Bounce Flash

Extreme Bounce Flash

Off Camera Dedicated Cord

Fill Flash

I absolutely loved practicing using the strobe flash to create a much more appealing light source for my portraits. I have always wanted to learn how to use it, considering the on camera flash option is completely hideous.

The bounce flash was my favorite method to use, because it creates a much softer light on the subjects face. It was also cool to see the dark shadows disappear, revealing a beautiful lit portrait.

My least favorite method to shoot was fill flash. I was trying my best not to capture the typical sunset-in-the-background portrait, which resulted in me thinking too hard about the concept. I do feel I finally got the hang of it after practicing a few times.

I had a fun time creating these strobe light pictures, even though at first it was difficult to understand how each manual setting had to be set to. The process felt like trial and error, you had to figure out what caused the photo to be too bright or too dark and try fixing the issue. It amazes me how such beautiful portraits can be made with just a strobe and hardly any light in the area. I am excited to use my strobe for further assignments!

My experience so far with my farm family has been sort of hectic. To my surprise it took a while to actually find a farm that had a family! The people of Rosebush did help me tremendously find just the right one. Recently I had the chance to meet the owner of the farm, Pat McConnell’s nephew Luke. He was extremely shy at first, which I do not blame the kid for talking to some random stranger (me). Even though it took a few trys to get him to take me to the right barn, he eventually led me to the right one. His father, Kevin walked me around with him and had Luke show me the different calves and even shucked corn off their crops for me to see.

I was able to get in contact with both the owner of McConnell’s farm and his son who brings all his grandchildren over to play and help out at the farm. Which, I feel is amazing that there is such a strong relationship between them all and the willingness to come work as a family. I learned that the farm consists of 150 cows that they help raise from being a young calf to full grown.

I had the opportunity to job shadow Mary Lewandowski who is interning for the Jackson Citizen Patriot from January 2019 until January 2020. Mary graduated from Central Michigan University in 2018 with a degree in Photojournalism, where she also worked for Central Michigan Athletics and Central Michigan Life. She also explained to me how her typical workday schedule consists of, which turned out being every day of the week. Overall Mary shared that she loves the spontaneous stories each day brings and loves the close-knit family her internship has brought.  

Seeing Mary in action was honestly one of the coolest things I have seen. She was not afraid to approach artists and sneak pictures from behind. There was a point when a group of fourth graders were staring at the artists, waiting for free stickers and Mary realized it would make the best photo and approached the teachers to ask for their names. Later, while Mary and I were shooting more photos of the kids surrounding one of the artists the event coordinator said, “Hey you will have to ask permission before taking photos of kids.” Nothing we both haven’t heard before. But I admired how calm and contained she responded to this sudden response, “Yes of course! We already got the okay”. We were also able to shoot most of the artist at the event, but one who preferred not to be seen. I admired how she took note on a notepad of each individual and we took three different trips back to the festival to ensure we got each artist. Now that is persistence!  

I received advice from Mary that I know will help me apply myself to not only JRN 422, but my future endeavors. While taking our stroll through Jackson on our way to the festival, Mary told me she tends to be hard on herself when it comes to getting the right photo and the deadlines can be stressful. Since she is just an intern at the Jackson Citizen Newspaper, it is easy to feel such a way. But, through advice and help from her boss, Scott, she learns multiple ways to destress and as stated by Mary herself, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, learn next time.”  She also urged me to buy Photomechanical, a program she feels she could never live without. It was awesome to see her workflow, how fast and easily she moved from editing down to her top ten photos and get just the right adjustments made to create her photo collage. While she looked through my photo’s she also advised me to get closer to my subjects and to not find it uncomfortable or strange, after all, they are just people. Some advice that she had received from Jake May, a popular fellow photojournalist student at CMU was, while you are at different assignments is to stop and get a photo of yourself there. That was something Mary and I both did while taking turns posing in front of the big “BRIGHT

WALLS” yellow letters.  I also had the opportunity to learn how to shoot a double exposure photo. Mary had come up with the idea for this assignment from a past work colleague and explained to me the process. You take one photo with a blank background and apply it in front of another photo with the artists standing in front of their painted murals. I will be looking forward to seeing how they turn out once the festival has ended and the paper is realest.   

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I do feel like this assignment changed me in the reason being, I got to finally witness someone use their degree of photojournalism for an official newspaper. Not many people can say that were able to sneak behind the scenes, talking to famous artists with amazing talents around the globe and create an article with an expert. It was great to see how a typical day was for news reporters and the environments they must get used to. The location where the Jackson Citizen Newspaper is, let’s just say it is borderline sketchy. Mary told me they experience multiple suicides, stabbings, and abuse from neighborhoods surrounding them. They kept a new scanner close by in the office to hear for spot news stories they could cover, and it shook me to realize how much terrible situations occur in the area. I also loved seeing how the workflow was within such a small group of people, to create such a wide known paper. For example; There is one person in charge of getting the articles posted on time, a reporter, someone on all social media norms to spread their stories, and a photojournalist. They all seemed to get along extremely well and shared multiple jokes and laughs while I sat in. 

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Inspiration that I could give to my fellow students and readers is to keep pursing your degree, because it can really pay off! After getting to know Mary, I saw how her involvement with different CMU groups taught her all the skills she needed to get this internship and be like everyone else in her office. We discussed a couple times about JRN 422 and 420 alone and how she keeps many of those techniques she learned in her back pocket. Such as, always carrying her strobe for quick portrait assignments such as the Bright Walls Festival, football game portraits and shooting different proms.  

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Contacts that I was able to make during this assignment for future employer benefit was getting to know the boss of the establishment, Scott who helped me with any questions I had during my experience. Which, by the way Scott says you’re a dork…  Mary also gave me multiple Facebook groups, that help give advice if any photographer needs it. She told me to join CM life next semester and other photography groups in the college to help me improve and receive the advice I need.  

What I learned that cannot be learned in a classroom is the real-life situations you are faced with when reporting different assignments. In 422 you are forced to create multiple picture stories, but on a day-to-day basis a photojournalist must complete sometimes up to four different stories at a time. The deadlines can also be a task, that I do not feel as students you really realize the affect that can have on you. Mary explained to me how during football games they are expected to send a report in of what they have during halftime, which usually results in traveling to the nearest Mcdonalds to leech off their WIFI and doing so. You are also expected to work on an average every day of the week, yes even weekends. With such a shortage of employees, you can be pushed outside of your comfort zone. Usually that entails doing the reporters job, photos, and writing your own story for the article as well.  

What my other classmates could learn from this experience is, to expect the unexpected. There are times when you are forced to report on topics that are uncomfortable for you, like a stabbing that Mary had to report on, and those opportunities are a way to grow you and your portfolio. Something I learned and think others would learn from this was making sure to create a portfolio as well. This is a way to reflect and look back on how far you have come and a way to show to your future employer. There are also many times that Mary has been asked to take peoples photos, since she is always seen carrying two. It is not like anyone knows that she is a photojournalist for a paper, but it does not hurt to snap a quick picture for other people’s enjoyment.