August 2007

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BRxING IT ON & Night Time at Sanford Stadium

August 31, 2007 in Feature, Me, News, Red & Black | 1 comment

First of all, to see another photo I took of the Pharmacy School story, look below.  To see my cover photo from this week’s First & Goal, proceed to the bottom of this entry, read my little write up then click the link.

The story continues in today’s Red & Black.  As I mentioned yesterday, there was a major scandal at UGA’s Pharmacy School involving a professor who was selling test answers to pharmacy students.  I took this photo on Wednesday, but it didn’t run until today.

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Pharmacy student Robert Ko sits outside the Pharmacy Building Wednesday.

Last week First & Goal Editor Phillip Kisubika told me he wanted an aerial shot of Sanford Stadium at night. I’m not sure he thought it would be possible to do, so through some wheeling and dealing I negotiated with a local flight school to take me up in one of their small planes so I could get the shot.

The experience in itself was interesting as a) I’ve never been in a small plane, and b) I’ve never flown above Athens before. The entire time I was in the air I just kept being reminded of how much everything looked like Sim City.

Click the link below to see the front page of this week’s First & Goal featuring my photo.

Read the rest of this entry »

Big Story… Need Art… Any Art

August 30, 2007 in Me, News, Red & Black | No comments

Yesterday I got a call from my editor saying that The Red & Black was breaking a big story at the pharmacy school on campus.  You can read the story here.  To summarize though, a professor is accused of selling the answers to a national exam that all pharmacy students are required to take before they graduate.

The problem with an assignment like this is that the professor is no longer likely to be immediately available for a portrait, or even on campus for that matter.  No one in the school can or wants to talk about it, but you still need art regardless.

While this photo isn’t the most exciting or directly relevant to the story, given the circumstances its the best I was able to do.  The guy’s office would have made a better photo, however it was unmarked and the only way we knew a certain room was his office was due to three different sources within the school identifying it as such.  So, between an unmarked door and a building of the school (after taking photos of both), we decided to run this one.

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Shirley Zhang, a graduate student from China studying biochemical sciences, walks past the Pharmacy Building located on South Campus.

Ron Jeremy and the XXX Church (I really don’t want to know what type of traffic this will generate)

August 29, 2007 in Me, News, Red & Black | 2 comments

Last night Porn Star Ron Jeremy and Pastor Craig Gross of the XXX Church squared off for a debate in Georgia Hall in the Tate Center on the University of Georgia Campus. The event, which was hosted by University Union, drew a full crowd to hear the two who argued about the porn industry.

The debate was interesting, but the lighting and setup of the stage proved to be the biggest challenge. I shot from the sides of the stage which provided some dramatic lighting, but it also gave me the opportunity to use a 300mm f/4 lens I checked out from my professor earlier in the day along with a new monopod The Red & Black purchased.

Check back later for some unpublished photos, but here are the published ones:

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Porn star Ron Jeremy responds to a comment by Pastor Craig Gross during Tuesday night’s debate sponsored by University Union. The two have toured the country debating the porn industry.
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(Left to right) Freshman Leah Drisdell, freshman Mitchell Esswein, freshman Phillip Brettschneider and junior Dustin Baker laugh at comments made during the question and answer portion of the debate.
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Jeremy holds up an article he presented as evidence against an argument Pastor Gross of the XXX Church made. The two debated for about an hour.

I’ve Got (7) Tickets to Paradise…

August 28, 2007 in News, Red & Black | No comments

Yesterday marked the beginning of ticket pickup for the 2007 football season.  Shooting yearly events like this means you are destined to take standard shots of people waiting in line and killing time before the distribution starts.

I tried thinking of ways to get something different and came up with the idea of shooting from the inside of the booth facing out.  I contacted Kelley Lawrence, the person in charge of student ticket distribution, and got permission to get inside a booth.  The lighting wasn’t so difficult, but running in and out of the booth to get names of people for captions proved to be the main challenge.

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Jane McGahee, left, checks the student ID of Tian Ross, a senior management information systems major from Chattanooga, as he picks up his tickets for the 2007 football season.
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Students wait outside Stegeman Coliseum to pick up their tickets for the 2007 football season. According to a University e-mail, students with a minimum of 65 hours could pick up their tickets Monday. Students with 30 or more hours can pick up their tickets today.

Textbooks

August 27, 2007 in Me, Photo Illustration, Red & Black | No comments

Textbooks Yo’

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Officials cite accompanying supplementals, such as DVDs and workbooks, and new editions for the rising cost of textbooks.

Yesterday one of the pages apparently didn’t have enough copy to fill it. As a result, Nita, the Editor in Chief of the paper, asked if I could do a photo illustration. She collected some textbooks for me and this was the result.

For a bunch of books stacked on top of each other, it came out fine. Although something about it bugged me at first, not sure what it was though.

One of the things I really like about this photo is the lighting. I had an off camera lamp that had a compact fluorescent light bulb to create a base light and a flash unit, connected by a sync chord, to fill in the rest and bring the overall light up.

The setup prevented the image from looking too flat in my opinion and I think its one of the better straight photo illustrations I’ve done.

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