Obama does DU

"Sen. Barack Obama address a crowd of more than 9,000 people Wednesday, January 30 inside Magness Arena on the University of Denver campus. Overflow crows totaling another 5,000 people filled the adjacent Hamilton Gymnasium and Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium."

The Obama show came to town today and man was it wild. I've never experienced something so electric, especially on campus. I had a press credential and thank god that I did. I made it to the Ritchie Center around 7:30am and made my way to the press entrance on the south side of the building. There seemed to be a lot of people at the entrance for them all to be members of the press. I didn't see that many people with cameras or notebooks so I assumed that they were volunteers. I was right and they were at the wrong entrance. Someone had misinformed them and they were directed back outside to the west entrance. One agitated elderly gentleman asked the tall, muscular suit bearing man behind the gate "who are you?" To which he responded with "I'm secret service, who are you?" All of the actual press couldn't help but laugh.

After a few minutes we were all let inside and I made my way down to the floor. My buddy Brandon Iwamoto and some of his co-workers from The Collegian came down to cover the event and I talked with them for a few minutes. After some discussion of about Brandon's remote set-up and the appropriate white balance, which we decided was 4500K, I walked around to set up in front of the television risers so that I could have a direct line to the podium. 

I'll spare you all the boring stuff. Several people spoke for what seemed like forever. The seemed to be stalling because the security checkpoints were taking forever and thousands of people were being directed into Hamilton Gymnasium and on to the lacrosse field as overflow. Barack spoke to both groups prior to making his way into Magness Arena which meant that his projected start time was pushed back from 9am to about 11am. Caroline Kennedy spoke immediately prior to Obama taking the stage.

When he did make his entrance the crowd went absolutely nuts. From the moment he stepped into Magness I didn't take my camera away from my face. I made roughly 500 frames during the course of his speech. I will admit that a lot of the frames are very similar as I'm trying to catch him with the perfect expression. With cameras that shoot 5 and 8 frames per second respectively you can see how my image total can get up there pretty quickly. I made dozens of different images and you can see my selects HERE!!! 

He had some excellent things to say and while I'm not going to concede my vote this early in the process I did like what I heard today.

I made some great images but the best part was being able to check out the slideshows from the Post and Rocky photogs to compare what images I made to theirs. Long story short, I'm doing much better but I still have a lot to learn.

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I'm sure that many of you are wondering what is going on with the whole issue at The Clarion. Today was another crazy day in which I received several more emails. The National Press Photographers Association has somehow gotten involved and the president of the organization called the University to talk with several high ranking officials about the issue. I had the pleasure of speaking with the Chair of the Department of Mass Communications and Journalism this evening and she was very understanding and helpful. Hopefully the situation will begin to mend it's self tomorrow as things move forward. I'm supposed to get a call from the NPPA President tomorrow so I will let you know how that goes. 

The commute tomorrow morning in the snow is probably going to take longer than expected so I'm going to get to bed and try to get an early start to my day. Stay tuned!

-JCE

A code of ethics

"Supporters of Martin Luther King, Jr. march down Colfax Avenue in Denver, Colo. towards Civic Center Park Monday, January 21, 2008 in celebration of his birthday."

Who knew that a week after this photo was taken that it would have created such the uproar that it did. As I mentioned in my last post I was faced with an unethical issue regarding this photo. The photo was used as our front page picture in The Clarion on Tuesday, January 22. While discussing the previous week's work on Monday evening at our weekly editors meeting our faculty advisor shared her opinion on the image. She complained that the sky didn't look good on the paper and that I should have "colored the sky blue" on the computer. For those of you who are not aware of the ethics regarding photojournalism, digitally altering an image as she suggested is without question unacceptable. You can read about everything that happened next here and here. After reading my posts and several of the other industry professionals in each of those threads you should gain a better understanding of the situation. As you can imagine I have received several personal emails from photojournalists around the country supporting my efforts and standing up for the industry.

Long story short I resigned as photography editor of The Clarion effective immediately. As a student of the nationally recognized Daniel's College of Business with regards to producing students with high ethical standards I feel that it was my personal and public duty to stand up for what I believe in.

I am meeting with the head of Student Life who oversees the paper tomorrow to further discuss the issue. I will let you know how it goes.

-JE

Applying for my life

"Portfolio packets wait their turn in line to be mailed to newspapers across the country in hopes of earning me an internship. The people at the Buchtel Post Office are beginning to know me on a first name basis as I've mailed a total of 27 packets since January 17th."

So many things happened today that I don't even know where to start. 

I guess class would be a good place to start seeing as though it was the beginning to my day. I had Marketing Innovation Strategies at noon and we had a midterm project due today. Unlike every other marketing class we actually don't have to write some version of a marketing plan. Instead we actually get to be creative and develop 30-second advertisements using Apple's iMovie. 

For the mid-term assignment we were given a selection of AWFUL pictures and video to create a commercial for the Daniel's College of Business aimed at high school juniors, seniors and their parents. When I say AWFUL I mean it. For example some of the photos were of a guy drinking at the water fountain. Several were out of focus and don't even get me started on the video, apparently whoever created it doesn't know what a tripod is. If that wasn't worse enough we were only allowed to add one creative element, music not included, that totaled no more than 10 percent of the work. We chose to add a voice over of one of our group members reading a quote from Bill Daniels, get it...Daniel's College of Business. Several of the other groups violated the 10 percent rule and were challenged by the professor on their strategy. Our 30-second spot received rave reviews from both the professor and our classmates. I was responsible for doing all the editing and putting it together so I was pretty proud of myself.

During that same class I/we found out that Barack Obama is coming to campus on Wednesday morning. He has rented out Magness arena for a community event and will speak at 9:00am. I was thrilled because as a photojournalist it's always exciting when something important happens on campus. As a member of the media I'll be able to cover the event and I'm extremely excited to photograph a presidential hopeful. Stay tuned to see some of my images from the event on Wednesday.

After class I raced over to the local Office Depot to pick up a few mailing supplies. I'm currently in the process of applying for internships at newspapers across the country. My love for photojournalism has led me to stray from my prestigious  marketing degree from DU in hopes of perusing what I love to do. I have missed several of the November and December deadlines at the BIG name papers but several smaller publications still remain. Since January 17th I have mailed 27 portfolio packets. My ideal internship would be the Rocky Mountain News however I've applied to everywhere from Tri-Cities, WA to Provo, UT to Sarasota, FL to Providence, ME. I have absolutely no clue where I'll be living and/or working come June I just hope that I'm taking photos wherever it is. I'll be sure to keep you all updated on the grueling process.

Finally something challenging happened to me while at our weekly editors meeting for The Clarion. I faced an ethical issue when our faculty advisor for the paper asked me to do something unethical regarding digitally manipulating a photo. You can read about the issue HERE. In the photojournalism industry this is a huge issue and the digital world has created several more problems than in the days of film and chemical processing. I don't want to say much more on the issue at this time because I'm currently taking action. I will let you know how things turn out.

With everything that happened today I'm intrigued to see what tomorrow brings. I have an advertising mid-term at 10am so I should know how the day will turn out shortly after that.

16 degrees

It has been a long weekend, hence the 4am post, but as promised here is my first ever attempt at multimedia. It's really rewarding to see the work I accomplished in only 6 hours. I don't know how accomplished I felt in the 16 degree weather during the 'marade' today. I have a long way to go but I feel like I really made some strides with this attempt. I'm going to try and get some sleep before my 10am class so that's all I have for now.

Check out The Clarion to see a few more images from my week's work. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Ciao,

J

The son of a leader

"MLK III kicked off two weeks of activities at the University of Denver to honor his father's legacy with a speech on Monday, January 14 at Gates Concert Hall. King's son brought the crowd of more than 600 to their feet with his powerful words."

 

As some of you know I am the photography editor for the University of Denver student run newspaper, The Clarion. Last night I had an assignment to cover Martin Luther King III's speech for the front page image of today's issue. King's son was on campus to kick off a weeks worth of activities to honor, who I believe to be, our nation's greatest leader. King did more than stand up for what he believed in but yet stood up for millions of people around the world and gave them a voice. His son did just that last night by continuing his legacy.

I'm not a politician so I'm not going to get into the strong views that he expressed over the course of a 45-minute speech however I have to agree with a lot about what he said. After the conclusion of his speech I had the pleasure of being only a handful of people who were introduced to MLK III by the athletic department's Associate Athletic Director for Diversity and Community Relations, Tony Daniels aka TD. Tony is a great person and friend and it meant a lot to me for him to introduce me to the son of a world wide figure.

It didn't really hit me until just now that I met a truly inspirational person last night. The work his father accomplished over the course of his lifetime has allowed me to attend the University of Denver. I can't imagine the difference in what my life would be like if today's society was equal to that of the time period of Dr. Martin Luther King's work.

Take a minute this week and reflect on a great activist, a great leader and a great human being.

In honor our a great leader another staff photographer, Mike Sasser, and myself will be working on a small multimedia piece for the web for next week. Stay tuned!

A new start for 2008

"Denver junior Lauren Garan competes on balance beam during the home opener on Saturday, January 12 against the Washington Huskies. Garan, coming off a season ending achilles tendon injury a year ago, finished tied for fourth place on beam with a 9.700. Denver topped Washington 194.900-190.475."

Well...I'm back! After blogging about my once in a lifetime experience while in Rome, Italy during the fall of 2006 I have decided to start once again. Everyone needs a New Year's resolution and I've decided that writing out my days thoughts might help me get past my far too consistent insomnia. 

Over the past year my life has drastically changed. Some friends convinced me to actually do "something" with my new found photographic talents the day following my 21st birthday while in Milan last year. For whatever reason I took their advice to heart and 431 days later I can honestly say that I'm a completely different person. Chances are if you run into me I have one, if not two cameras capturing the moments around me. However, as my talent grew so did my responsibilities. I'll explain more soon, I promise.

It's late and I'm going to get some sleep...or at least try to. Check back to see the images that I make and how they change me.