Nascar

Just wanted to post the hours I worked for the Nascar event that was related to my internship, (scott got me the job and worked with me in the event). It was a lot of fun, a great learning experience, and I got some great shots in the process. Here are a few of them.

Total Hours: 22 Hours

U of R football

Here are a few more.

Semester work

Here are some of the photographs we had taken as I was doing my internship with Scott Brown over the course of the semester.

Internship Questions

what is your education background? did you go to school for photography?

BA in Photography, Yes, Virginia Intermont College


is it necessary to go to school for photography if you plan on pursuing a career in it?
No, But it is necessary to get a bachelors in some discipline because most companies require a college degree to get a job.


what is your favorite part about being a professional photographer?

It's a different job each day. New people, new projects, new challenges.


what are the negative aspects of this profession?

Every job you do no matter if you have worked for them client 100 times is like the first day.

what is the most important part about dealing with a client? high quality photos?
fast turn-around time?
The ones listed are such a small part of the job. The bigger ones are how the client feel that you are doing the very best you can for them. Also that there job is the most important project you have in front of you. Also that you are going to make them look good to their boss.


if there was one thing you wanted me to attain from this internship, what is it?

Think through the big picture of the project. Not just your part. How it fits in with others and what you can bring to the table to help make project achieve more that what the goal was.


what is the best peice of advice you can give a student, like myself, going into the
photography profession?
Pick a goal and work toward that goal. Except nothing less than what you want. Once you hit that goal raise the bar again and keep going for more.


what is the most effective first step to establish your photography business?

Small steps and take advantage of every opportunity. The ones that don't see to have a big reward sometime end up with the biggest rewards of all.

More cleaning

Today was nothing out of the norm, it was really slow around the studio so I wound up doing the typical routine, finding work to keep me busy. I went through the storage room and tried to clean up and re-organize a little bit, I also spent a good amount of time sweeping and vacuuming. Its not exciting work, but anytime you can keep the studio clean, its for the best. The cleaner the studio is, the easier we can function, so I never feel sore about having to pick up a broom or dusting. Although I would rather take some photos, its not always going to happen. Besides that, I was planning on taking out a camera, short lens, and some polarizing filters so I can do some copystand photos for my brother. Shouldn't take too long, but anytime you can set up stuff like that, just gives you a little more practice, I can probably barter with him a little bit too, because he really needs to get it done.

Total Hours: 8

Sorry for the delay

I haven't had a whole lot of time with work and all kinds of other miscellaneous projects coming up. School has been pretty hectic lately, so I apologize for slacking on the internship posts. The majority of the work has been with a wide range of clients. We've shot with Circuit City for a bunch of product shots, typically one shoot a week, ranging anywhere from 4-6 hours in shoot time. We also photographed the U of R Spiders football team, the photo was to be used for their posters for the upcoming season. Over the past week alone, I worked a total of 22 hours, it was kind of a slow week, but I spent a lot of time with spring cleaning: reorganizing closet space, cleaning cameras and lenses, painting cyc walls. You know, all the fun stuff.

This next week is supposed to be really slow as well, but I planned on coming in and shoot some copystand photos, possibly some books, print work and a few other things for portfolio. Besides that, I do have a few events coming up that I planned on photographing, including lacrosse, and a Nascar event where I'm shooting for Associated Press. I'm not sure if I would consider that internship, but it was directly related to it, as Scott referred me to get the job, so yes, more or less. I should have some more postings soon, just to make sure I keep up with all the goings on before the end of the semester.

Just for the record, I did work at least one 8 hour day a week (Wednesdays were the designated day for me to come in). Besides that, the typical blog posts on here are for documentation of special occasions that were off the norm, and different things I've learned while going through the duration of this internship.

Most important thing I've learned recently, make sure you have good communication with co-workers, it can lead to more bullshit than you need to worry about.

CAA tournament

So yesterday we started to set up for our long weekend at the Richmond Coliseum shooting the CAA basketball tournament. We didn't do a whole lot yesterday, it was primarily setting up strobes, which is pretty typical in a days work, but it was just a lot more steps than usual. The Coliseum is a little bigger, so it was a workout getting all that equipment up that many steps. Obviously, we handled it, but it should be pretty interesting to see how everything turns out. We only spend 2 hours there yesterday, which is short compared to the countless hours we'll spend there over the weekend. Tomorrow, i'm assuming we'll be there somewhere from 10-12 hours. I show up at the studio at 8:30, the games start at noon, should be a long day. I'm pretty excited about it though.

Total tournament hours: 62

VCU vs ODU

2:00-10:30

VCU on ESPN2

Just thought I'd take a few minutes to recollect my experience yesterday at the basketball when VCU played on ESPN2 against Old Dominion. Overall, it was a great experience, just not the outcome i was looking for at the end of the game, we were up, but maybe some crucial mistakes in the end, we wound up losing in a heartbreaker. Anytime you play on tv like that, there are always big crews, which means you have to work around everyone else. We showed up at the studio at 2 and didn't get out of Siegel Center until 11:00, it was a late night, not a bad day of work though, we did really well on the setup and breaking down lsat night. We only had minor problems with the equipment, we just got back the Mark IIIs (canon) recently, and they've been acting up again, just something different this time. We kept getting a "error 99" message, the camera just had to be turned off and back on, but its inconvenient when it happens to your remote cameras, you have to track them down, screw around a bit, not very reliable. Besides that, everything else worked out nicely. We also experimented with a new pocket wizard configuration, originally we thought it would take less pocket wizards, but it doesn't. There is an advantage to it though, we are able to trigger multiple cameras just by shooting with our hand-held, so we can get multiple angles from one shot, it works out nicely, we just have to compensate for the shutter lag between the different cameras, whenever we get that figured out, everything should be great. Wish I had more to discuss but thats about all that was new for the shoot last night, we have another game on wednesday so we should be fine. I'm looking forward to the CAA tournament thats coming up in March, should be exciting and also bring in some good money, which I could really use at this point.

Finishing up

Finished off the photo shoot where we left off last night, we shot from about 1:00-5:00. The photos turned out well, again just typical shots, just products from different angles and finding ways to light them evenly and making sure logos and text come out well. Can't say there was much else, just exhausted, it was a long day.

Camcorders, etc.

Just another Circuit City shoot at the studio yesterday (Feb. 13, 2008). By the time i got in, Barry and Scott had already been shooting, the lighting setup was pretty standard for what we've been doing lately, 3 soft boxes connected at the corners to form a semi-circle, more or less. I can't say there was anything out of the ordinary with the shots, just following the standards and shooting different angles of cameras and camcorders, even some out-of-box shots. I wound up getting there about 11:30-12, stayed til 7:00, not a bad days work. I go back in today to finish off the shoot, we only have a few things to do. Its Valentines Day today, so I'm hoping we dont work too hard today, I haven't even gotten to work yet, and already I want to go home and take a nap.

Another Shoot w/ Circuit City

Today I worked from 11-10:30, we shot some product shots for Circuit City, which mainly consisted of a stereo system, some camera cases. There were a few other things, and there will be even more next week. Its never really that exciting, because its products, but i'm learning a great deal about lighting and how light hits different products, and how to resolve certain lighting issues. The majority of the time, we use a big softbox over the top, then just reflect the light using white foam core or mirrors that are sprayed with dulling spray. I can't really say there was much more today, unless you'd like to know what I ate during the shoot, we ordered lunch from Bakers Crust, again, its not really the greatest place, I think we're starting to dislike it. The place is made out to be gourmet sandwiches but they skimp you. I got a "New Yorker" which was pastrami, swiss, and mustard, few other things, just dont remember. The highlight food of the day was definitely my dinner at the studio, Chicken and Vermicelli from Vietnam I, one of my favorite places in Richmond to eat. Its cheap and it tastes fantastic.

Weekend

Saturday was another basketball game shoot, we showed up at 12 o clock. We showed up early because it was a busy week around campus, so we had to get in there to make sure we had enough time to get everything up and running. The game was good, lots of screaming fans and a conference win, it never can hurt. Besides that, I can't say theres much going on around the studio, we do have 4 upcoming Circuit City shoots, but they're not penciled into the schedule at the moment, we still have to get the objects to photograph and a final date hasn't been reached up to this point. They'll probably happen last this week or sometime next week, should be pretty busy with the basketball tournament coming up as well. Besides Circuit City, I dont know of any other goings on in the studio. Thats about all I've got for now. I would like to add, we finally installed the motorized winch for the enormous softbox. Now we don't have to lift 250 lbs by hand everytime we need to adjust the lights. It should make our jobs a lot easier.

Total Hours: 7

Mark Mitchell shoot

Had the opportunity to work with Mark Mitchell the other day in a photo shoot. It was a pretty good experience, the shoot went smoothly, everyone was social and got along. Mark was an interesting guy, he had a really cute assistant also. During his shoots, Mark likes to get very vocal with his direction, nothing vulgar, but the first time you experience it, its pretty amusing. I noticed that he uses about the same lighting setup as we used in our last portrait shoot: 2 background lights (from each side), main softbox light, and fill light. Only this time, Mark was using a smaller softbox and used it as a fill light on the opposite side of the main light. I can't really say there was anything out of the ordinary about the shoot, it was just a typical set up and subject matter. The photographs were to be used for an American Cancer brochure, they used 3 models, using 3 wardrobe changes per model. I also had to paint the whole studio floor to make sure we had a clean white backdrop, which is important because we photograph cars and motorcycles in the studio, theres always tire tracks on the floor. Maybe i'll have a little more to write about after tomorrow, but as far as the day goes, it was pretty straight forward, making sure the shoot went smoothly, helping out, then cleaning up the studio after the shoot is done.

Total Hours: 6.5

Week 1

I just wanted to document my experience with my internship so far, possibly write a few techniques or simple information I picked up. Also, summarize my work experience in the field so far. I'll be honest, I am looking forward to my future as a photographer. Some people are discouraged because they have to start at the bottom, and maybe they don't have the drive. Through my experience so far, we've kept pretty busy in the studio, which I find is good, you're always moving your feet, taking new photos, which usually leads to different setups where I can look different little tricks. When shooting portraits of people, we use 3 basic light setups: background, softbox which is the main light, and a grid spot, which adds a little more light to the face of the subject. Learning more about product shots was pretty cool too, I learned that really all you need is a boom stand, softbox, and a bunch of mirrors. Use the light emitted from the softbox and reflect it to highlight specific features of the object. Another interesting thing I learned was how to properly light and filter a copystand when photographing to catalog documents or artwork. I learned about the directions of a polarization filter, both having to be the same direction or you get a gradation on your background. You also want to meter the edges to have a 1oth of a stop more light than the middle. For example, meter the corners for 11.1 and the middle at 11 aperture.

One last cool thing I wanted to write down that I'd like to use in the future is using beams of lights in a photograph. The trick to making this work is using a substance that the light can reflect off of, such as talcum powder. You also need a strong light thats directed into a beam, either using a light with a focused beam, or using a grid. I'm not sure about the ratio of light, whether its a stop lighter, I'll just have to experience and see what kind of results I can come up with.

Besides these tricks, the rest of my experience so far has been pretty typical, we've been shooting some basketball games. I'm getting very familiar with the equipment and how to set everything up on my own. I still don't know much about pocket wizards, but I know how to change the channels on it, which is basically all you need to do. I do know how to sync up 4 strobes together, wirelessly, and how to make them fire with your in-hand cameras, and on remote cameras. Its been a great experience, I've learned a great deal in a short amount of time, probably more about metering, exposure, and just hands on equipment learning then I've gotten in my whole experience. We have some shoots coming up soon also, we're shooting some Circuit City products, and on tuesday i'll possibly be working with Mark Mitchell. I always look forward to working with new photographers in the area, it extends my networking and get to meet new people, and potential employers.

Total Hours: 8