Portfolio Work

It's been a while since I have updated this and this is because I have been working for Lifetouch and haven't been shooting as much as I would like. I'm sure I will update with some work from Lifetouch later on but for now here are some of my favorites from my professional photojournalism portfolio.

 I love the lighting in this picture. This was taken at the K-State Drag Show last year. I jumped on stage and shot from the corner of the stage, giving me a different view of the performers.

 I snapped this picture at the NCAA tournament last spring in Tuscon, AZ. One of the opposing team's members was injured and I was next to where they were cleaning him up. I just looked over and saw blood running down his face and remembered my adviser telling me that some of the best sport photos aren't of the action on the court.

 This was part of the engineering departments displays at the K-State Open House last April. Campus was full of activities and displays for prospective students, current students and community members to explore. This kid was having a blast playing with the sprinklers.

 This is Mariah Charland. She was an amazing women to shoot. She doesn't have kidneys and has to undergo dialysis every night for nine hours. I did my final photo story on her for a class. She still attends classes and is part of a sorority, she is perfectly normal and was even a member of the K-State Equestrian team. It was a great opportunity to be able to share her story through photography.

K-State's Black Student Union hosted a step show in the Union last year. I was shooting on the ground next to them and almost got stepped on several times and the lighting was difficult with the mirrors on the ceiling but I liked the symmetry in shot and the effects my speedlight had on the ceiling.

Creekstone Farms

Kansas Magazine's Fall 2011 issue will feature a story on Creekstone Farms in Arkansas City. They are a packing plant and they ship their product all over the world. A supplier in New York City supplies the meat from Kansas in the higher end restaurants.

What Would John Brown Do?

Lawrence Magazine is doing a story on what would John Brown do if he would come back and live in Lawrence today? We did several photo shoots with different models dressed in a John Brown beard and hat.

These two shoots were Free State Brewery and the Farmer's Market.

St. Jude and Up 'Til Dawn

                  Danny Thomas was a young man trying to make it in the entertainment world.  He had a wife and a young baby on the way, but his career was on a downward slope.  He needed some help.  He began praying to St. Jude Thaddeus, the patron saint of hopeless causes.  He promised that if St. Jude showed him what he needed to do, he would erect a shrine in his honor.  Thomas soon started having success and so he had a promise to keep.

                  During the 1950s, Thomas began planning how he would honor St. Jude.  The idea of establishing a “unique research hospital devoted to curing catastrophic diseases in children” was tossed around.  The construction was completed, but the operation costs were a problem.  Thomas then created the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, ALSAC, to help with these costs.  St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital daily operating costs are about $1.6 million, so the ALSAC has been a beneficial factor on keeping the doors open since February 4, 1962.

                  St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is concerned with the research in gene therapy, bone marrow transplantation, chemotherapy, the biochemistry of normal and cancerous cells, radiation treatment, blood diseases, resistance to therapy, viruses, hereditary diseases, influenza, pediatric AIDS and psychological effects of catastrophic illnesses.  These are very important to the 5,700 active patients seen at St. Jude.

                  Linda Baumberger has had much experience with St. Jude because her daughter Kendra was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 6 she became a patient at St. Jude. 

                  “You can’t imagine what a fantastic place [St. Jude] is.  I hope none of you ever need it, but if your children ever develop cancer go there as quickly as you can” Baumberger said.  “Everyone in that hospital is pulling for these kids and they are researching around the clock to give the children the best treatments.”

                  St. Jude is really good about caring about their patients.  They don’t require their patients to pay anything that insurance doesn’t pay.  The donations collected at events like the letter writing and benefit concerts of Up ‘Til Dawn help with those costs.  Kansas State University has been helpful in collecting $98,579 this year.

Up 'Til Dawn Photo Gallery

The Spring benefit concert for the Up 'Til Dawn fundraiser was on April 1 in Old Stadium. The concert featured the Jared Daniels Band and benefited St. Jude's Children Hospital.

Up 'Til Dawn recap video

On April 1, 2011 members of the Pi Beta Phi sorority hosted the spring event for the Up 'Til Dawn fundraiser.

Up 'Til Dawn director Podcast

Diana Klote was the director of Up 'Til Dawn for 2010-11.

Norma Dunning and  I covered the Spring event for Up 'Til Dawn. Here is the first part of our project.

Up 'Til Dawn

Norma Dunning and I covered the event Up 'Til Dawn this year which raised money for St. Jude's children hospital. We are almost done, we just have two more interviews and we have to finish editing together the video and podcast.

Here is a sneak peek of the photos for the project.

First Multimedia Convergence Project

Cooper Mach and I decided to cover the bars preparing for Fake Patty's day for our first project. When we first started the project our story board included a print story on the history of Fake Patty's, a video project on the bar managers and the atmosphere, a podcast of the waitresses, a soundslide of the bars before Fake Patty's and the day of and finally a map of the bars who would be having specials for the day.

Our story board ended up with a video, podcast, photo gallery, map and print story. We ended up with less time than we originally thought to do the project. I work as the photo editor for the K-State Collegian and unfortunately that job sucks up most of my time. I was able to work on this project and submit part of it to the paper.

We decided to split up the interviews and work on separate parts of the project and then bring it back together as a whole. I had problems with people getting back with me to interview. I was only able to interview the owner of The Library, a local liquor store in Aggieville. I also almost missed the day of Fake Patty's because I was in Kansas City shooting the Big 12 women's basketball tournament on Friday.

I learned from this project that business owners are more willing to help out students if they think they can get free advertising in the newspaper. When I wrote the print story, I included quotes from the bar owners and it was a way of them getting their names out to students for free. I enjoyed doing this project. The biggest thing I wish I could have done different would have been to do more interviews and do more ahead of time than trying to get everything done a few days before the event.

Preparing for Fake Patty's Day

Cooper Mach and I did a multimedia story on how bars prepared for Fake Patty's Day in Manhattan this year. This is the photo gallery of The Library preparing and of the actual day as well as a print story about how the day went for everyone involved.

 

 
Manhattan sees increase in Fake Patty's arrests, complaints

Every year, thousands of K-State students, Manhattan residents and out-of-towners flock to Aggieville streets for Fake Patty's Day. For this year's event, bars and liquor stores stocked up for the crowd just a few days before.

"We did the same thing we've done the last four years it's happened," said Keith Eyestone, owner of the Purple Pig, a bar in Aggieville. "Extra door men all day long for the 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. shifts, printed more green Purple Pig shirts to give away and sell, more kegs and more bottles of vodka."

The bars were packed with people from the time they opened on Saturday morning to the time they closed early Sunday morning.

"Our capacity is 116 and we met that at probably 9:45 in the morning and kept it right around that until we closed," Eyestone said.

House parties were also a big part of the day, and local liquor stores knew they had to be ready for increased customer demand.

"We order extra kegs just to sell for house parties," said Mike Towne, owner of The Library, a liquor store. "We get about 80 kegs of green beer. We are one of the biggest buyers of the green kegs in Manhattan along with The Fridge."

City officials were concerned about safety for this year's event and several meetings were held to make sure enough precautions were taken to keep all participants safe.

"There had been meetings in the community for two to three months in advance for all the departments that were working that day for capacity and over serving and other things they were looking for," said Jolene Adams, director of operations at Kite's Grille and Bar. "We did what we needed to make sure we didn't have those problems."

Fake Patty's Day seemed to be a hit not only with businesses, but also people who came to Manhattan from out of town.

"I came because this is cool," said Ashley Miller, a University of Kansas student. "Lawrence doesn't have anything close to this and this is an awesome event."

According to a Riley County Police Department press release, 151 reports were filed. By comparison, there were 134 reports filed last year.

"We had all our officers on hand for both shifts this year," said Lt. Richard Fink.

The RCPD press release also stated there were more noise complaints, fights in progress and more victims of battery this year. In all, 766 calls for service were made from 7 a.m. on Saturday to 7 a.m. on Sunday, a 65 percent increase from last year's Fake Patty's Day.

Even so, Aggieville business owners are unlikely to complain.

"I think it's a good thing for the Aggieville bar and restaurant district," Eyestone said. "And also, I do believe some of the hotels see many a bump on this weekend and any other type of peripheral business benefits by it and could tell a difference."

K-State vs KU

I shot the KSU vs KU game for the Royal Purple last night and it was insane. The crowd for the entire game was loud and crazy and all the players played an amazing game. It was the first time I used my new camera to shoot sports and I was so happy with it, I got some good shots.

Drag Show

I attended the 3rd annual K-State Drag Show last Saturday night. I originally went just to go with my roommates but as usual ended up shooting for the newspaper. I got some great shots though.

Stereotypes

Last week, the K-State Collegian was going to run a story about stereotypes. The story was supposed to be about how stereotypes do not fit and how they came to be. The story ended up being full of incorrect statistics and had an overall feeling of racism toward it. The managing editor and lead designer for the night decided to hold it and have the writer redo it. I took a picture to go with the story and I think it accurately sums up the story.

The girls in the photo wrote something about themselves that people wouldn't know by just looking at them. It was a photo illustration that never ran because the writer has not rewritten his story yet.

Class

I used this blog for my Computer Assisted Reporting class last semester to talk about how I was doing with writing and researching a story. This semester I am in Convergence Reporting and I will be using it to talk about this class.

Done!

I am done with my project! I still need to post everything. I've been so busy with other finals that I have not had a chance to round everything up and post it to the wiki. It feels good to have this project done. I enjoyed this semester and my classes but I'm very happy to be done.

I find myself using some of the tips we learned in CAR class everyday when I'm using the internet. When I need to look up something I don't just go straight to google and go with the website that looks good. I plan to continue using the ideas and tricks learned in this class in the future for research. I also considered writing for the Collegian but thought better of it because I'm not sure I'll have time next semester. But who knows?!

I want to use my final blog post for this class to say thank you to Doc for sticking with us and helping us all out with our projects and pushing us to do great.

Clarification

My article printed in Friday's edition of the Collegian. Today I added a clarification to the article on the Collegian's website. I discussed doing this with the editor-in-chief, Jason Miller, because what I originally printed was not wrong. What I printed was what my source, Jason Kazar, said but Friday Kazar emailed me saying that he felt misrepresented by the quote I used. I wrote what I had written in my notes and it was what he said. He meant it in a different context and with what we were discussing at the time I can see the difference but I do not feel that I was wrong. I did correct the story because I felt like the correction fit better and it was what he meant. I did not change any of his wording I just clarified the difference between the two jobs he was talking about.

Jason Miller received the email from Kazar as well and sent me an email saying "Welcome to the print world.  People see what they said typed up and it feels completely out of context and ridiculous." People say things without realizing it until they see it printed.

I agree with this. I think that people who do not wish to have their names attached to something they say or have their photo taken because they do not want to be associated with an event is just childish. Take responsibility for yourself and if you have an opinion about something, own up to it. I've had many times when taking pictures and I'll ask for someone's name and they say "oh I don't want my picture taken" or "I don't want to be in the newspaper" and I think to myself why is that? I can understand if you just don't like to have your picture taken or feel like you do not look good that day but at the same time, you went to an event in public and knew that people would see you.

As for the quote, I corrected it because I do know, in context to the rest of the conversation, what he meant to say and what context it should be in, but at the same time it is what he said. I did add the clarification to the newspaper and I plan on adding it to my final draft of my story.

Quote of the Day

As I look back at the article, now that it has been copy edited to run in the Collegian, I realize that I still could have added more. I had many more interviews that I didn't even include in the sidebar or main article. As I was writing they just didn't seem to fit anywhere relevant. I could have included more voices in last part about the pros and cons to the alternate certification but I felt like what I had represented it well and didn't drag on.

My interviews really were the meat to the story, even though Doc said don't base it off your interviews, I really think that they added the opposing opinions in a well rounded manner. Two of the people added more of the information but the rest were about views on the certification and if it is ethical to hire teachers who maybe aren't qualified. I have written papers before when it was really hard to not interject my opinion on the matter but I really felt like the quotes I added covered everything and at the end of it my opinion had changed some.
My favorite quote and it was said by two different people who teach in two very different settings was "when you help a kid, it feels great." So I feel like that is what matters in teaching and no matter how they are certified, if they are helping students and the students are learning the material then they are good teachers.

Here are some of my pictures of teachers in the classroom.

This is Jason Kazar who has an alternate certification and teaches algebra at Manhattan High.

Brendan Praeger has a bachelor's in education from K-State and teaches journalism at Manhattan High.

Is alternative certification good or bad?

Now that I'm done with the article I think my opinion has changed. When I first started this project, I researched a couple of things before finding alternative certification. When I first read about the "emergency certification" in Maryland, I couldn't believe we had teachers in the U.S. who weren't certified through a college education program.

After talking with people who have gone through the licensing process and Debbie Mercer who helped the state set the regulations to the process, I think that Kansas at least has a great program. Although there are still teachers who maybe should not be teachers in the school system still, and I realize there are teachers who have gone through the regular certification process who find out they shouldn't be teachers, it seems to be effective. I know that in my classes, even in high school, the teachers with the stories from other professions and those real life experiences were way more interesting to listen to. I feel like I learned more from those stories and experiences than by just reading a textbook.

I think alot of people do not realize how hard teaching is. It takes more patience than I would have to help students everyday for nine months. I truly admire teachers for what they do.

I still think that some states may run into trouble by grabbing people that someone deemed qualified to teach without having that extra education and experience. Ideally I think that everyone who wants to teach should go through student teaching but I realize that in most situations with emergency/alternate certification they need the people to start right away.

So after all of this I think that the alternate programs are ultimately helping our school system by providing teachers with a wealth of experiences to share.

Getting it done

I have revised my main article and sidebar. I'm pretty sure I'm done with the writing part of the assignment now. I'm almost done with this project and as I look back I feel like I'm forgetting something because we have spent so much time researching and talking about it.

I've started editing my pictures and have one picked to run with the story in the paper. Jason wants to run the main article this week so I guess I'm submitting it tomorrow to Pauline or Missy. After getting all the writing done I feel like a huge weight has been lifted. I still have more to do for the project and much more to do for the rest of my classes but having that article done feels very good.

After all of this, I enjoy being a photographer. I enjoy just snapping a photo and writing a cutline. I like writing, but I love photography.

Revising the rough draft

I've been busy with the main story and with other classes that I actually forgot about the sidebar. Today I spent a little bit looking back over it and trying to see what else it needs. I took out quite a bit and still have the word count but I feel like it is missing something. Looking back on it, it feels like I wrote that article a long time ago but it was only a few weeks. Time flies!

I will re-write my main article and turn it in for Tuesday's or Wednesday's Collegian so that I can have a few more eyes on it before I have to turn it in for class. I still need to edit pictures and finish up my multimedia and then I'll be done!

The end of the semester is so close now, but I still have so much to do.