I have setup and appointment with the Bat biologist from Missouri, Bill Elliot so that I can meet with him and learn more about white nose syndrome. I also hope to learn if he is currently tracking some bats and maybe I can follow him and get a picture of one of these bats.
I am also waiting for Roxy from the Rock Bridge Cave to send out an email letting me know when the Department of Natural Resources will say if it is ok to have wild cave tours in Rock Bridge.
I am excited to see this forward progress and I believe that I will be doing some shooting very shortly.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties/index.html
For my Online Multimedia Critique I am looking at CNN’s Home and Away War Casualties multimedia piece. This is a breath-taking project put together that shows where many of the troops have died and their hometowns in the U.S.
This project gives details on how many troops died in the area, and then when you select an area you get a closer look at the names of those who died in each area. It gives a description of how each solider died, and it also shows a portrait of the solider if available.
Going through the navigation it looks clean, and the colors are perfect for the information. The project has a black background that outlines the project. And then the maps are a dark color.
One of my complaints about this project is the size. It is a lot of information, and it takes a little while to load. Sometimes when you pull up the site you will have random pop ups from their website causing the user to click refresh to bypass the pop ups.
I think it would be really interesting if they added a civilian tab. I would want to see where most of the journalists have died, and where some other contractors have been killed. This information would be much more difficult to obtain, but I believe it would be a very cool addition.
I believe this is one of the best multimedia projects I have seen yet, and it provides a great service for families or anyone in our country to appreciate those who are fighting for us.
Friday, April 1, 2011
EPJ final Project Friday update!
I have recontacted Roxie at Rock Bridge Memorial State Park and I have learned that in April they will lead a class of 8th graders into Conner's cave inside the park. On May 1,2, 3 they will be taking a group of cub-scouts into the same cave giving them information about the cave and the dreaded white nose syndrome. Presently they are not sure if they will have open cave tours due to the spread of white nose syndrome, but they will know within the next two weeks. It is a fungus that will grow on the bats nose and wings and will waken them during their normal hibernation period. This will cause them to use their fats reserves and could lead to death. It has wiped out many bat populations in the east and it is slowly moving west due to humans, and bats.
I will be contacting the groups to ensure that I will have permission to use the images, and I have setup a meeting with Roxie to gather some audio for the project.
I am excited in moving forward to show the wonderful cave in this area, and I hope to inform others about the spread of white-nose syndrome.
I will be contacting the groups to ensure that I will have permission to use the images, and I have setup a meeting with Roxie to gather some audio for the project.
I am excited in moving forward to show the wonderful cave in this area, and I hope to inform others about the spread of white-nose syndrome.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Snake Lady
Capstone Project: The Snake Lady
Her love is for her Snakes.
Her love is for her Snakes.
The Snake Lady, Connie Koch has been raising and showing snakes for 27 years. She uses the snakes as a teaching tool for by putting on snake programs around Sedalia and central Missouri. Her snake programs have been held at Whiteman Air Force Base, schools and even birthday parties.
Her connection with snakes began with her father on their farm. He told her that black rat snakes would eat the mice that would try to feed on their grain. The black rat snakes could live in the grain bin and eat those mice. He was actually able to put a dollar amount on the snakes for how much they saved him in wasted grain due to mice.
See the video on my site.
Her connection with snakes began with her father on their farm. He told her that black rat snakes would eat the mice that would try to feed on their grain. The black rat snakes could live in the grain bin and eat those mice. He was actually able to put a dollar amount on the snakes for how much they saved him in wasted grain due to mice.
See the video on my site.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Second Website Critique
I have been looking at David Burnett's photography website, and I like certain elements of it, but I hate many of the navigation tools in the site.
I really love his basic layout, I like the white background with the Navigation bar to the right that is unchanged on each page. the entire site looks very clean. I believe that this is one of the most important elements of a photographers website. It should be clean and completely out of the way. The entire idea is to get the potential future employer to see what you are doing and it should help them navigate through your site without being distracted or confused by the site itself.
Once I started to look into his galleries I noticed an annoying trend. When you scroll through his galleries a large white arrow appears that sits on top of his image. This arrow lets you move forward to the next image. This already annoys me and it should annoy and photographer. He has a flash navigation bar at the bottom of the screen that sits nicely over the white background and this is really handy and looks great.
When I was looking at his tab for his books I clicked on a link that was supposed to direct me to a link where I could buy his book. Every link on the page leads me to the next page where it says Forbidden, Error 403.
In the end I think they have a good design and layout, but they need to fix the links, and I would recommend trying to find a way to push those arrows off his image. Otherwise I was very impressed with the website.
I really love his basic layout, I like the white background with the Navigation bar to the right that is unchanged on each page. the entire site looks very clean. I believe that this is one of the most important elements of a photographers website. It should be clean and completely out of the way. The entire idea is to get the potential future employer to see what you are doing and it should help them navigate through your site without being distracted or confused by the site itself.
Once I started to look into his galleries I noticed an annoying trend. When you scroll through his galleries a large white arrow appears that sits on top of his image. This arrow lets you move forward to the next image. This already annoys me and it should annoy and photographer. He has a flash navigation bar at the bottom of the screen that sits nicely over the white background and this is really handy and looks great.
When I was looking at his tab for his books I clicked on a link that was supposed to direct me to a link where I could buy his book. Every link on the page leads me to the next page where it says Forbidden, Error 403.
In the end I think they have a good design and layout, but they need to fix the links, and I would recommend trying to find a way to push those arrows off his image. Otherwise I was very impressed with the website.
Friday, March 4, 2011
The Photo Essay, readings
The Photo Essay
I completely agree when Chapnick said, "Almost every conceivable subject that deals with the human experience can serve as the basis for an essay."
We have to keep in mind that there are a lot of people in this world, and one thing that may seem unique to an individual can still bring a large group of people together. Everyone does something that maybe a bit odd, but if we keep in mind that everyone is a little odd then by revealing that truth it can bring people from all over the world together.
In the Lamott reading I do agree that when you pick a controvesial subject in a photo story you need to take a moral point of view, the lack of this could potentially leave the reading lost in between the two sides. It is possible to portray both sides, but it would take much more space. In a 90 sec story it is impossible to go into real depth.
I completely agree when Chapnick said, "Almost every conceivable subject that deals with the human experience can serve as the basis for an essay."
We have to keep in mind that there are a lot of people in this world, and one thing that may seem unique to an individual can still bring a large group of people together. Everyone does something that maybe a bit odd, but if we keep in mind that everyone is a little odd then by revealing that truth it can bring people from all over the world together.
In the Lamott reading I do agree that when you pick a controvesial subject in a photo story you need to take a moral point of view, the lack of this could potentially leave the reading lost in between the two sides. It is possible to portray both sides, but it would take much more space. In a 90 sec story it is impossible to go into real depth.
Work Report
My first story was featured barrel racing at McNail arena in Lebanon, Missouri. I followed a rider, Megan Wehmeyer, 17 who has been racing for nine years. In 2009, she won a National Division one rank with the twentieth fastest time. She got third this week, which was still very good.
I am burning to get back to shooting with Megan. She will be at Boone county fair racing again, so I want to get these images before the race so I can say that it is coming up giving it another news worthy quality.
I believe that I did a great job capturing the action, which was my biggest fear, but I was very disappointed in my lack of a strong portrait. When shooting a new event for the first time, and being limited to shooting only 300 frames I tended to work on getting my action shots and I didn't get a very strong portrait that would rise up to the other images in the story.
I plan on going back and taking a few images of her interacting with her horses that way I can fill that gap and feel better about my work.
In the post production I thought that I had a strong take, but I was surprised to see some of the changes we had made to the order in class and I really liked the way the images began to work together to form that third effect.
I am burning to get back to shooting with Megan. She will be at Boone county fair racing again, so I want to get these images before the race so I can say that it is coming up giving it another news worthy quality.
I believe that I did a great job capturing the action, which was my biggest fear, but I was very disappointed in my lack of a strong portrait. When shooting a new event for the first time, and being limited to shooting only 300 frames I tended to work on getting my action shots and I didn't get a very strong portrait that would rise up to the other images in the story.
I plan on going back and taking a few images of her interacting with her horses that way I can fill that gap and feel better about my work.
In the post production I thought that I had a strong take, but I was surprised to see some of the changes we had made to the order in class and I really liked the way the images began to work together to form that third effect.
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