One Day Story: A Time When Everyone Has a Valentine

This story follows six-year-old Olivia Frenz during her first-grade class Valentine's Day party at Wren Hollow Elementary School in Ballwin, Missouri. The party consisted of the students handing out their valentines, decorating and eating cookies, and making arts and crafts during the last hour of school.
Six-year-old Olivia Frenz writes out her valentines the night before her first-grade class Valentine’s Day party. She chose valentines that had two of her favorite things on them- ponies and hearts.
Olivia and her brother Jake, 3, admire her classmate’s heart-shaped balloon that was dropped off at the beginning of the party. During the last hour of the school day, Wren Hollow Elementary students celebrated Valentine’s Day by decorating cookies, passing out their valentines, and doing an arts and crafts activity.
Olivia peeks into her decorated valentines box to see the different candy she’s received from her classmates so far. “My favorite part is that it has stickers on it,” she said of her box.
Olivia and her brother sort through her treats after all the students had finished handing out their valentines. Among the Skittles, lollipops and Sweet Tarts, Olivia said her favorite was the Ring Pop.
Olivia takes the first bite out of the sugar cookie that she decorated during the party. Decorated with icing, sprinkles, candy hearts and a Hershey Kiss on top, she said that tasted “yummy.”

Outtakes:
Olivia’s mother, Mary, helps her string together an “I Love You” keychain during her class’ arts and crafts activity. The students were told to give the keychain to someone they love, so Olivia gave it to her mother.

Olivia smiles as she admires her candy-filled box on the walk to her car after school let out. Two weeks after Valentine’s Day, she still has some of the candy left over.

Work Report:
Even though I know this wasn't my best work, I was glad that I at least got some sort of story out of it in the end. Some areas where I could have used improvement would be in getting an overall, working a situation longer, and varying my lens and point of view. I was happy, however, that I got shots of her interacting with others, which is where I usually have problems, and also the shot where she is looking into the box. This also taught me that I need to think about every aspect of the shoot before I go into, even if it is a last minute assignment, and to make sure that if I see something I at least try to take a picture of it and not hesitate about it. I also need to take some time to double check my exposure and use flash anytime that there is not quite as much light as I need or when there is not enough light to make the image sharp. A few of my images could have been saved had I only used a flash. In the hour that I had to shoot the party aspect of the story, however, I was glad that I remembered what I needed for the story, even if getting an overall didn’t quite work like I would have hoped. I made sure to think about portraits, interaction, closer, opener and details, and overall I’m pretty happy with the ones that I used.

POYi Reactions

The general news picture story category was very interesting in this year’s Picture of the Year International Competition. Since it was general news, the picture story topics were so broad that there was a huge variety of both local and international news. This, however, was a pro and a con for both the photographers that submitted their work, as well as for the judges. Most of the category was made up of international stories, such as the riots in Greece, the earthquake in Haiti, U.S. troops at war and the Gulf oil spill. For photographers that submitted work that they had shot in their hometown, it almost seemed inevitable that they wouldn’t win against the international news that created such an impact. While this category gave the judges some 420 stories to look through, it was easy to spot the weakest stories almost instantly.

Even through the first round of judging it was almost too easy to know how the judges were going to vote. Almost all of the stories voted out needed a much tighter edit and did not have enough material to make it a story, or even a central theme to make it an essay. Very few of the local news stories made it through, while most that depicted the international tragedies of 2010 did. There were some interesting ideas that came through in this category, but were just not shot well. One of the stories that stuck out the most during the first round was a story about a spelling bee. While this may not have been the most exciting of topics, there are certainly a variety of angles that the photographer could have taken. Not only can a photographer focus on the participants, but they could also look for stories from the crowd and family members in the audience, from the judges, and even from prepping and backstage events. Instead, this photographer took about seven or eight images from the same distance, and most likely with the same lens, of the children up on stage. There was absolutely no variety to the images, and when the images were presented as thumbnails next to each other, it looked like the photographer had just submitted the same image several times. There were also quite a few stories and essays that focused on the military, but the photographers were able to shoot it at a new angle. One photographer did a story of the military that was shot all at night, and even used night-vision to take some of his pictures. Another focused on the way light played through the windows and broken doors of buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though they were beautiful images, there just wasn’t enough to make them unique in order to get through to the next level. The same can be said about an entry that was all panoramics of the flooding and destroyed buildings in Chile. It was supposed to be a story with different elements of the people and the destruction, but since there was a large issue of distance and all the composition appeared the same it just didn’t work too well. In my opinion, had it been more focused as an essay, it would have worked much better.

The second place winner in the end surprised me. The judges seemed to be looking for different aspects in the picture stories and they also seemed to not be able to agree that easily on the top winners. From what they were looking for, I was surprised that the piece on the toxic sludge in Hungary received second place. One of the judges seemed particularly concerned that they didn’t want to represent the same disaster in the top three spots, so one of the other earthquake pieces in Haiti received an award of excellence. While the Hungary piece had some beautiful images, I didn’t feel like it had quite an impact that some of the awards of excellence did. Overall, however, the final winners and awards of excellence were the best of the 420 stories, and the judges did a thorough job of narrowing it down to them.

Reading Reactions #2

Unlike the last readings we had to do, the first chapter in Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird “School Lunches” that we read for this week didn’t feel as if it had that much advice that could relate to photography as it did to writing. The main idea that I could get from it, however, was that sometimes you just have to do something instead of just thinking about it. As she pointed out, sometimes when her students don’t know what to write about she tells them to think back to their school lunches and describe what they can remember. Though this material most likely will never be used, sometimes all you need to do to get ideas and motivation flowing is to start from somewhere. The way I took this to relate to photography is that sometimes we are overwhelmed by what is happening in front of us that we don’t even know where to focus our attention. I used to have this issue when I did an internship a few summers ago at a small community newspaper where I would go to these community events and try to document the people and events to make them personal. Sometimes, however, there were just too many events unfolding at once that I didn’t know where to start. So instead, I would just start taking pictures of everything and then go back and see what was the most interesting. Although it may have wasted some of my time and most of the images wouldn’t be used, it helped me get an idea of where to start focusing my attention, which I think is the main point Lamott wants to make. Sometimes we need to just do and not think in order to get started.

The statement I liked best in the second chapter that we read from Lamott, “Polaroids,” was “You can’t- and, in fact, you’re not supposed to- know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing.” Sometimes my biggest issue with developing story ideas is that I begin to imagine what the picture will look like before I even fully know the situation. Then when I actually start shooting the assignment, I miss other moments because I’m constantly waiting for the one that I already had in my mind. While brainstorming the situation before you head into an assignment is not always a bad thing to do, it does limit your perception and what you really should be observing. I did this a lot last semester when I was working on my Boone Life column, and finally after a few trips to shoot I realized that I shouldn’t be so preoccupied with what could be and instead should be focused on the events as they unfold in front of me.

The second part I liked about this chapter is how she described how her perception of the Special Olympics changed while she was watching it. She may have gone into the event with the mentality that it was going to be as everyone portrays it year after year, but she discovered a new angle by looking at it differently. Sometimes photographers may go into a situation where they think it will just be the standard shoot, and then end up leaving with something totally unexpected. This just all depends on if we let our previous mentality affect the work we produce, or if we allow the events to develop our story ideas. In many ways it is just a matter of being compelled by your surroundings because you know that there may be a new way to look at something. Today gave a perfect example of this: when Lindsay was brainstorming ideas for the police dance, she was given a whole new angle when the suggestion of finding a female cop was offered. Sometimes stepping away from a project for a bit or some outside perspective works the best in creating stories, which is why preconceived notions are not always the best for developing a picture story.

I feel that the reading on “Selecting a Subject” by Bill Jay and David Hurn, however, was the most interesting section that we read for this assignment. The main point that I will take away from this reading is that you have to have a passion or interest in what you are photographing in order to make it an interesting picture for others to see. As a photojournalism student, I find it hard sometimes to come up with interesting story ideas because things that I have an interest in are not that visual, or are just too broad. I remember in fundamentals, as well, when we did the classmate assignment and the person who was supposed to find an interesting aspect of my life to document had a very hard time. I don’t have that many interests, and the ones I do mostly just focus around infants or the elderly. I like the idea of showing the process of creating a new life and developing that life, but also showing the journey of life that the elderly experienced. This is why during staff, and when I did my internship as well, some days I just found it very hard to go do my job. If I am not interested in the subject matter, I have a hard time caring about the pictures I create. I’m sure this is the case with a lot of other photographers, and I would be interested in learning how others overcome it. On the other hand, however, having a greater interest in something that you are documenting is extremely useful because you understand better, and are therefore able to share this understanding with the viewers.

I thought Jay and Hurn made an interesting point about how emotion can play into the images that photographers create as well. While it is not always a bad thing, emotion can make the photographer skew the view of something because it is something they love, but can’t bear to show in bad light. Though it is better if we have an interest in the subject matter of a photo story, sometimes being too invested can hurt being objective, and perhaps the overall project. This is exactly why while on staff they didn’t want us to go out on an assignment that we had any sort of affiliation with, or use contacts that were friends or family members. That is also why I think the best way to create a photo story or essay is to pick a topic of interest, and one that you may be a little attached to, but not be so involved that you know you won’t be able to document it fairly.

Editing Assignment

I chose this sequence because I think it builds the best storyline of them getting ready and then how the day ends. It has interaction, an opener/closer, reaction, portrait of the little girl, detail, and overall. The one area where I am not sure if the order works is with the transition from the detail of the beauty pageant memorabilia to the stage at the beauty pageant. The only other image that I felt would have worked would have been the image of them getting ready in the car but I didn't really feel like it added anything more than being a transition photo. I would have also like a better image of them interacting on the stage while the little girl's performance was going on because it seems like something is missing. There isn't a portrait of the father either, even though I was originally going to end this with the image of him with the dress and sash on the hanger. It didn't really feel like a closer and I couldn't put it before the closer I had now because then the little girl would be in the dress, out of it, and then in it again.

*Photos by Caitlyn Emmett


The above image I would have kept in only if it were a title slide, otherwise I would remove it.