Picture Story class

Broadway Project - Video Export Settings

2010-04-09T11:35:00.006-06:00

Thou shalt use Verdana
Thou shalt create a title slide with a text height of 32 point and a byline of 18 points
Thou shalt export a .MOV file using H.264 compression and 24 frames-per-second
Thou shalt export the movie at 800 pixels wide by whatever height makes thy video proportional
(Thou shalt not letterbox)
Thou shalt not export stereo sound, but mono
Thou shalt not covet a smaller file size (100 MB is OK)
Thou shalt not be vain and credit thy Web site at the end of the project

Update: Meeting Dale Graham

2010-04-07T15:46:00.002-06:00

Hey, Gang!

Instead of posting to my own blog (which is frequented by my grandmother and other folks not privy to the photo world), thought I'd touch base and tell you what's happening with my final project...

Upon David R.'s guidance, I contacted a photographer named Dale Graham. He worked as a pharmacist most of his life before turning to photography. Now, one of his pieces ("Windmill on the Prarie") hangs in the Museum of Modern Art. He lives in Fayette, Mo., with his wife Maureen. He still shoots and uses 2 1/4 square and 4x5 film.

He's agreed to meet me in "Downtown" Fayette on Saturday morning. We plan to walk around and talk. I'll, of course, take my camera. We just had a lovely chat on the phone, and I look forward to our initial meeting.

I'll let you know what transpires!

p.s. David R., Dale says, "Hello!"

On Broadway a few years ago...by David R.

2010-03-22T09:10:00.003-06:00

Jimmy Greenspon used to call himself "The Mayor of Broadway" - his family for three generations owned a women's clothing store at the corner of 8th & Broadway (where the grey stucco lawyer's office is now located, on the southeast corner.) He never really loved running the business. His degree was in journalism from, you guessed it, the Missouri School of Journalism. He died about four years ago - too young.
(from a scanned tearsheet - this was from the Our Town series, portraits of Columbia.)

Broadway: Start of an idea...

2010-03-07T22:32:00.008-06:00

Here are some images from my initial visit to Buchroeder's Jewelers on Broadway...

Owner Mills Menser plans to renovate the area where he's sitting to make way for more diamond cases. The shelves to his left and right are empty.

Menser bought the family business from his father, Mike Menser, in 2007. His father still owns the building. The picture of the two hangs at the front of the store.

Part of the area that has been prepared for renovation. A similar photo is posted to my blog.

This building has housed Buchroeder's Jewelers since 1911. It's possibly the oldest business in Columbia, Mo. While the first floor houses Buchroeder's, the second story is comprised of residential apartments.

Although I think it's interesting to find this business in the middle of transition, I still haven't found *the heart* of the story. Any ideas? I welcome feedback...

Broadway Discussion #2

2010-03-01T13:49:00.000-06:00

Colleen: Columbia Cemetery

Laura: Broadway Baptist, Second Baptist Church, Mt. Olive Christian, Community Methodist. Buildings that were churches or vice versa

Jessica: Grant Elementary/Walking school bus/Above Broadway

Chris and Lilli: Development/History/Cherry Hill/Widening Broadway/Preservation lady

Mito: Gumby’s ride-along and delivery on Broadway/college bars

Anne: Columbia exchange circle/Bed and Breakfast

Calin: West Boulevard and Broadway stores/People who live on Broadway/Broadway stores/Bank President

David: Architecture/Funky things on Broadway/school of metaphysics

Daisuke: My Sister’s Circus/The Village/ Plato’s Closet/Ellie’s Couture

Other ideas: Food/KPON

Big thanks to Little Dave

2010-02-24T01:52:00.003-06:00

Here's a shout out to David Kennedy, who put me on the straight and narrow regarding exposure compensation, meter choices and other settings on the Nikon D3 body.

Thanks, also, to Chris Dunn, who offered help Monday!

Lillian J. Kelly tries David Kennedy's patience in the photo lab of Lee Hills Hall, Feb. 23, 2010. Photo by Charles Ludeke.

Broadway Ideas

2010-02-11T01:09:00.002-06:00

I couldn't read the board that well but here is what I gathered from Laura's Broadway notes:

Colleen: religion, cemetery

Mito: bus, college life, midnight food delivery

David: Old houses, bed and breakfast

Calin: garbage/public services, Broadway street sweeper, hired graffiti, basements

Anne: food

Chris: development

Lilli: history

Jessica: schools, city hall

Laura: living canvas, cemetery, parks/hidden nature

Daisuke: clothing/fashion

Colin joins us

2010-02-09T13:21:00.003-06:00

Colin Spitler, our class' online sibling, has joined us on the blog and will be posting pictures to his site, just like us.

--david r.

Us

2010-02-08T16:04:00.005-06:00

Enjoyed our discussion today in class... Let's keep on a-keepin'-on!

Monday class field trip...

2010-02-02T16:27:00.005-06:00

For our Monday Feb. 8 class, we'll meet in Tucker Forum and hear MA candidate Liz Lance discuss her work - then adjourn to our classroom to discuss the remainder of Bird by Bird. See announcement below of Liz's talk sent out earlier by Martha Pickens:

Brown Bag
presents
Fair and Lovely: Examining Beauty and Body Image Among Nepali Women
Liz Lance

Masters student Liz Lance will present a brief series of audio slideshows that tell the stories of how young Nepali women interact with their beauty and body image in the public sphere.
Liz received an IIE U.S. Student Fulbright Fellowship to Nepal over the 2008-09 academic year to conduct this research.
TUCKER FORUM – 85 GANNETT HALL
MONDAY, Feb. 8, 2010
12 NOON

Sequence: First draft

2010-01-29T12:20:00.008-06:00

Ruben Porras, 52, has his hair cut at Chistina's Beauty Salon in Columbia, Mo., Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010.

I used two cameras for this -- my Nikon FM3a and my Canon 20D. I ran out of film with the first (less than 10 frames!), so I turned to my Canon. Hence the difference in the third frame. In the end, this was too safe for me, so I wanted to tried something new. See previous entry.

Sequence: My first time-lapse

2010-01-29T11:10:00.005-06:00

The Central Missouri Food Bank in Columbia, Mo., moves about 22 million pounds of food to 145 agencies in a year. Here, we see staff unloading food, moving food and loading food over a four-hour period Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010.

This was my first attempt at time-lapse photography. I used the internal intervelometer in the Nikon D3: ISO 3200, f8, 1/60, AWB. There's no story arch, but I learned a lot through the process! Mike DeSantis, the marketing director for the food bank, is also a professional photographer -- he lent me a head and a clamp. I chose the location and perspective, then he helped me secure my camera on a high shelf. He also talked me through my choices of aperture and shutter speed as I set the frame.

I made 600 frames, one every 30 seconds for four hours. When I pulled all the photos into Bridge, I realize all of them were slightly crooked. So I refreshed myself on creating Actions in PS and learned how to do Batch Actions in order to tilt, crop and resize the large chunk of frames.

I then pulled them all into Quicktime Pro, which creates an easy-peesy .mov file. I pulled that into FCP, added a couple freeze frames, a fade in and a fade out. Then I compressed it as a smaller .mov. The result you see here.

Plan to add public-domain music and allow the food bank to use this on its own site.

Dusting off the lens

2010-01-24T23:33:00.005-06:00

This is Gaby Perez, 41, who sat beside me while I was having my hair cut on Friday. We chatted in a mix of English and Spanish (although I do not speak the latter), and I found myself drawn to her. She shared about her work at a local restaurant, her family and her desire to visit Paris, France.

Had we not shared in class and had I not read the opening chapters of Lamott's "Bird by Bird," I don't know if I would have pushed myself beyond that awkward inner question of "Should I ask...?" to make this frame. I wasn't sure if she would be open to the idea of someone making her picture while she waited with a plastic bag on her head for her hair dye to set, but she was genuinely touched and smiled with a "yes" when I did ask.

I also posted this on my blog, where I said sharing with Gaby reminded me of why I love photography -- making connections with others. This encounter encourages me to keep my camera at my side. There's no telling who'll I'll bump into next...

Another New Beginning

2010-01-22T16:37:00.002-06:00

Anne Lamott writes (p. xxxi) in Bird by Bird, "But I also tell them that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, they feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them, and they just want to help get them out. Writing this way is a little like milking a cow: the milk is so rich and delicious, and the cow is so glad you did it. I want the people who come to my classes to have this feeling, too."

Country Fresh

2009-03-16T11:18:00.009-06:00

A wonderful picture by Kayla Bowcutt, who is working with this farm family who near Centertown, Missouri.
Haley, 11, checks out an egg from one of their dozens of chickens. Haley and her sister Mallory collect the eggs every night before supper.

Bill Eppridge in Missouri

2009-03-04T09:13:00.004-06:00

Bill Eppridge talked with our combined Picture Story classes and did an evening presentation. Jim Curley, MPW co-director and good buddy, made these pictures. Lessons learned from his visit? How to do research on stories, how to fully commit to doing the pictures that define, mean something, and how to follow through on completing a project.

Bill Eppridge will teach class Wednesday

2009-02-04T06:03:00.007-06:00

Bill Eppridge will teach the two sections of Picture Story class next Wednesday, discussing his own evolution in multiple picture storytelling.

Photograph of Eppridge by Burton Berinsky; Photograph of Kennedy by Bill Eppridge/LIFE/Time Inc.

Getting started in 2009

2009-01-24T08:42:00.004-06:00

Great start to the semester - look forward to the Anne Lamott book discussion by Kayla and Christine on Monday.

We'll also take a little time to share "tips" about working with a blog, in case some of you (like me) have questions. Melissa, how do you get your pictures to display so large? It's terrific!

--David r.

Toning and ethics

2008-04-12T07:38:00.002-06:00

This is from the blog On the Other Side, and pertains to a discussion we had about toning and the ethics of the vignette. The following is just a tiny bit of the rich discussion that appears on the blog. Some good weekend food for thought:

"There is a very fine line with toning pictures. Software programs that most photographers use on a daily basis allow them to do some pretty crazy things. I went to journalism school right at the start of the digital age and essentially the end of using film on a daily basis. We mostly shot film, used a minilab to develop the film, and then scanned them into the computer and used a program like photoshop to slightly adjust the pictures.

There is also a gray area about what is ethical and what isn't. There are the biggies that are fundamental--like cloning someone/something in or out of your frame. But to me the big part of ethics has to do with intention and misleading. Statements like "If I can do it in a darkroom, it's okay" or "This is what the scene looked like to me" aren't good enough reasons. I've seen what used to be done in a darkroom ---and you can do some pretty drastic things.

This is why for me it comes down to the intent of the photographer, and whether or not it misleads the reader. "

Click here for more.

Audio class

2008-03-12T13:39:00.002-06:00

2008-03-10T18:28:00.000-06:00

2008-03-10T17:41:00.000-06:00

2008-03-03T12:08:00.002-06:00

I also agree with Uniforms. I can feel the creative vibes pumping through my veins over this one. I am intrigued over the idea of what a uniform does to those who wear it. For those who are interested in migration, I think that could be able to work that idea into the uniforms. Uniforms are a way of branding an immigrant into the american economy. However, if people would like to divide the class into two groups, I understand.

Consensus

2008-03-02T21:02:00.002-06:00

I think we should do uniforms, because I value consensus and think we can have the strongest consensus around that topic. I also think we can interpret it broadly, and should talk more about the wider implications of "uniforms" in society. See you tomorrow!

Uniform Brainstorm (a pun!)

2008-02-29T18:16:00.003-06:00

I changed my mind again and think that uniforms would be a great group project. Especially because it allows us to study and understand potential Personal Project subjects from a unique perspective. Here are the ideas mentioned today for the uniforms project.

P.S. Today was my favorite class ever, I loved hearing what everyone had to say; it was awesome! Through struggle and failure comes evolution and change.

The Anthropological Explanation of Uniforms
Kids on the street
Kids at Catholic School
Medical
Sports
Restaurants
Government
Post Office
Mechanics
Prisoners/Guards - Relationship
Office/Bureau/Law "White Collar"
Uniform Factory/Cleaning
Military
Farmers
Amish
Religious
Slaughterhouse or Hobos (Elan's or someone else if they want to join me...I'd love that :-)

Grading in progress

2008-02-12T14:10:00.001-06:00

You can go to the Blackboard site sometime tonight or tomorrow to see your grades (courses.missouri.edu) and I will email some feedback on your sequence assignment as well.

Here's a picture of Louis Wilson working with me to fix our kitchen ceiling after a "water problem".

2008-01-29T16:06:00.000-06:00

We also have a Blackboard component to this class - go to this link and you can sign in - but I'm still in the process of adding all the info. I think this will be useful in the future. And would like to have your ideas about what you would like to see added to the "electronic syllabus".

David r.

Hello 2008 Picture Story & Photographic Essay Class!

2008-01-24T17:04:00.000-06:00

Hello - here's the site that we can share in common - maybe some of the previous students will join in some of the conversations, too. This is the group portrait of that crowd.

See you soon.

David R.

CARPARTS:BRAINSTORMING

2007-01-29T12:31:00.000-06:00

Here is what I got from our brainstorming session in class. Apologies if I butchered/missed any of your ideas.

AMERICAN AUTOBAHN. THE LIFE OF CARS IN AMERICAN SOCIETY....

Dirt track racing culture

Red Neck truck culture. Soup them up to be as loud and as large as they can. Go mudding. Social aspect of it.

A car club that meets in town.

Demolition derbys.

Small non-commercial garage. Gets customers by word of mouth.

Lesley’s service center. Small town gas station that takes cash only.

At Athena/Mini-mart/parking lot across street: guys congregate and show of their souped up cars, moved to Phillips66 and take-over parking lot on Paris Rd. and College Ave.
- could check out lights and do a portrait series of the guys with their cars
~even include the friends and spectators
- could do a series with this
How can we take it to another level?
Cars as the center of the social structure?
ACCESS: how laid back would they be about it? Illegal activities going on around it? It’s about the way we approach it: Just try it and see what happens.

What do people without cars do? Buses, bikes…

Break it down to car parts- what’s utility and what’s not utility?

Gender: how people identify differently with cars? Do cars have genders?

Couples with their boats down at the lake, the community on the lake. Maybe portraits and their stories.

Carshop by Midway. Middle aged men- a vehicle as an escape. Car shop where about 30 men (that run with the optimist club crowd) gather to work on their cars. Tension with wives, women not really allowed there. Credit card debt because of all the money they spend on their cars/the shop.

CAR AS A WAY TO FREEDOM:
Getting a license; learning to drive; parents; freedom
Teens relationships with their cars: how it affects them socially?
Cruising, hot spots→ small towns

Teens making their transition into driving. Social/class differences.

Driving and the law. Traffic Court. DUI’s. Designated Drivers. Taxi company in Columbia: the length of time/use of cabs.

Seeing someone that lives out of their car. Broadcast students…kind of like a metamorphosis/transportation that takes place in the cars- from off tv to on tv. What is on people’s floorboards?
Busy, messy people that live out of their cars.

Limousine in town. Rico.

People who make their living off of cars: Truck Drivers/Driving for a living: delivery drivers, pizza guys, taxi drivers, shuttles, MoEX, Tow truck drivers
Even fireman. Meals on wheels. UPS. Postmen. Security people that just get paid to drive around. What do they do in their cars?

-Small car dealership in Columbia
-Drive-Thru everything: prescriptions, laundry, food, alcohol, dry-cleaning

John M.-→Custom Rock Crawlers. Hanging out in his shop, which he owns. Friends come over and kill time, work on stuff for fun. Go around and test it in the parks around town. March 9 competition.

Towing/Impounding cars. Repossession of cars. Stealing cars.

People who buys old cars for cheap, fixes them up, and sells them on Ebay for a lot more money

10-12 year old kids that build and race RC cars.

Farmers that soup up their tractors fro tractor pulls, competitions.

Tailgating. Lance Edwards & the group of guys that wants to start tailgating for the MU baseball games.

Cars on TV. Advertising. Auto magnets: public personalities.

Alternate energy and cars. People her building a prototype. Solar car. UMR: used to win competitions to build alternate energy cars. Engineering school building a hydrogen car(story ran in the Missourian)

Junk-yard/recycled cars. Process story: what does a car become?

Car Angel. Salvation Army car donation.

WHAT CONCEPTS DO WE WANT TO INCLUDE?
• envy
• survival
• freedom
• obsession
• status
• community
• livelihood
• ubiquity
• socialization
• risk
• recreation
• fashion/consumerism

Picture Story Class

2007-01-28T16:49:00.000-06:00

Here's the new site for us all to post to -
Here are the blog addresses on class members that I have to date:

Adrienne Bonafede - http://www.adrianne-storytime.blogspot.com/

Andrei Pungovschi - http://pungovschi.blogspot.com/

Jeronimo Nisa Luna - http://jeropicturejournal.blogspot.com/

Aaron Eisenhauer - http://aeisenhauer.blogspot.com

Brandon Kruse - http://brandonkruse.blogspot.com

Adam Wisneski - http://adamwisneski.blogspot.com

Josh Vince - http://jvincephotolog.blogspot.com

Beatriz Wallace -

http://beatrizwallace.blogspot.com/

More to come...