COMM 3530 Digital Photo Journalism : Feature

Music and photography are a lot alike. Both simultaneously blend art and a science to create a palate of color; in both cases you only have a moment to get everything right. Of all my takes for this class, I struggled with this story the most.

1st: I had to max out my ISO at 1600 - because of the lighting in music halls and practice rooms - creating lots of grain in the image.

2nd: Music people...We can be uppity at times so I needed to keep my distance as to not take away from the precious few moments of rehearsal time. I used a long zoom, most the time, as to stay away from the action and be as noninvasive as possible. This added to the grain, allowing less room to be creative with angles.

My feature is my younger sister, Rachel. Spring is music competition season and I wanted to capture what happens in the background of the time, energy and monotony that goes into a music performance prior to the curtain rising.

Rachel has qualified for State, along with preforming with the SWSO in their "Youth Concerto Classic." Desiring not to be part of the news or a distraction, I only went to a few rehearsals and tried to be as far away as possible. Because I care about the person I am using as my subject, I naturally became less invasive - not wanting to get in the way while shooting - because when you are shooting someone who is close to you, you have to live with the ramifications. I placed some bias into the shoot, which is both good and bad. Good, because I know all the people involved, I can anticipate what is going to happen. The bad: As a musician, I am concerned that a viewer with a non-musical background may not be able to gain complete understanding from my photos because I may take many aspects of the story line for granted. Another problem is that I was connected to people involved in the shoot; hindering my objectivity which results in bias as a part of the story.