NPPA's Visual Student

Some of my adventures at MPW are highlighted on the NPPA's Visual Student blog today.

mpw outtakes, part deux

the first few hours (days) of the workshop are spent wandering around looking for story ideas and getting a lay of the land. here are some singles and stories that didn't make the cut.


















































some bonus footage. halfway through day 3 i got stuck knee-deep in mississippi river mud. jennifer (looking out over the river, above) was kind enough to take a shot of me in this ridiculous position.

mpw outtakes

part of the difficulty of editing work at MPW is honoring the discipline of a photo story. this is what the missouri photo workshop does better than any other workshop out there. they don't dabble in multimedia. they won't teach you final cut. they simply demand hard work and thoughtful photographs that service the story.

inevitably, part of telling a good story is letting go of some single images you love to move the narrative forward. here are some i had to sacrifice.

mpw 61

At three months, Kade Bauman couldn't hold his head up on his own. The doctors said to wait. He just might need a little more time. Then the seizures started. At one and a half years old, Kade has been hospitalized six times in the last year.

Diagnosed with epilepsy, cortical vision impairment and hypotonia, Kade's parents and grandparents, therapists and friends work together to give him the care he needs. "I knew we were strong, but I didn't know how strong," says Kade's mother, Annette Bauman.




i had an incredible time at the 61st missouri photo workshop in festus/crystal city. i owe everything to the bauman family who opened themselves up to me. thanks for letting me tell kade's story.

more photos and thoughts from the week coming up. but first, a good night's sleep.

geek-ed

my latest travels kicked off earlier this month with geekfest09 in st. pete. this first photo might sum it up nicely: cameras, photographers, & beer. what i can't put into a single frame is the huge dose of inspiration from the speakers and the 'group hug' atmosphere from all my peers and mentors (read: friends). can't wait 'til next year.

VJ Workshop

weekend workshops are lessons in flexibility.

we look forward to them as a relief from daily routine, a chance to break out and breathe, and a time to soak in inspiration from amazing storytellers. when assignments are involved, you also hope serendipity befalls your camera and microphone. when luck fails, hard work and flexibility can always find a story, however small. the inaugural VJ Workshop in ventura was my reminder that i'm not always in control.

i came to ventura with a pent up wave of enthusiasm. i was ready to dig deep and push personal boundaries. there's nothing like a 24-hour deadline to spark a creative challenge. daryl peveto did an amazing job tracking down 50 stories in the ventura area - a labor of love that will bring many karmic returns. even the best laid plans, however, are open to detours.

my first story was a non-starter. the second was shaping up nicely until the family decided to leave town for the weekend. as my team leader pauline lubens said - we tell people to ignore us and go about their normal routine and then they leave us in the dust.

with my 24-hour window closing and just one real interaction with the family, i decided to embrace it. embrace the narrow slice i was given and try to tell a story, however small, about that slice. i could pounds my fists against a closed door of opportunity, or go with it. in these days of moving onward and upward, there was only one real choice.




i headed back to the gym after sebastian and his family left town. i hung out with some other boxers finishing off their training session. i loved the color of the place, but decided to produce the multimedia in black & white to avoid many hours of color correcting for the *awesome* mixed lighting and florescent flicker. the yellow walls worked better as unrelated singles.













many thanks to adam flores, benjamin, cesar and servando mendez, as well as junior garate at world crown sports for helping me out on deadline.

you can see other stories that came out of the VJ Workshop here. others overcame a lot more obstacles than i and produced some great work.

some of my favorites -


adam lau who said, "got no audio, crap stills. but learned something in the process of failing." his piece on the mayor of the pier had some hilarious audio and used every animated video wipe in the book to great effect.


ariel zambelich who knocked on doors to find a story of enduring love. your persistence and grace-under-fire always impress the hell outta me.


kat nyberg spent her day with shirley meyer, a homeless woman living in her RV who drives from spot to spot trying to avoid getting fined by the ventura police.

take a gander and remember you're only 24-hours from another story.