My journey towards photo journalism When I first thought of the project I wanted to do I had 3 ideas, the first one was a food kitchen at the Calvary Lutheran church in evergreen that my mom helps. I thought it would be perfect to do a story with a potential sub story about my mom and some of her community involvements. It was not her churches turn in the kitchen but we obtained permission so that I could photograph the event…the event was awesome, I enjoyed all the positive vibes from everyone that had volunteered as well as the people that showed up for the food and all the take-out plates…it was such a good time. The photos that I took with my lenses did not turn out very well due to the lighting… I was very disappointed with myself. So the second idea was the habitat for humanity…my mom makes and serves lunch to all the volunteers. I was given permission to come along and photograph the Air-force academy crew that was coming to help work on the housing project…it had snowed the night before so most of the crew stayed and worked at the Re-store and never made it to the site…the remaining three that did show up were working inside for just a few minutes and the lighting was really bad. All I got were a few pictures of the electricians inside and a few of the boys talking around a fire after they ate lunch…I was so disappointed once again that I went to Glacier park and then to the Fairview cemetery…I then proceeded to go home to Kalispell. That’s when my story began…as I was driving towards the rainbow bar I caught out of the corner of my eye a man painting a picture…OMG it was fabulous. I was driving 55 mph and saw the picture and the detail was amazing…I told myself, this is it…I turned around and pulled in beside the man( Nicholas Oberling ) and asked if I could take his picture, I told him I was taking this class. He was very happy to allow me to take pictures. We talked for perhaps 45 minutes and I learned a lot about this man and about painting. I asked him if he ever painted from photographs and he said no. He told me that would only be copying a picture and not painting…he explained how he studied everything about the image he painted from the weather to different points of view and how he became a part of the painting…I compared that to what Brenda had told us about altering the picture…that it was not being truthful. The painter then told me of a story about Brenda, that she was doing a photo shoot with him. Brenda was running late while they had set up the gallery…he offered to pretend like he was still in the process of setting up but she was not impressed with that idea. Both the artist and Brenda share a very similar philosophy about integrity in what they do and it made a huge impression on me. I did do one other photo-shoot about home brewing, a subject I am personally well versed in but it was nothing in comparison to the emotional growth I experienced from watching the volunteers donating their time for the betterment of our local people in need as well as the reinforced lessons I’ve had about integrity. I found myself going back to the church a week later, I was hoping to take pictures once again but decided that I would just help serve and do dishes and be a part of the crew… Photojournalism has become a beginning to a new journey of discovery in my own life…
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 05:36:49 +0000
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