This cottonwood tree is one of the largest and most beautiful trees I have ever seen. It sits on the bank of Bear Creek at Camp Tahigwa where I spent the last 12 Summers. In late July the small white seeds from the tree float through camp like snow.
While at camp last weekend I decided to try to get a photo of the entire tree, because of its great size that was not a small task. The photo here is a combination of 11 photos merged together in Photoshop. I decided to make it black and white to use shadows and highlights to bring out more of the leaves and detail in the upper branches of the tree.
Oh hello Mr. President,
It was a pleasure photographing you for the second time in the past month.
Please come to Iowa State so I can take your photo again.
Sincerely,
Kelsey Kremer
But, for real, I got the opportunity to photograph the President again. I took photos of his vist to Newton yesterday. Obama spoke about the economy and encouraging congress to continue tax credits for the wind energy industry. It was was a good time except the part when I got really lost, got there really late, and managed to misplace my press pass. But, I got there with plenty of time and got plenty of good photos, I posted one of my favorites.
Also, I was not the only photographer on the scene, click here to see the Daily’s photo collection of Obama’s entire visit.
The Special Olympics Iowa State Summer Games is an annual event in Ames and I had the opportunity to help cover it for the Daily last week. I wrote a preview of the event for the paper, which you can read here. I don’t normally write for the Daily, it was actually kind of fun. I got to tie in my hometown by featuring them in my story.
The coolest part about working on this story was when I went back to Vinton to take photos of the team getting on the school bus to Ames. We stopped to pick up a student at Keystone Elementary school. As we turned the corner a line of students in front of the building came into view. The students came out to cheer on one of the members of the Special Olympics team as he got on the bus. It was probably one of the most “awww” worthy moments I have ever witnessed. I continued to follow the team through out the weekend, but the photos from the bus are my favorite. I shared a few of them with this post and here is a link to the entire collection from the weekend.
I also put my multimedia skills to work and made a video. I have never really done it before, so I am pretty happy with how all of this turned out.
While reviewing my portfolio a photojournalist visiting the Daily once told me performance photos should only go in your portfolio if they are really good. They need to be unique and different than any other. Which, is probably true of any photo I would contemplate putting in my portfolio. While I continue on the quest of unique, better than any other performance photos for my portfolio, in the mean time, here are some photos I took during Live @ Veishea a few weeks ago of New Boyz and Hot Chelle Rea.
Why yes, this photo was taken in a tornado simulator.
Ok … ok, it might not be as exciting as it sounds, the fastest wind-burst it can make is only 60mph and I didn’t even get to see it on. But, still, it was pretty neat to take photos in.
This past week reminded me why I love photojournalism so much. One day I was taking photos in a tornado simulator, learning how the landscape of an area can affect the damage caused by a tornado. The next day I was helping make waffles in the newsroom because I needed to take a portrait of a culinary arts student who is creating is own restaurant centered around “waffle wraps.” The day after that I was skipping all my classes and work to take photos of the President of the United States speaking at the University of Iowa.
Now I’m probably one of the few journalism majors that could tell you all about Iowa State’s tornado micro-burst simulator, or how waffles can be substituted as bread with a few tweaks to the recipe, and while taking photos at Obama’s speech I was mingling with a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer like it’s no big deal.
I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life right now.
So, I took photos of the President of the United States the other day, no big deal.
I continue to not know how I feel about covering political events like this.
It’s a crazy rush of clamoring to get an acceptable photo from 50 feet away on a riser crowed with photographers and videographers. It’s knowing the right people or knowing how to sweet talk security to let you get away with getting that shot from an angle no one else has. It’s skipping meals and standing for hours.
It’s getting to watch amazing, sometimes even Pulitzer Prize winning, photographers work. It’s filling your portfolio with photos of the president, vice president and political candidates. It’s telling a story more than just your mom cares about.
It’s exciting, but challenging. I look forward to every opportunity I get to shoot in these situations because they are short and don’t come around very often. Maybe someday I will be able to tell you how I feel about covering these events, but, until then, here are a few of my shots from Barack Obama’s visit to Iowa City this week.
Here it is, my ARTIS 227 final project. I decided to take photos in the newsroom since there was no way I was going to have time anywhere else, and I couldn’t just turn in photos of anything.
If I am going to take the time to print and mat my photos I want them to mean something, these mean something. These are photos of some of the wonderful people I work with everyday at the Iowa State Daily.
This project is supposed to convey what it is like each night in the newsroom, though I think it is impossible to really do that without Call Me, Maybe and Rack City playing in the background.
The greatest thing I have ever done toward improving my photography was taking the introductory photo class through the design college this semester. When it started I thought it was going to be a waste of time, some of the people in the class didn’t even have cameras. I was ready to write this joke of a class off from day one.
I take that back now. The way I compose photos has improved and the things I notice have changed.
When I have talked with the professor about photojournalism he talks about creating a connection between the person in the photo and the person viewing the photo. We talk about capturing emotion and conveying a message through the eyes of the person in the image.
Ok, so now I know those things, that doesn’t mean I do them, but I’m getting there. I noticed it in this photo. At the beginning of the semester I told myself I wanted to get better at making photos. I would call this class one small step closer.
Also, talking about this photo it got to be a part one of the best editions of the Daily, according to our editorial adviser, Spoon, dedicated to the National Day of Silence. It is worth a read, check it out here.
Here is a sneak peek of my photo class final project. The assignment is to turn in 10 photos, the images don’t have to got together or be in a specific sequence, but the photojournalist in my is not ok with that. I am going to take an artistic approach to the Iowa State Daily and try to tell the story of what happens inside the newsroom each day.
Dear Summer,
Hurry up and get here.
Love,
Kelsey
