Month: September 2019

I feel very overwhelmed going into photoville, very out of place.To begin with, I really don’t travel to Brooklyn because either there are parts that I don’t feel safe in or I find myself not having anything to do there because they tend to cater to tourists. Everyone seemed to have a very fancy looking camera and know how to use it and I’m here struggling how to focus my camera on me. All of these booths had very powerful and beautiful pictures some of my favorite exhibits were surrounding pressing issues. Others were simply just photos of the artist’s friends or family. One of the exhibits that caught my attention the most was called useless. Inside was nothing but a skull and photos of bison. Only later when paying closer attention to the images do I realize that the population number was above, in one here was the number 60 million in the year 1900 and then today there are only under 300 wild bison left. I think out of all of them that one was probably my favorite because it used no photographs but rather a video and left the majority of the booth very empty. It felt as though it was being very artistic by doing that. Other exhibits really include seem to express the beauty of the human body, which I feel I wouldn’t appeal to me at the beginning but afterward I realize those were my favorite pieces.

 

Also while I was there I got to talk with a lot of artists and other professional photographers some even showed me how to work my camera better and even took photos of me as well. As someone who isn’t really interested in this field, it felt very intimidating to enter a pit focused on it, but I’m very surprised as to the way others were very welcoming and friendly when wanting to explain Concepts. I was also very happy to see that the event not only showcased professional photographers but as well as up and coming artists and even high school and college students. The entire space felt very diverse and like it was addressing important issues it wasn’t just pictures of pictures.I definitely feel like my experience at photoville made me want to take photography more seriously not for a professional purpose but rather to be able to capture my life through such beautiful photos.

 

If I had the money to pay for some of the art that were on sale I would but sadly I’m still a broke college student.

My experience at Photoville was so enjoyable that I had decided to go twice in the same weekend. The exhibits were inspiring and thought-provoking, each piece of art was so meaningful, and the ambiance was beautiful. It was a wonderful gathering of artists, amateurs, and artists-to-be. However, it was a place where we were all welcome, not only to explore the physical space (which was undoubtedly beautiful) but also our mental space. Everything was up to your interpretation, that is the special thing about photography. 

My favorite exhibit was the “One Day, I Will” exhibit featuring Vincent Tremeau and Curated by Charolette Cans. This exhibit documented the hopes and dreams of women and girls between the ages of 6 and 18 who are disproportionately affected by different humanitarian crises. Each girl had dressed up to show who she wants to be when she grows up. Each of these girls reminded me of myself, as I have been raised in similar a culture and I related to many of the girls’ aspirations. One thing that they all had in common was that they inspired to be useful, independent, and empowered in their community for the sake of themselves and others. 

My heart ached when I read each of their quotes. I wanted to be able to help them because their aspirations are very similar to mine, yet they may be out of reach for them due to external conflicts in their community that they had never chosen to be a part of. These girls are living in an area and at a time that they had not chosen to live in and are forced to deal with its consequences, yet they do so with grace and innocence and with eyes and hearts filled with love and courage. 

These women and girls are empowered by their struggles, they have become stronger and more ambitious because they see a desperate need for change, and that is how we all must be. We need to help those who do not have as many opportunities as we do, and we need to tell their stories as Vincent Tremeau told theirs.

 

Photoville is an amazing exhibition of photographs. People who interested in photography are free to enjoy  viewing each photographer’s works. I was excited to see their photos and good to learn the way they shoot pictures.

The first photos that I like the most is from Bronx Activists. Bronx Junior Photo League is a group of after school documentary photo program for twelve to eighteen-year-old, who view the Bronx to write photo essays. With good subject to express the current issues in the Bronx. It included activism, housing access, public housing conditions, gun violence and public safety and more. Hebu Jamal is Julie Lozano’s work which is the one of photo in Bronx Activists. The photo shows a muslin girl who named Hebu stands on the street. Her face is warm and pure but little tire and helpless. She is typical muslin look that her scarf surround her head. Her hands look like prey something but not explicit to say what her gesture means. The background is her community Bronx. The photographer uses black and white to describe the melancholy atmosphere. Hebu has been disturbing about muslin issues for long time. People hatred and discriminated them badly. She was suffering offensive questions sometimes but nothing can fightback because people think muslin is represents terrorists. Society issues are good topic to show the public a true world. Julie Lozano chose a wide perspective to reveal reality and grabs people’s attention on these problems.

Water is a women’s issue is another great work. The photographer puts six photos in one group. All related that the relationship with our daily live. Cooking, washing, planting, fishing are all need water. I like the way that the theme is about water is important to human that we have to consider pollution issues and how managed the water resource is pointed on his works clearly. He doesn’t use dark theme to shows water issue. However, the colorful images are fill of joy that leading people to think about more. After seeing his work that I thought water is the most important recourse serves human. If we have water to live that means we will never happy and death will wait for us.

The third theme that I like the most is : Past Tense-Dumbo Before Instagram. Here are bunches archival photographs around 1851 to 1980. The classic old New York pictures will take you back to 100 years ago to see how magnificent the city was. Michael Evans’ The Brooklyn Bridge punctuate the night view in August 1974. All though these pictures are black and white, the shining would never fade. I admired these photographers that they caught the moments we had never been. It will be everlasting to freeze the time and people would go further to move on better when they see these pictures. It is not only an art of photograph, but also an epic of the New York City.

 

It is my first time to visit the photography exhibition. It’s interesting. there are three well-composed photographs of things I see at the Photoville exhibition.

The photographs were taken by Jackie Molloy. It was about a family in transition. It is a photographic essay documenting the life of Tanner, a transgender male, and his partner David, they are struggling to cope with Tanner’s unexpected pregnancy and the birth of their daughter Paetyn, and they are living together as new parents. The shots of Jackie let me feel the warmth of the family, whether it is a photo of color or point of view is to grasp a person eyeball, I especially like the pieces of their daughter raised his hand up his hands in front of a mirror but the mirror is Tanner in the same posture to the mirror smile of photos, although did not see her daughter’s face, I think she must be also very happy smile. The group of photographs fully let me feel the happiness of their family. The photographer, Jackie Molloy work to explores modern families overcoming adversities from all over the spectrum, with topics ranging from transgender right, fertility issues, foster care, and disability. These photos well reflect the difficulties and happiness of transgender families. I think it’s great that we can show one story after another through photography. This kind of photography exhibition is very attractive to me. I will come again if I have time next year.

I arrived at Photoville unexpected, yet very excited. The many trailers filled with photographs from talented artists was just the way Professor Johnson described it. The first photographer I met was Harmen Meinsma. He’s been a photographer since he was 14 years old. I found Meinsma’s method of capturing his subjects in his Photoville display to be unique. He finds his subjects on the street and makes a connection with them. Meinsma gravitates towards vibrant, high energy people for his photos. After consent, he connects his subjects with his stylist and finds outfits that fits their vivacious personalities. I also admired his Photoville photos for showcasing vibrant older adults.  My favorite Harmen Meinsma photograph at Photoville is the one with the three black women in a garden with a windmill behind them. They are dressed in bright color outfits and posing like Destiny’s Child. Meinsma’s photos capture his subjects in an essence that balances reality with fantasy perfectly. He loves colors, finding black and white photos to be boring. He took a Polaroid of me and we took a picture together for the ‘gram. Harmen Meinsma was very fun to meet.

Next, I met Adama Delphine with Professor Johnson and a couple of classmates. I joined the conversation just as Delphine was reminiscing about the days of beepers. Friends using beepers to communicate with each other is very 1990s. Delphine has spent years photographing many things and people, including documenting hip hop culture throughout the years. Delphine revealed that she would love to photograph Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$ and current day Nas. She’s been working on a hip hop documentary since 1995 and strongly believes now is the time to release it. I personally enjoyed her photos because I am a big fan of hip hop culture. It was a pleasure speaking to and getting to know Adama Delphine.

I really enjoyed my Friday trip to Photoville. I felt very inspired looking at all the different works from the amazing artists/ photographers there. I am more excited to continue learning how to capture journalistic photographs.

My experience at PhotoVille was amazing. It was my first time not only in Dumbo, but also an event like that and it was really unique. First i got to meet Ryan, as he gave out details about his work with Kelly and his piece on Opioids. After that there i saw another intriguing piece, with a concept that really fascinated me. It was about a woman’s 5 year journey, recovering from drug abuse. What was interesting about the piece was, the main work was a giant newspaper layout, and where the headline picture would go, there were multiple pictures that you could place as the headline picture, to capture every facet of her journey, and each picture was up for its own interpretation of where or what stage she was at, in the recovery.

The next piece that caught my eye was a work called “Surviving War and Famine in Yemen.” This was shot by Nariman Ayman El-Mofty. The shot that caught my eye most was, the picture of the little 12 year old boy, who was pictured working a fully functional assault riffle, and if that’s not baffling enough, the caption says he was a former child soldier. Watching the news and listening to the media, you always her about how the children in these countries having a tough life, but actually seeing it in this picture it just gave me goosebumps at how real it is out there.

The next piece that caught me was one that really hits home. It was a piece on how technology can hurt us named, “Silicon Valley Grows Up” and the artists name is Laura Morton. For some reason the pictures i took wont load up, so the details is all that is loading. The piece was an array of shots, basically picturing the surroundings of what technology is doing to us. One picture showed how the main workspace of an individual, was a pigsty. His computer location was just surrounded by empty soda cans, and junk food.  Another picture showed how people were together, but all on their respective phones. This relates to how our society is now. We are becoming so reliant on these devices that were essentially made to aide us in everyday life, to where now, these devices are, our life.

 

Keith O’Brien

My photo proposal will focus on Liebmans Deli: an old school Jewish deli that is a cornerstone of the leafy enclave of Riverdale, NY located in the Bronx. It’s only one of two delis left in the Bronx and of the last few left in all of NYC. My piece will shine a spotlight on what was a cultural staple of NYC and why it is so hard for small, family owned businesses to survive in 2019. The photos will consist of a behind the scenes look into the deli life, testimonials from the long time patrons – some of which have been going since it’s inception in 1953!- and scenes from other delis across the 5 boroughs who have had to close and what they’ve become. A focus of the piece are the challenges faced by these businesses such as: rising rents, online and chain competitors, and other factors. 

Reminders

No class on Monday.

And if you haven’t signed up for a Photoville time slot yet but intend to, please do so ASAP at the Google link.

Caption writing

Just because photojournalism is a visual medium, it doesn’t mean you get to be any less thorough when it comes to names, facts, dates, etc. You need to always make sure you get the names, locations, professions, ages (if relevant) to include in your captions. The Who/What/Where/When/Why.

Washington Post guidelines:

Freelance Image Metadata Fields

“A caption should briefly and clearly describe in a complete sentence what is happening in the picture, including an active verb (‘someone does something’). This will allow our internal systems to take sections of the sentence and automatically create keywords. In many cases, a single sentence will suffice. A second sentence is acceptable if it adds additional information, follows the required formula and does not editorialize.”

Caption example:

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – JANUARY 11: Actress Kate Winslet holds her award at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 11, 2009 in Beverly Hills, California. Winslet won the Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her role in “The Reader,” as Hollywood set aside labor strife and a recession to honor the year’s best performances. (Photo by Rich Lipski for The Washington Post)

Notice how the first sentence is in present tense, describing what is literally happening in the photo, and the following sentence is in the past tense, giving background and context. 

In a photo essay, the captions play the additional role of shaping a narrative. So while wire photos and breaking news photos might all include similar captions because most likely they’ll only be used one at a time, your captions in a photo essay will need to follow a somewhat more narrative shape. Meaning, the first one will include a lot of that 5W’s stuff, while the additional captions might fill in the blanks some more.

In-class editing exercise:

• Practice using Lightroom for touching up photos.
• Choose your best pictures from the scavenger hunt and submit them to me in the Journalism Share folder.
• Screening and feedback on photos.
• Send via WeTransfer to [email protected]