Taking portraits is like having a conversation with your camera

Randy Lipman

Randy Lipman (left) of Mystic Kettle selling kettle korn on Wayne State University Campus.
(Photos by Angelique Harrison/ WSUPJ)

          Portrait photography for me is one of the best types of photography. It allows me to really interact with my subject and not have to be in the background just documenting the event.

          I think the hardest part about taking portraits is finding someone interesting to photograph and then making that photography look interesting and incising.

          When I look for people to photography I think I try to find someone who has a unique personality that will show in a picture or they are doing something interesting.

          For this assignment I was able to get a little bit of both. I did more formal photos of a photography teacher who, at the time, was wearing eyeball rings in her hair.

          For those photos I tried to make sure that I got a lot of different angles because I think it is important to take shots so that they best describe the person you are photographing. In my opinion taking photos from angles other that straight forward are my favorite.

          Photos that are partially elevated or that are taken from below tell a different story about the person, it adds an element to the composition. I think that when taking photos or people you really have to think of the composition and the story that it will tell.

          For the more environmental photos I really tried to tell a story about the main person in the photograph while also bringing in a little of the environment around. The photos that I took of Ben are the best example of this and also some of the ones that I had the most fun with.

          These were a little more difficult for me. I think that trying to make someone the focus while also having a background is difficult because having a background that is too busy distracts from the main focus.

          For me making sure that everything was lined up was key and taking different environmental photos of people helped. I think that the practice in taking more than just one person’s photo helped me to fixed my mistakes from one person to the next so that I would have a better collection of final photos.
         For more photos from this assignment check out my gallery.

Ben Paczkowski (left) and the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors society Seniors after getting pied in the face. The Tau Beta Pi(e)-a-Senior Day was an auction to pie the graduating seniors of the society at the engineering college.

Lights, camera, action...wait I missed it. Can we try that again?

Clarkston junior varsity Wolves coaches Sarah Wasilk, left, and 
Kendall Rock celebrate their teams first goal against Birmingham
Groves on March 26. (Photos by Angelique Harrison/ WSUPJ)

          When I think sports photography, I think of these great photos of the soccer starts in the air mid-kick, or the baseball players mid-swing with the ball suspended in the air.

          I thought that this assignment was going to be the easiest because I have captured some of my family member’s games. I thought that this was just going to be a point and shoot assignment and I would have no issues at all. That was not true.

          The first issue I encountered was finding a game because one season was ending and the season for spring sports was just starting. I was struggling so hard to find something, but then a classmate suggested shooting gymnastics.

          That was the most difficult sport I could have chosen to take pictures of. There were so many different areas of the event going on that it was hard to keep track of all of the kids who were doing the different events.

Artemis Thomopoulos, of Birmingham Groves, 5 , fends off several Wolves 
players. 

          After looking at the photos I was not satisfied. A lot of the photos were blurry, and there was no way for me to tell which kid was in what picture doing that event.

          I was able to find a soccer game at my old high school, which was a lot easier to capture photos during the game.

          When looking at those photos, a lot of the pictures were still blurry, but I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I have an older camera that can’t go above 1600 ISO, and can’t capture a lot of photos on continuous mode.

          All in all, I think this was a great way for me to learn a different aspect of covering sports as far as photos.

         For more photos from my sports photography assignment, check out my gallery. 

Several fans celebrate the first goal of the Birmingham Groves soccer team. This was the first goal of the game until Clarkston scored in the second half to tie the game. 

Know your rights as a journalist especially the First Amendment

           “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” – First Amendment

          While taking photos for an article during a protest, you get arrested. The police officer tells you that you were doing something wrong yet won’t tell you exactly what it is. Knowing your rights may be the only way to get yourself free.

Photo from Cagle Cartoons Inc. The cartoon was located under
 First Amendment Political Cartoon Campaign Ads.

          Going through this assignment I realized that I really don’t know many of my rights as a U.S. citizen. I thought about how many times I have learned bits and pieces of the Constitution and my rights and, still, I know none of my rights by heart.

          Knowing your rights as a reporter is one of the most important aspects of reporting. This protects you, as a journalist, from others infringing on your rights, but it also protects you from violating another person’s rights.

          Journalists should also know that portraying someone in a false light, getting journalistic information in an illegal way, misrepresenting the subject, and publicly disclosing private or embarrassing facts is also something to avoid.

          Make sure that you learn your rights as a journalist and keep yourself protected.

Shooting feature photos was more difficult than I thought it would be

            Feature stories aren't just about taking photos of objects; they are about capturing a part of life that is timeless. These stories allow the more creative side of the news to show.

          Searching for events to cover for a feature story is relatively easy. Looking in the events calendar can offer a variety of occasions to cover. I choose to do a feature photo story on the Evrod Cassimy panel. At the panel, Cassimy talked to journalism students about different aspects of getting into the business that they would have to deal with.

Evrod Cassimy thinks about the question a student asked. Cassimy 
sat on a panel for journalism students at the building Manoogian at 
Wayne State University. (Photos by Angelique Harrison/ WSUPJ)

          The hardest part about covering this conversation was the space where the panel was held. It was in a small room that didn't leave a lot of space for me to move around. I had to get creative with the angles of the photographs because there were limited angles from which to shoot.

Looking into the panel held by the Journalism Institute for Media 
Diversity At Wayne State University.

           One of the major problems that I didn't notice until after shooting was the television in the background of a lot of my photos. It was washed out in alot of my photos and became very distracting. There was really no way to avoid it because it was right behind the subject.

            From this experience I learned to really check the photos, and when it comes to bright object, shoot them a few stops darker to make sure they are properly exposed.

Halea Fisher sits in the car while Luis Shockley

 attempts to jump start his car parked on Warren 
off of the Wayne State University Campus.

            I also had to photograph an enterprise photo, which is a photo without prior planning. This was the hardest part of this assignment. Trying to find an unplanned event was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

            For days I walked around with my camera attached to me trying to find something to photography. I had the hardest time.

            I finally happened upon a student helping another student who had car problems. This was also a hard photo to shoot because I took the photos on a really sunny day. It was hard to compensate for all of the glares and the brightness of the sun.

          From this photo shoot I learned that even what seems like the easiest photographic opportunity, it can give you difficulties.

           I think I have learned that though I feel like I know a lot about taking photographs, news photography is very different. There is no time to set photos up the way I would like. I just had to shoot what was there, and move to a different vantage point if I didn't like what I saw.

           Shooting photos on the fly was very difficult for me. I think that from this experience I have learned that practicing shooting on the spot without prior planning would help better my photojournalism skill.

            For more pictures from this assignment, please check out my gallery.

Evrod Cassimy talks to Wayne State University students about ways to prepare for the world of journalism.

Captions tell the truth but not what they already know to be true

"Awaiting President Obama's arrival in me," a questionable caption written in the article "Top 20 News Caption Fails of All Time."

What most readers usually look at when reading any news article are the photos first. Then they look at the captions and then the actual articles.

Captions, also called cutlines, are the only descriptors we have when it comes to photographs in the news. Yes we can look at the picture and guess what is occurring but to really know what is happening we must look at the cutlines.

For cutlines to really be helpful they have to tell you at least five things: who, what, when, where, why and sometimes how.  It is like writing a mini article for a photo.  Cutlines are also short and get right to the point.

To really understand what a caption is you have to first look at what it does. Cutlines give you more information; therefor, it makes no sense to write a caption that says what we can already see in the photo. Cutlines tell the story of the photo and without it there is just a picture left with no further description as to its importance.
         Cutlines are an important part of any photo in a news article. With out the cutline people will make assumptions about what is occurring in the photos and those assumptions may not be relevant to the story that is actually written.

I learned a hundred different ways on how not to take a photo

Shallow depth of field of a plant. 
(ISO: 800, f/: 5, Shutter:1/60)
(Photos by Angelique Harrison/ WSUPJ)

          My first thought was that this is going to be one interesting experiment.

Silhouette of a student using window lighting. 
(ISO: 100, f/: 5, Shutter:1/30)

          Camera phones make taking photos easy because all you have to do is pull out the camera, focus and take the picture. Using a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera, on the manual setting is like going from driving an automatic transmission to a manual one.  The latter is a lot more complex.

          I didn't think this assignment would be too hard, considering I have been using my camera for years now, so I thought I knew how to use the controls. I was wrong. 

Shallow depth of field of window condensation. 
(ISO: 800, f/: 4, Shutter:1/400)

          I quickly realized that it was going to take a lot of trial an error for me to get the photos that I wanted. I knew what the shutter, aperture and ISO did but it was getting the right combination to make the perfect photo that was hard.
         I ended up taking a hundred photos of anything and everything to see what would happen with the different combinations of shutter speeds and apertures.
          The end results were a lot of mistakes that led to quite a few properly-exposed photos with a wide variety of techniques: different lighting, shallow and wide depths of field, extreme perspectives, and panning.
          Here are just a few of the pictures that I took for the assignment. For more pictures check out the photo gallery called Camera Operations Assignment.

         

Cell phone photography in the media takes more than point and shoot

        My first question was about going to take pictures. I walked out of my photojournalism class with no idea and just the thought that I had a few weeks find some news worthy photos. My gut instinct was to panic. I mean I have taken photos before and after reading the tips on how to take better photos I was confident that I could get good compositions. 

Students lounging in the Student Center. (Photos by Angelique Harrison/ WSUPJ)

Tips that I already follow, being a photography major, breaking all the rules of composition and taking lots of shots. I knew that taking shots of things I thought might be interesting would let me have a variety of photos and allow me to have options. In taking multiple photos I could look back and really think about the compositions of each photo and which photos really told the best story without the captions. As far as composition I just naturally like to break all the rules.

Looking down from the photography lab office in from Old Main.

My second issue with the assignment was finding a newsworthy event. Most of the times when I take photos I just happen upon something I find pleasing to the eye and capture that moment. With this assignment I really had to think about some event that would offer more information about something and that was difficult. I really had to think, but I happened upon both photos in the same way, when I wasn't searching for a picture. The first photo I took was in the Student Center Building and was of students enjoying the new perks of the updates that have been done. The second photo below was a happy experiment. I saw the snow and thought I will get these snowflakes. With a bit of adjustment to the exposure value I was able to capture the movement of the snow falling.

With this assignment I was able to gain a better understanding of the problems that I would face taking newsworthy photos and how I could overcome those issues. I now have more confidence in my ability to capture news worthy photos that tell a story on their own.