Exciting news from a stranger

My last day on Maui for spring break was a very good day. There were three major components that made this day great, but only one is worth blogging about cause it relates to art. I don't really remember how I found out about this photo contest, but a couple weeks ago I entered a picture, "Feat", into a contest about health or something. Like the 2010 youth photo contest...this year's issue was health in communities. Or something like that. Anyway, when I was in Maui I got this phone call from a 503 number. I immediately assumed that it was someone asking me to cover them for work. I answered anyway. "Hi, this is so and so calling from the department of something or other" I was dumbfounded. I thought I was in some kind of trouble. "The department of what?" Then she told me that she was calling about that photo I entered. "We just wanted to let you know that your photo won first place." And then it went on from there.

Im kind of jacked. She said that there would be 300 dollars coming my way, too. And I get to go to the award night at the Hollywood Theatre next week. And my photo is going to be at one of those first thursday events in portland and at the state capitol and some other places around Oregon. But I'm really trying to be humble about this, because, well when I took that photo of that boy's feet my intention was never to get money for it. It was to show how bad things are and to give people a glimpse of perspective and how good they might have it and not realize it. Hopefully, since the photo will be around Oregon more people will see it and it will impact more people in that way. That's what photojournalism is about.

I don't want to exploit.

Snowboarding shots

So there's the sequence above, or the individual photograph below. I don't even know if I'm going to use either of these photos. This was my first time shooting snowboarding. It was actually really hard because snowboarders usually don't like to stop and wait so I can 'set up' because to someone who doesn't know the troubles of photographing, all there is to it is clicking the button. But no. It was extremely bright outside and I had been wearing goggles all day so when I took them off, by eyes couldn't adjust to the blinding white snow in the sun. So I pretty much had to guess what shutter speed and f-stop to use. I chose 1/2000 and f11. Iso was 200. But, now that I see how it came out, I'm not complaining. I'm pleasantly surprised with these first tries.

exited for school

Yesterday I was talking to this guy on facebook that is already a student at Brooks Institute. His name is Krishna, from Singapore. I asked him which program he is doing, because I have to eventually decide between the 'professional photography' program or the 'visual journalism' program. He was originally in the pro-photo program but recently switched over to VJ. I gave him the name of my website and he took a look. He thought my work was really good and told me that it's better than some people who are halfway finished with their degree at Brooks. He said many people come to Brooks without a proper foundation, and he's glad I'm not one of them. So that made me feel a lot better about going there, and I'm less nervous.