mr. Metal kneels down while holding his head in his hands. He couldn’t figure out how to get his head to stay on his head so instead he just decided to hold it. A red butterfly came along to comfort him in this day of sadness.

Nick Brandt Photography Critique

Colleen Lefholz

Photographer Web site Critique

The photographer’s Web site I chose to look at was Nick Brandt. He is a nature photographer and that is something I am interested in so I thought I would evaluate his site and maybe get some ideas for my own.

I like when you first go to his page it is very simple. There isn’t a lot going on to confuse the person looking at the site. I first clicked on portfolios and visited that section. I did like how he had his photos at the bottom and you could click on to view each one. I like having the photos at the bottom, I think that is something different but I wish you could just scroll through them with your next and back keys on your keyboard instead of clicking on each individual one to see it. That just would make it more user friendly for me. The site does have buttons to go back to the home page, which is a good thing so people don’t have to constantly click the back button.

He has all the tabs that people would want. He has a portfolio section, books he’s written, contact information, reviews and links. I really think the white background works with his photos also. If he had a dark background, his pictures would get lost I think. His pages are clear to understand and all have navigation, which is key in a Web site.

Lighting Diagrams

Single light source.

Multiple light source

These are the lighting diagrams for my classmate studio portraits.

Classmate Studio Portrait

Eve Edelheit has a vibrant personality and loves to smile. Edelheit is wearing a yellow scarf and bengal bracelets that she bought while on a trip to India.

Eve Edelheit loves to travel. She has been several places around the world including her favorite place, India. Edelheit has been to India three times, most recently visiting this past summer. Edelheit has learned more about herself and about her photography while in India. Eve is in her silk blazer that she had custom made in India on her last visit there.

My partner for the studio portrait was Eve Edelheit. Here are my two photos that I chose to turn in. Lighting diagrams to soon follow.

Below is my self-critique of both the video and portraits.

Classmate Studio Portrait and Video Critique

The classmate studio portrait assignment was one that was fun to do but very challenging. Eve and I both had to do a lot of thinking when things weren’t working correctly. One of the main problems I had was with my camera. I had the sync cord in the proper place on my camera and on the speedotron but it wouldn’t fire for some reason. I tried Eve’s sync cord and it wouldn’t work either. That first day of shooting was mainly Eve since I had to take my camera to the camera store to figure out what was wrong. Turns out I can only use the smaller speedotron because the other one has too many volts for my camera.

Figuring out how I wanted to light Eve wasn’t difficult for me. I experimented by placing lights where I wanted them to be and took a picture to see how it was. I metered before I took the photos and most of my photos were taken at f13 with a shutter speed of 1/125 and an ISO of 100. Sometimes the light was too bright on her face and I had to move the light back a little or have Eve move back further so the light wouldn’t blow out her face.

I found that using the gray background never really worked well for me. The pictures really washed out her face and showed no shadows at all. Eve and I did a lot of thinking and trying to figure out settings on our camera that might change that but in the end I just switched to the black background because I liked that one best. I tried pictures on all three but black was the best for me.

If I did this assignment again, I would want to explore more with the gels. I tried two pictures with that but wasn’t getting it right away and didn’t want to use my photos up on trying to figure it out. I didn’t really get the two lights like I would have liked. I feel one light really worked well for me but when I added another light, the photos just weren’t turning out like I wanted so that is something I want to go back and figure out. I want to be able to use two lights well and I think if I could have taken more photos I would have been able to figure it out.

The video assignment was easier than I thought it would be. Eve and I set up two lights diagonal from each other with the black chair in between them. It was a good set up that had good shadows on her face. Since we didn’t have the wireless mics, we had to use the shotgun mic on top of the video camera. For some reason it produced this buzzing in one of the ear buds. It was really annoying but we didn’t know what was causing it. I had to do a few takes on this because her first take was over a minute so she had to cut it down by a lot. If I were to do this assignment again, I would definitely use the wireless mic because I think that would cut down on the buzzing.

I also included my meter testing takes that Rita told me to redo and submit again.

Final Project Idea

Final Project Idea

Last semester for Fundamentals of Photoj, I did a project on a captain for the Columbia Fire Department. I had a lot of fun with that project and got to do some pretty neat things that your average person doesn’t get to do or see. The person I did the project on suggested I do something with the police department. I thought about it but I knew I would be severely restricted in the photos I would be able to take. So I thought of an idea that still has to do with the police department but that would not be as restricted as following an officer on calls.

I thought it would make a neat project to do something on the K9 dog and officer that the MUPD has. I feel like a story on the dog and the officer would yield many different opportunities to take photos and gain audio. I could do something on the relationship of the owner and dog because that is very important and could get some good audio from that. I also think it would be important to show how the dog is trained and the tasks the dog performs.

I have to contact the MUPD (I plan to do that today). If I run into any problems then I will have to choose something different but I don’t foresee any problems.

Media Organization Critique

For my EPJ class, we have to critique a media organization's Web site. I chose NBC news.

ABC News

I looked at the ABC news Web site for my critique on a media organization. As with all news Web sites, it has a lot going on. As a reader, it is sometimes hard to figure out where to start if you don’t have something to grab your attention right away. I did like that they had a big picture to the left of the site that went through three major stories of that day. That is something that will grab the readers attention. I also liked how at the top on a little bar they had ‘must reads.’ For the reader that is in a rush and just wants to see major headlines without searching through the whole Web site to find them, this is a nice thing to have. I also find it useful to have a toolbar at the top that lists all the different sections so you can click and it will directly go to it on the page. This is something we discussed in class and might be helpful on my Web site.

The content is very much updated and understandable. The links are easy to find but I hate how you have to click the back button. I wish things would open in a new page and I could just x out of them instead of hitting the back button. I feel the site is as organized as a news Web site can be. There is a lot of information and stories to read but with a media organization this big, it’s hard to just cut things out. The colors seem to go together well. There are no funky or odd colors. The colors are soothing to the eyes.

Portrait Assigment

For our next assignment in Advanced Techniques we had to find a portrait of someone that reveals something about their character. I found this portrait from photographer Michael Mueller. I think it is of Joaquin Phoenix (sorry if I spelt it wrong or it is the wrong person but that is who it looks like to me. The name of the person isn't listed.) It just looks like he has something deeper going on that we don't know about.

I couldn't copy the picture to post on here so I will post the link. It is the fifth picture from the left.

http://www.mullerphoto.com/portfolio/13506/

Tungsten and daylight settings

In doing this assignment, I noticed that it had been about three weeks since I had actually used my camera for an assignment.  When I first started shooting, I didn’t think to check my ISO.  I realized when my photos weren’t really turning out how they should that I didn’t change my ISO from the meter calibration that I did in the studio.  I did go back and shoot again some of the pictures with a different ISO setting and it seemed to work better.   I haven’t extensively used my camera for an assignment since I got done with my internship a few weeks back and I wish I would have used it between these times because I seemed to forget to change settings, etc. on my camera.  It was only after I took the photo, I realized to change settings.  I just think I need to get back into photography mode of shooting.

            I shot the beginning of some of my shoot with 100 ISO.  This was because I hadn’t changed the setting and I had a low f-stop setting.  After a few shots, I changed my ISO to 400 and worked around an f-stops of 8-11 depending on how the light was.  In shadowed places, I used a lower f-stop and if it was really bright I used higher but most of my photos were in that 8-11 range.  My shutter speed stayed around 1/125.  For the first photos I took it was slower around a 1/30 but that was slower than I wanted.

            When I did the meter calibration, I did it the way we were supposed to but didn’t get the results I thought I should have.  I had my ISO setting at 100 and the tungsten setting on but my camera wouldn’t go below f 5.6.  When we did the demonstration in class, the demonstrator’s camera went below that.  My photos just showed up darker that I thought they should be.

            I learned of course to check your camera settings all the time before each photo which I knew before but for some unknown reason forgot in the beginning of this assignment. I thought the tungsten setting created a different effect on some of my photos that I liked better than when I took them on the daylight setting.  I hadn’t used tungsten before so that was something new I learned.

           

LIfe as a Captain

Hello all. It has been quite some time since I last posted.  I have been working on a photography project on Captain Jan McCrary.  He is a captain at fire station 1 here in Columbia, Missouri.  I spent a little over a month at the station.  I got to go on several calls with the department and do some behind the scenes stuff that not everyone sees.  I am posting my final cut of photos. Enjoy!

Spring Break is almost here.

Spring Break is upon us and I am excited to have a week off!  This semester has been hectic and hard working for the Missourian and also having classes and other obligations.  I am working over break decorating cakes and on Thursday I will go up to see Erich.  I am excited to see him.  I miss him terribly when I'm here at school.  I have lots of photo stuff to complete too.  Photo class and the Missourian take up huge amounts of my time  I feel like I am constantly going and never have time to do anything.  Tonight I am working my final GA shift of the month from 6-10 pm so I am hoping to get a lot of catch-up work done.

My most recent article was on Emily Younghouse whose mother is battling cancer.  I was really excited to do her story and her family has been wonderful.  She was excited about the story too which made the story turn out better.  I bought copies of the Sunday paper yesterday because that was the day my story was in the paper.  I looked at the sports section and there was a big 12 story from basketball and i was getting ready to turn to the inside pages to find my story but my story was on the front page along with the big 12 stuff.  It was the only other article on the page so that made me super excited.   Here is a link to my article .

Story on metaphysics

Here is a story I did on Stephens swimming coach Laura Wacker.  She is the director of the School of Metaphysics here in Columbia.  I learned a lot from doing this story and enjoyed learning about something I was not familiar with.

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/02/18/finding-your-purpose-life/

My first published article!

Here it is.
Just go to the link

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/02/02/bond-unlike-others/

The beginning of another semester...

This semester had a rough start for me.  I was frustrated with a lot of things but they seem to be coming together now.  I'm excited to write my first story and have it published in the Missourian.  I think that is always exciting for people to see their work published.  The Missourian is keeping me busy along with all my other classes which is a good thing.  I also have my computer to keep up with.  I have to take it back in so they can put my files on my new hard drive.  That is another hassle that I didn't want to deal with but it has to get done.  I'm hoping this will turn out to be a good semester and that I can really get a lot out of my reporting class.  Only time will tell that though.

Internship

I got a call today about the Suburban Journal Internship.  I got it!  I'm excited.  I think from this I can learn so much and I am excited to do that.  I need to get a camera which I knew and that is one of the first things I am going to look into when I get back up to school.

I leave tomorrow for Columbia.  I am leaving early so I can hang out with my roommate, Andrea. I'm excited to go back, a little excited for school to start.  I'm excited to get my books so I can look through them.  I love getting my books and getting to browse through them.  

That's all for now.

Meeting with the Journal tomorrow

I called Roy back from the journal and we set up a meeting tomorrow for 12:30.  I'm not really nervous at all which is good.  He said I would need to have my own equipment and I told him I had a digital camera but was looking into getting a new one.  I plan to talk to him tomorrow about that and see what he suggests.

Hopefully all goes well!