Month: October 2020

I attended Jennifer McClure’s Leica Conversations “On Creating A Visual Diary.” She is an award-winning fine arts photographer who specializes in self-portraiture.

I thought it was quite intriguing that this project began quite organically for McClure as she said she did not set out to make a visual diary on the outset of quarantine. Rather, it was more to give herself a daily exercise to help get through the tedium of self-isolating and capture that early sense of desperation. She and her husband are at higher risk and stayed indoors with their toddler for the first few months of quarantine. She explains that when one stays in the same place for a while, one gets to see the same patterns of light that stream across the window. So, she started scheduling her shots around particular times of the day.

As the quarantine wore on, McClure began integrating Covid-19 paraphernalia with the more curated studio shots with her toddler. She tried capturing her daughter’s reactions to masks and whatnot as she had no pre-assigned meaning to any of those objects prior to the pandemic.

She also proposed that since the first few months were kind of parallels, it was a challenge on how to find new ways to shoot, and said that she looks for a photo that she loves and has not seen before. She also explains that she thinks a successful photo is one that fully portrays the emotion that it sets out to capture, whether it be joy or pain.

McClure uses Leica’s touch focus and simultaneous shutter release to her advantage, takes multiple shots and does not fear blurry shots. She explains that amidst the blurry shots there will be great shots in the mix.

She embraces the idea of not knowing the end result of her photos. She knows a project has ended either by a gut feeling or when she is clear that what she has learned is shown visually.

Overall, I really enjoyed her insight on taking photos constantly, seeing photography as a visual exercise, and balancing documenting their daily life as a family whilst also being present in the exact moment.

For my radio segment, I’ve decided to have a brief interview with the boss at my internship, Sienna Garraway, A.K.A SwaggySie at SiriusXM radio. She is a DJ that used to work with HipHopNation’s The Heat weekday mornings and evenings live on the radio. Right after COVID hit, her job was hit hard, and she had to transition from working live at the studio to recording at home, which was a very rough transition. I want to talk to her more about why she needed us interns in the first place, and just how tough it was (or wasn’t) working the show from home, and how it’s impacted her getting interviews strictly via zoom and no longer getting to work with her friends and other Sirius XM members. Radio is a lost art in the world I feel, and COVID has definitely impacted some of those that still practice this art, so I want to talk to her more about it.

For my radio pitch story, I want to do a piece about how COVID-19 have affected Singapore’s tourism economy since Singapore thrives on tourism and because of the pandemic, it has been severely affected. I will be focus on one of the more important tourist attraction, mainly the Universals Studio located on Sentosa, one of Singapore’s many islands.

I have gotten in contact with people who work at the attractions and a few of them have agreed to speak to me about their experiences. They are also willing to speak about what changes were made as well as what measures were put into place to contain the spread in such a popular area.

My radio story will be focused on the impact COVID-19 has had on the mental health of current college students and graduating seniors. With a high unemployment rate, students losing their internships or even full-time offers while simultaneously balancing work, home life and long-distance relationships, it is bound to become overwhelming for many individuals. I will be speaking with various guests who will give me their take on the entire situation, their coping mechanisms during this time and provide their feedback as to what we could do as a collective to combat this epidemic of loneliness, burnout and frustration.

For my radio pitch, I would like to do it on “El Día de los Muertos”, which in English translates to  “The Day of the Dead”. Día de los Muertos is a holiday that is meant for remembering family members and friends who have passed away. This holiday is primarily celebrated in the Central and Southern regions of Mexico. Interestingly enough, I will be traveling to Mexico in the next two weeks which would be the quintessential way to have this radio story executed. Every year without fail, on November 1st, which is considered, All Saints Day, and November 2nd, which is considered, All Souls Day, something special takes place in many areas of Mexico. Mexicans have huge unique traditions when it comes to honoring their families on this holiday and most of it deals with getting all of the family together, up until this year when COVID-19 struck. I would like to ask a random local person or maybe even a small business owner how will COVID-19 affect their traditions on the Day of the Dead and how will they cope with the differences or maybe even with the chance of not even celebrating it at all. I would also like to see since COVID-19 is such a different threat unlike any that we’ve seen and took so many lives, will they be doing anything different to honor those who have died from the virus given that celebrating the dead is all this holiday is about.

Newspeg: COVID-19

Angle: How the pandemic redraw the landscape of the fitness world

For my radio story I would like to do a piece about how the pandemic transformed the fitness world into a virtual one. In the story I will follow the journey of Sakshee Sharmaa, a 22 years old fitness instructor, who teaches classes for an Indian based audience via zoom from her living room in Kips Bay, New York.

What is particularly interesting about the story is that COVID-19 actually encouraged her to focus on training and enabled her to get a job in the field. Fitness wasn’t always a given to her and through the piece I’d like to capture her evolution as a young woman bullied about her weight to a fitness instructor empowering others.

On her social media she wrote, “My journey with self-love is still going on but I’ve gotten to the point where I am able to help others love themselves and their bodies”.

Twice a week she leads a 60min intense full body conditioning for Meri Sanskriti , so I intend to gather sounds both from recording her leading a session with the participants, as well as direct quotes from interviewing her.

For my radio story, I will be interviewing my friend Jalileh Garcia who is a senior Human Rights student at Columbia University and also the Honduras news curator for Central American News. She is currently in Honduras and has been there since the beginning of COVID so I plan to talk about how the pandemic has been managed in the country. What are the lockdown restrictions, what was the government’s response and how people are surviving in a country where over 60% of the population lives below the poverty line and works informal jobs.

Photo Ville assignment 

For the Photoville assignment, I signed up for a live online session that was held on 2nd October 2020 on Pitching and Marketing. From what I saw in the workshop, there is a lot more than just photography in this field of journalism and photography. The experience was stunning and would love to attend more of these live sessions to learn and gain more experience in photography. People should realize the art of photography must perceive in greater ways and not just taking photos around. One area that was well articulated in the session is marketing your photography and making it a business.  

The workshop targeted emerging photographers and editors intending to take on commercial photography as their full-time commitment. It hence talked more about gaining the business skills to help you move from just a photographer to a commercial photographer. The entire session was awesome and some of the most outstanding areas that were well addressed are portfolio editing, pitching, and work marketing. One clear thing that was talked about by the presenters is that however good you are in one of the three areas mentioned, the chances of success are low and so, you need to level up the three aspects to succeed.
 

In the live presentation, I learned that a good photographer needs the skills to be a good portfolio editor. It all starts by making your portfolio professional. Once that is perfect, you will need good pitching skills and abilities to convince potential clients. Lastly, you need to market your skills in the corporate world to get access to clients who will land you a life-changing job. The three aspects are key to your success in commercial photography. 

I’d like to interview a couple friends and family members about hair. It was my initial idea for the photo essay but since it was more difficult to capture before and after photos I thought it’d be more interesting to talk about the process. I have more than a handful of friends and family members who have dyed and cut their own hair, including myself. I want to know if isolation built their confidence or the courage to do something like that. Not to mention there have been numerous edgy hairstyles trending on TikTok, to name a few, there’s the big money piece in the front, the 2000s inspired highlights and bold bright colors. I now wonder how it affects local hair salons with so many people wanting to do those things on their own. I also wonder if prior to COVID did they go to hair salons. Do they feel like they’ve learned a lot about hair? And are they proud of their work? I’m curious to know other people’s experiences.