Week Long Story: And Baby Makes Three...at 18

Captions:

Work Report:
Overall, I'm a lot happier with this assignment than my last one, although there were still some areas where I think I could have improved. It was difficult getting an overall shot because of the environment, and also just because of the story topic. Outside of some images of Noah playing on the floor and Jordan and Brian sitting on the couch, there wasn't any other moment that might have conveyed an overall image, and the one described was just boring. I would have also really liked to get more interactions shots with Jordan and Brian together, but unfortunately due to access issues I wasn't able to, and on the two days that I shot this he was there for all of about an hour. Another obstacle that I had to overcome was finding honest moments in front of me. I was hoping that I would be able to go out with Jordan when she ran errands or visited family, but that fell through, so all of my images are of her doing her daily routine in the house, which became repetitive. That is the reason why I only chose to pull in a few images of Jordan actually doing things with Noah that showed a bit more emotion.
I really like the portraits that I took of Jordan, and I think both show the two sides of her being a mother and while sometimes it is exhausting, it is rewarding at the same time. I also really liked the shots of her with Brian and Noah because they show both how they are a family, and how they are still young and joke around a lot. I think in this assignment I was able to change my lens more often and work different angels, even though a lot of the images I shot that were a little different style-wise I didn't pull in because they didn't add much to the story. I was, however, more conscientious this time of how I was shooting, and that helped me vary my images.
My audio turned out much better than I had expected, and I think that it adds a lot to the story. The first time I interviewed Jordan, it was very hard to get her to restate the questions, and very little of the audio was usable. Plus she spoke very quietly and somewhat monotone, so when the second interview came around, I made sure that she restated the question every time and it was a much better interview. I was upset that the wireless mics weren't quite working right when I tried them out the night before, so I had to use the M-Audio mic only, and although it picked up more background noise than I liked, I don't think it was distracting in the final piece.

Reading Reactions #3

I found Anne Lamott’s chapter on “False Starts” very interesting, especially since we are getting to start our weeklong story assignments. When we submit our proposals, we may think we know exactly where we are going to focus our story, only to find out later that what we thought we knew we didn’t, or in fact that we don’t really know anything about our subjects at all. During reporting and staff, there were several assignments that I thought were going to be straightforward, but in the end I found that what I was documenting about these people is not truly who they are. I particularly liked Lamott’s point about how people follow blueprints of the story that they have in mind even when there is so much more to discover about the subject. As off-putting as it may be to have to restructure the entire story of the assignment, it is so much more rewarding when you find the greatness that was hiding beneath a person’s top layer. Especially as photojournalist, people in the field, and even in class, are constantly trying to find new ways to tell the same story that has been done dozens of times by taking their subjects and finding out why there are different then all the other stories out there. We have to dig deeper into our subjects and keep going back to them to find out what makes them unique and worth documenting. It is just as Lamott wrote, “And we also want to know who they are when stripped of the surface show, ” and also just like we talk about in class- we have to find out why people think, act and feel the way they do in order to create a great story.

The second chapter that we read, “Plot Treatments,” I found to relate most to the editing process. Sometimes we become so attached and in-depth with our subjects and stories that we can’t see the flaws or gaps. Even when we bring in other people to edit our stories to get an outsider’s opinion, we still fight for the way that we originally had the story. When Erin Hendry and I edited each other’s one-day stories, it was hard for us to see some of the images we loved be taken out of the story because they just didn’t work. They may be beautiful images, but at the same time they have to fit the original focus and bring that focus to light. Whenever I’ve had a longer story to work on, such as Boone Life, I try to take several breaks from it and come back to it some time later to see if my original story works and to make sure that there are no gaps in it as well. Much in the same way that Lamott describes in this chapter, it’s easy to become upset over others critiquing your work and not fully appreciating it like you do, but the truth is that they are the ones that the project is meant for- it is meant to share with others. And if our original idea cannot come through in the project, then we have failed and must start it over again.

The main part of this reading that I agree with is Lamott’s last section titled “How Do You Know When You’re Done?” I think she summed it up perfectly that most people don’t truly know when they have finished a project until there is nothing more that they can do about it. I’m experienced this feeling with most of my multimedia projects. I’m re-toned images, restructured the storyline, reedited audio, changed titles five to six times, and in the end it still feels like the project isn’t exactly the way I want it, and also that there is still some ways that it can be improved. At some point, however, I just give up and realize this is the most I can do to the project and that I can’t keep thinking about what it could be like, but instead just take it as it is. I think this is a very practical approach to issues like this, however, because it teaches people their strengths and weaknesses, and that they are human and not perfect.