miscellaneous

(17a) I Thought I'd Be Finished With Braces In High School

Posted by Ivy

Here’s my robot-brace! My mom’s been asking me to take a photo of it for a while.

If you have to have a brace on your leg, this is the way to go (even if it does slip down sometimes, as seen in this picture. That midsection circle is supposed to be lined up exactly with my knee). Not only is it futuristic and twenty-first-century-looking, it also coordinates with every single item of clothing I own, and, more importantly, hinges at the knee, which is fantastic. Joint mobility (mobility in general, actually) is truly a wonderful thing; I’m very much looking forward to a couple weeks from now, when I should get my full range of motion back.

It’s hard to believe I’ve been wearing the brace for more than a month now—you can’t tell from the picture, but it’s held up remarkably well to daily wear-and-tear, and looks almost new. Somehow I thought I’d have completely destroyed it by now, just by virtue of subjecting it to rainy winter weather all the time (more proof of its robot powers).

March 15!

Staff: Enterprise photo + this week's idea log

Posted by Ivy

I had really been hoping they wouldn’t fill the outdoor pool at the Rec Center before I could get pictures of people tanning around an empty hole in the ground, but, of course, by the time I actually got over there with a camera, it had already been filled for the season. Oh well. I took this picture anyway (before an employee spotted me and made me leave). It reminds me of some sort of elite Miami Beach hideaway or hotel.

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As for other enterprise ideas, I’m hoping to get out into Columbia sometime towards the end of one of my shifts (6pm-ish), when the light is excellent, and find some subjects. I saw some kids playing pickup soccer over by the ARC today; if they do that regularly, that would make a good feature photo. Actually, there’s a surprising amout of events at the ARC that the Missourian doesn’t cover, so that whole area is probably a good place to start for enterprise things.

I found a subject for my first grad component–she’s the newest member of Columbia’s improv troupe–and wish I had more time to work with her on this project (it’s due Monday), but I’ll work with what I have (and will have, after Saturday), and hopefully make a good presentation. I started thinking about other potential subjects, since I’d like to get more of a jump on the next grad component phase, and so far am still liking the over-50 softball player idea, as well as the professional bagpiper idea, the interpreter-for-the-deaf idea, and the wedding-cake-maker idea. I’ll start exploring all of these further as soon as this weekend (which is going to be insane) is over.

Also, in super exciting news, I bought a new camera! Yay! It’s a Canon 50D– I couldn’t make the switch to Nikon after all, mostly because I couldn’t justify buying a new camera AND strobe AND telephoto lens when I already had the latter two. I probably didn’t absolutely NEED new gear, but I wanted to make the upgrade before I go to California in three weeks, and didn’t feel like waiting any more (mostly I’m just excited about going to CA). I’m also relieved to have my own gear around a a backup to the Missourian equipment….I made the mistake of using a D2H last weekend, without realizing that that camera has a terrible, terrible megapixel count and can’t handle high ISOs. Ugh. Better to avoid ever having to use it again.

I get to go shoot a catfish tournament this weekend! I don’t think there will be noodling (from what I can tell, it’s just standard rod-and-reel fishing), but I’m still looking forward to it. I think one of my favorite things about Staff is how many opportunities I’ve had to get out of Columbia and explore. Reporters with cars are awesome.

Turncoat

Posted by Ivy

Dear fellow photogs,

What would it take to get you to switch systems? I’ve never owned anything but Canon (and this was what we used in my college newsroom), and therefore feel like a total traitor for even considering selling my current camera to some random convergence person (I don’t think a photo-j would want to use a Rebel XT professionally) and starting up with Nikon. This is not to diss my camera, which has served me well for two and a half years…but I need more firepower, and I can’t decide if I should get it in the form of Canon or Nikon. If I could afford L-Series lenses, this question would not be so much of a problem; I’d just stick with what I have. But Nikon seems to be better for mid-range photojournalism in the overlap of quality and cost (it’s closer to the middle of that particular Venn diagram than Canon seems to be).

Help! Any and all input is much appreciated….

Classes

Posted by Ivy

So far Photo in Society has proved to be quite the engaging class- I enjoy the readings (because they’re all about photography, natch), and we have good, varied discussions pretty much every period (this is much preferable to classes when nobody wants to talk and there are overlong intervals of awkward silence. You don’t get much out of that). Anyway, we were talking about a chapter from Susan Sontag’s On Photography, and the importance given to the actual, tangible photographic print- which has faded considerably with the advent of digital cameras. It reminded me of this article from the Boston Globe ( http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/01/04/twilight_of_the_color_photo/?page=3). which I read over break (I love reading the Globe. It’s my favorite newspaper, and there is absolutely nothing comparable to its Sunday edition). The article actually spurred me to embark on the epic task of putting all of my pre-digital photos in real albums, and I made a pretty sizable dent in the project over the four weeks I was home (hooray!). But ideally, when I have the money to actually do this- I really do want to make prints of my digital photos, and put those in albums, too. Or, barring that, just make an obscene amount of Shutterfly albums. Anything to have non-virtual copies of everything. I suspect this makes me a dinosaur of sorts, but then, I freely admit to being a dinosaur of sorts about print newspapers* versus digital ones, so I am nothing if not consistent.

In somewhat related news on the digital technology front, this article: http://www.slate.com/id/2209884/ was posted on Slate a few days ago. First of all, Microsoft having photo technology that Apple hasn’t come up with yet? Odd. But seriously, the idea of Photosynth- and the fact that they actually manage to execute it! -is a little mind-blowing to me. I’ve done the GoogleEarth and Flickr thing where you click on a location and view other peoples’ images of it…but I haven’t ‘flown through’ them in a three-dimensional way.

I got my new flash the other day! I feel all fancy; I think I’ve used a flash once, shooting improv at Rice (and I would be lying if I said I actually knew what I was doing that time). So. Definitely looking forward to learning all about the power of the strobe. I am kind of antsy about how conspicuous I’m going to be with it hooked up to my camera, but I guess I’ll have to learn to deal with that.

Meanwhile, who knew Midwestern winters were worse than New England ones? I don’t remember it ever getting down to FIVE degrees in Connecticut…rargh.

*I have nothing at all against digital newspapers, and I read them daily, but the experience of reading a dead-tree edition (especially on a Sunday) is something that can’t be replicated (I’m also a little uncomfortable with digital shutting out older people like my 70-year-old grandfather, who is not exactly Mister Technology).

New photo blog!

Posted by Ivy

First post in my photo blog for Advanced Techniques (and beyond)! We haven’t started any non-reading assignments yet…so in the meantime, here is a random photo from Winter Break. Happy 2009!

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Fireworks over Reliant Park in Houston, TX after Rice University’s 38-14 victory over Western Michigan in the Texas Bowl on December 30. The bowl win was Rice’s first in 45 years, and marked the end of a 10-3 season.