Happy New Year!

This week starts a new quarter teaching photography at Columbus State Community College which will keep me busy several days a week. In addition, I am in my second year of running a non-profit organization Diverse Media Zone which supports media artists. We have several funded projects including a television series on filmmakers in Ohio, several film projects and most recently were awarded a grant for a neighborhood project through the Greater Columbus Arts Council and 200Columbus. For the next eight months, I will be producing a short documentary called the Legacy of Eastgate as one of the many projects celebrating Columbus’s bicentennial year. I will be wearing many hats with this project: lots of research, interviews, marketing, raising funds, developing a website and somewhere in all this effort will be some picture taking. In the next several weeks, I will begin working with the neighborhood association in sending out this postcard to the residents of Eastgate, setting up interviews and launching the neighborhood website. It is an exciting way to start off 2012 with so many projects I am passionate in the works. This includes teaching photography, supporting others artists through our non-profit organization and producing my own documentary project.  I will be plenty busy. I hope the years is starting off kindly to you as well.

Happy New Year!

The Absurd Things People Say and What Made Me Listen?

In the phenomenon of Facebook, it got me to wandering to the path I have taken and the people who influenced it. What were those suggestive moments that changed the course of my life?

As in the spirit of the Talking Heads, “How did I get here?” It became very clear to me tonight that few people offer words that changed the course of my life. What they said was in important, but ironically they themselves may not be the most important people in my life, just their words. These could have been light bulb moments, but I do not recall them that way, it was their power of suggested information that swirled around in my head, words took to heart and took to action.

Who are these people who directed the course of my life?  First, Mr. Dave Sorrell, the high school teacher in the most absurd way led me to my profession as a photojournalist. He taught history and economics, nonetheless his inspiring class lectures began my journey. While in my first year college at NKU, a high school friend, Jenny Mitchell suggested I consider Western Kentucky University. It was not because it had anything to do with their excellent photojournalism program as that was still not on my radar as a career possibility, but that is another long explanation. In my first semester at WKU  I stumbled into one of best photography and my passion “clicked.”  At the end of my four years there and unrelated to my photojournalism program, it was my English professor, Pat Carr, who sent me on my wayward path to Minnesota for 14 years.  Not for a newspaper job, but a graduate program in Women’s Studies. Now, jump another seven years while attending a photojournalism conference, it was Mark Hoffman who suggested I should go to the Kalish Picture Editing Workshop so I did.  This inspiring workshop and faculty at Kalish, Randy Cox, suggested I should go to Ohio University. So, I quit my job of eight years and ran off to graduate school. Upon completion of grad school, my friend of over 30 years says you can stay with me until you figure it out which turn into settling down two years later in Columbus. This 33 year journey with Jane began in the basement of our parents’ church where my sister introduced us.  Her sister moved to Columbus for college, Jane followed years later and here we are the circle of life continues.

As I step back into the classroom this week, I know people are listening and words can be powerful. I hope they do not think they are absurd.

From left top: Mr Dave Sorrell, history teacher at Dixie Heights High School. Christy Handahl Lorenz, Jenny Mitchell, and Christina Paolucci. Bottom Jane Bogenschutz and Christy Handahl who came to my high school graduation.

Image here shows one my favorite high school teachers Dave Sorrell, who  had a indirect influence in my path to photojournalism, It was Jenny (in red) that suggested Western Kentucky.  Below is Jane and Christy at my high school graduation. Jane went to a different high school, Christy was in the class behind mine. Two of the most genuine and loyal friends to this day. Jane moved to Columbus and when I needed a place to stay while my life was in transition she took me in to her home and I am forever grateful. She is the reason I have settled into Columbus.

The Neighborhood

Learning 35mm film, to printing in the darkroom

In just a few short years, we have come a long way in photography. In my experience I went from the darkroom to the digital age in just 12 years. I don’t know the exact date of when I last processed a roll of black and white film, but I used to do it on a daily basis for eight years. Somewhere in 2003, I processed my last color film. Thereafter, sold my two Nikon F100s and have been shooting Canon digital cameras ever since.

This Spring I will be teaching Black & White Photography where students will learn how to operate a manual camera, process film and print in the dark room. What is great about shooting film is it forces you to learn how to think and how to make correct exposures. Nothing is worse in making a bad exposure and then spending hours in the darkroom trying to make the perfect print. Burning down the highlights, dodging the blacks for detail, finding that perfect mid-tone.

I dug into my some very old college images as examples of those early days. Both these images are from workshops I attended. “Mother & Son” was a fleeting moment and I was not ready with a proper exposure. Though it made for a very nice moment, I spent hours in the darkroom trying to burn the background down while keeping a nice feather, so my burning technique did not spill over into the subject. This picture alone, forced me to make better exposures. The second image, taken a year later, is a better exposure and the printing was much easier. However, there are elements of highlights and shadows in the image can also be problematic due to the limitations of film or yet a still very young photographer.

Not one class or one weekend can make you an expert in photography, it evolves over a lifetime. What I remember the most about the magic of the darkroom is spending many long hours and nights making “just one more print.”  Now it is just a few more minutes and a few more tweaks.

This Spring shall be interesting as I will not only be revisiting where I began, but also teaching where we are with digital photography, more contemplation to come.

October Sky

I have been teaching Photoshop this Fall and not just any Photoshop but Adobe’s Creative Suite 5. I had just made the upgrade from CS3 to CS5. I went through the exercises to make sure I would be able to answer the questions that would come from students. This was good because I found several errors in the book that needed addressing. What I also came to understand CS5 has capabilities that blew my mind. Giddy at first, then I became worrisome because I don’t know what this means for the future of photography. Not only style is going to change, but will we ever trust what are we looking at as the real moment?

As for going through the exercises, it was pretty easy, but the vast changes means creating a new workflow as the changes from CS3 to CS5 are vast. My old habits fighting with the new workflow with CS5 without using the book. It slowed down the process significantly. Some people do not like change, I am embracing it slowly.

As a seasoned photojournalist from beginning using black & white film in the darkroom, to processing color film to the digital age, CS5 seems to be once again, another leap in technology. I think that is how significant the changes CS5 offers from early versions of Photoshop. It makes shooting in RAW so much easier. It was this PS version that I finally understood why I never will need or will shoot in JPEG again. Coming from newspapers, JPEG is the standard format to you use and who had time for toning with ‘layers’?

Between my Canon 5D and CS5, I love the tonal range capabilities. Though it still takes patients to do toning right, as I told many of my students. Patience is what I needed today.

I decided to work on a panorama image. I have used sophisticated software to create a panorama and I know that older versions of Bridge/PS the panorama tool was elementary software at best. I heard that the panoram tool in CS5 was much better and I gave it a try. I took a string of images I made from one October Sky to see how it worked.

Yes! The photo merge was a piece a cake, but the next several hours trying to tone the image. Opening up the shadows without loosing detail of the pink sky. Of course there is many ways to get there, but this is where I was having an internal conflict of wanting to slip back into my old methods and trying to explore toning using the PS the CS5 way. Hours later… I was still working on this image, which should have been faster. But because of old habits not agreeing with CS5 intuitiveness (not yet at least) and my refusal to go through the book again. I chose to trial & error and stumble through the process. This method is similar to getting lost in the car, it may be hours later, but the road is now very familiar.

Up next: Before & After.

 

Storm Chasing

Two weeks in a row it was becoming to be the same story, leave work, storm begins to brew, the sirens go off. Though when I took this picture my roommate was home. It’s her home and I was excited for the possibilities and she was a bit nervous and wanted to go inside. Of course she had a lot more to loose, it’s her house. I was sure it was going to get good at least it seemed so with this picture. The dark clouds were surrounding us, the leaves were flying high, the birds coasting in the wind. TV news station begging to send pictures. Hell no! I am not sending you pictures. I get paid to do this sort of thing. Well, at least I used to. In the end I was glad we were not digging out of the house making the news headlines. The storm past with nothing but bland looking clouds, the kind not worthy of taking a picture or making the news.

Summer’s beginning to give up her fight

I  think of that lyric about this time of year, though probably more so when I lived in Minnesota. I feared winter much more than I do here in Columbus. We finally had a long steady rained today which seems like months at this point and my garden was wilting fast.

It has been a summer of love with the garden. An easy love, not too much, just the right amount of a little tender love and care each day. I was eating healthier resulting with a little weight lost and some ease on the pocket book.

It also has been a summer of unexpected events and not the one I expected to have, but rolling with it nonetheless. Well, here is to a new season of possibilities. Oh and the lyrics are from the song Mystery by the Indigo Girls.

A quick update

Life is busy and who has time to write a blog? It has been many months and it has been exciting times. This past spring I was teaching digital photography at Columbus State in addition to having several projects in the works. The most exciting of course is becoming the president of a non-profit media company, Diverse Media Zone, Inc. DMZ has been supporting the media arts for more than 20-years and my goal is to grow the company offering more services.  I have met and discussed with many professionals in documentary work who tell me they are very interested on how we can help their projects. This is very good news. The economy may be dismal and newspapers folding but we are far from not wanting to tell stories, to read stories, to watch and listen.

So are you looking for support for your project? Yes, most of your are telling me. We are here to help. So, what I am working on right now of course is getting a presence online, building a website. Networking with as many resources in Columbus as possible which includes learning about fund raising, finding talent in design, writing, internet technology and grant writing.

If you want to learn more about how you can support from DMZ, Inc., or are interested in working with a non-profit media company, I would love to hear from you.

Discovering Columbus

This past Monday I attended Momentum 2010 www.ohiowomen2010.org organized by Hollie Hinton, Director of the Governor’s Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach and First Lady Frances Strickland. It was a sold out event with men and women from around the state of Ohio who were eager to learn how to make our communities stronger through education, economics and health. I attended the section on economics where I got packets full of information on starting a small business. It was very resourceful conference and not just a long day of lectures, but there were great speakers. This included, Ohio Governor Strickland, senior advisor to the Obama administration, Valerie Jarrett and what I thought was the best speaker of the day was Pulitzer Prize Winner Connie Schultz from the Cleveland Plain Dealer and married to Senator Sherrod Brown. Besides being a good journalist, she is a very eloquent speaker. I wanted to immediately call her up for coffee and talk more about working as a journalist.

This conference was just one more reason that in the six-months since I have settled down in Columbus, Ohio discovering to be a great place. As someone who moved here with no connections to anything, has found it to be a town filled with many friendly and resourceful groups. There is so much going here, that you could sign up for something every day of the week. I seem to average at least three meetings a-week. Plus, if you add in my daily visits to the YMCA in Gahanna where I find even more friendly and resourceful people, I am staying quite busy. I find this to be incredibly refreshing and that more good things are still to come. Frankly, I didn’t know much about the city besides the fact my childhood best friend lives here. I am forever grateful to have such a friend who has taken me into her home during my career in transition. The arrangements are better than I can hope for in my situation, though we are still working on the cat and the dog integrating.

Lets face it, I am of the many of millions unemployed or under employed. We are workforce not falling under the daily statistic reported in the daily headlines. I received no unemployment income, health insurance or any kind of assistance, just some one who lives frugally. During what I would call my traditional employment search I had several great leads, but as I was networking, I was referring to myself as being unemployed or “I don’t have a job”. I didn’t like the way it was sounding. So, I decided it was time to take a new approach by saying what I do no matter my financial status, seems obvious I guess. Right? I am a photojournalist and multimedia producer. I specialize coordinating multimedia projects for my production company. I am an adjunct faculty at Columbus State teaching digital photography.

To be more specific: I am in the process of collaborating with some colleagues to create a publishing/production company that specializes in documentary storytelling and seeking additional collaborators interested in doing documentaries; taking a small business plan course through SCORE; teaching a photography course at Columbus State Community College; volunteering with Awesome Women in Business for a fundraiser for New Directions Career Center Thursday April 15th. volunteering with the Mid-Ohio Workers; participating in the tour de Y on March 20^th; and much, much more. Stay tuned. There is more to come.

Serious Men, Serious Women

Serious Men

I was asked, “So what do you know about A Serious Man?” I said, “Oh uh well it stars Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. He is a gay professor in the 60s and his partner dies and then he befriends Julianne Moore.” This is the dialogue I had with a friend Saturday night as we made a last minute change in plans due to the cold, so we went to a movie, A Serious Man.

The information I absorbed was from the marketing campaign of A Single Man. A completely different movie from A Serious Man. O.k. not completely different, they both are about a college professor wearing dark glasses during the 60s and both befriend a redhead. Can you understand my confusion?

Now I haven’t seen A Single Man, I saw A Serious Man, which is about a confused Jewish man from Minnesota wondering why all these things were happening to him. You think I would have figured out that this was a Coen brothers’ movie. In Coen-like fashion it ends with a lot of questions.

For me I had questions through out. He doesn’t quite look like Colin Firth. When are we going to learn he is gay? When are we going to meet Julianne? That red head doesn’t look like Julianne Moore.

Larry, the serious man, had a lot of questions too. Lesson learned? Life is full of questions, but you many never get the enlightenment you are seeking.

Serious Women

Last night I watched one of my favorite shows, House. You would think the plot line of a mystery disease of the week would get tiresome after six years, but this season even with House sober each episode has offered a refreshing and unexpected plot line. This time we see the episode from the point of view of the hospital administrator Lisa Cuddy. It was so well done I think they should give her a show, a spin off. We rarely see the full spectrum of a woman’s character as we did in this episode. Is her character a realistic representation of the every day woman or the unachievable superwoman? If I tried to reach her level of achievements, it would feel like trying to attain the flawless figures of the ladies found on the cover of magazines. In this case, I don’t whether to be depressed or inspired. Frankly, I am just not that ambitious.

Lisa Cuddy, the Dean of Medicine at a fictional hospital in New Jersey, is a single mom. She is incredibly smart, emotionally grounded and has an awesome wardrobe fitted into her nicely sculpted physique. How does she manage House and his daily antics, run a hospital and while seemingly works long hours sustains that figure? Oh yeah, and found time to adopt a child and have a boyfriend. If I could manage just one of those goals would be a good day for me, a good year for that matter.

In this episode, we get a real sense for how long and intense her days can be, up at 5 am to do yoga, prepare herself, her baby and deal with all the chaos that comes with getting a family ready before leaving for work. Minus showing us the reality of dealing with morning rush hour, Cuddy finally get to work, she puts about a half a dozen of fires out before 10 a.m. This includes pulling off an impossible business transaction that just might bring the hospital down because of her cutthroat negotiating techniques. This is a good thing.

She never looses her cool in all these crisis situations and manages to out wit the big dogs. We witness her vulnerability of such a hectic day in a few private moments, but never loosing her composure in front of staff. Cuddy stands strong by advocating for patients’ right and doesn’t hesitate to take corrupt people down. It was nice to see Cuddy as the main character, showing her as positive woman leader, not the cranky woman boss putting up with sarcastic oh-so-smart coworker/employee, aka House. It has been one of my complaints that I have noticed as a recurring theme in recent years in such shows as Castle and The Mentalist.

I was rooting for Cuddy the whole episode as she jumped from one conflict to another, occasionally seeking advice from her colleagues, but in the end she was her own person calling the shots. In this respect, it was definitely a rare television moment where one woman kept her integrity, successfully out witted the bullies and then went home to her loving family. Now that isn’t asking for much is it?