Shining Heart Sufi Community

Here are some works-in-progress photos from my final project on the Shining Heart Sufi community in Kansas City. The Sufis were wonderfully accommodating and I'd like to thank Marty, Safia, Larry and Alladin specifically for all their help.

Storm Chasers (in progress)

Since the storm chase team didn't go out last weekend chasing storms, I was only able to photograph one of their briefings. While the technology they use to track weather systems is interesting, photos of it are not especially riveting. Still, until the teams goes out on a chase, these will have to stand in for the more exciting, thunder-and-lightning shots.

Video Job Profile

Here is the result of my video job profile exercise. A dead video camera battery complicated matters slightly, but I think it came together in the end.

Way of Harmony with Audio

 Here is the Final Cut version of my Way of Harmony project. The audio needs some tweaking, but the basics are there.

Readings Response (3/22)

The most absorbing thing to come out of this week’s readings came from the Hurn and Jay book On Being a Photographer when the authors discuss photography as a cure for shyness. As I read that passage I was struck by the thought that they could be transcribing directly from my own experiences. I very much indentify with the character of the shy photographer who uses the camera as a shield and invisibility cloak. I love finding out about other people’s lives and interacting, but often found myself feeling out of place or lonely in unfamiliar environments. Having a camera solves all of that by giving me a reason to be there and a way to interact naturally. I was very glad to read that others have had that experience.

I also liked the observation at the end of the chapter about photography producing (or at least containing) “curious, tolerant, self-motivated [people] with broad-ranging interests.” I have that impression as well, and I am glad to have the chance to work with so many people who fit that description.

The Chapnick reading on presenting ideas was very helpful and informative as well, and set down some practical rules for submitting strong, well written proposals. I am considering attempting a freelance career, and Chapnick’s suggestions will help improve my pitches considerably.

The Loup Langton reading was also well done, and I agreed with his characterization of journalism as an art that needs to be practiced with compassion and sincerity. I find it extremely offensive when I meet a writer or photographer who doesn’t care for their subjects and hopes to use or manipulate them.  I feel very privileged to have a chance to interact with people in this intimate and personal way, and will always do my best to represent them fairly and accurately in my images.

The Way of Harmony

This is a character profile of Doris Evans, a 65-year-old martial arts instructor who suffers from Parkinsons' disease. Doctors told Evans that she would be in a nursing home within 5 years...but that was 25 years ago. She attributes her health and stamina to Aikido, a Japanese art that stresses relaxation, compassion and harmony between the mind and the body.




Click here to view the project full size.

Pictures of the Year Multimedia Categories

Since I was only able to make it for a few hours here and there of each multimedia category in POYi this year, I decided to watch through the winners in each area and look for common themes and techniques they share to see if I could determine what the judges based their final decisions on.

Right away I was struck by the fact that only a couple of photographers swept the awards this year. In the feature category, Chang W. Lee of the New York Times and Liz O. Baylen of the LA Times both won two awards, 2nd and 3rd, respectively, with an award of excellence thrown in for each of them as well. In Baylen’s case, both stories share many stylistic elements as well as broader themes like the inevitability of death and the transcendence of racial boundaries. Lee’s stories, part of a series called Second Chance, document people who are going through difficult transitions or facing big changes in their lives. His 2nd place profile of an artist with stomach cancer is moving, but in my opinion his award of excellence winning story on a man about to undergo a sex change is the stronger work.

In the news category, David Gilkey of NPR also won two awards, both for stories about Afghanistan. His story “America’s Battalion” won 3rd and “Lucky Dustoff” got an award of excellence. The first place winner, a story about tobacco cutting in Kentuckc called Cutting Through the Competition, was the only one in the category that wasn’t about Afghanistan, and it was refreshing to see a non-war related piece win in the news category. Of course the war is important news, but after a while all the photos and media coming out of a war zone begin to look much the same. In this case it seems like the judges were rewarding the audio as much as the photos, which would certainly give the NPR team an advantage with their years of experience in creating compelling audio stories.

In the Issue Reporting category Liz O. Baylen makes another two appearances, winning 1st and 3rd for stories on a boy who was molested in kindergarten and a former nurse who became a quadriplegic after an accidental drug overdose. In both stories, just like her award winning feature pieces, she uses many photographs with out of focus foreground elements and exotic framing devices. She also does an excellent job choosing details that illustrate her themes simply and effectively. It seemed like the judges really responded to her stylistic choices, and the stories themselves were moving and powerful simply for their subject matter. Baylen does a terrific job selecting good stories, and she treats her subject with humanity and dignity that is refreshing to see. Most surprisingly, perhaps, she was able to shoot the entire sex abuse story without once identifying the boy or showing more than a piece of his face. It must have been incredibly challenging to make those photos work together without the unifying thread of a face to link them, but she seems to do it almost effortlessly.



Here are the links to the winners' galleries:

Feature
News
Issue Reporting