College

Demo Reel

After Much Internal Debate at The Comic Kid Photography Headquarters, I’ve decided that I will go ahead and release my Video Reel that I have been shopping around in my job search just for the sake of letting people be able to see it. Most of the footage was taken while I was in college and I’m mainly showing off what I’m capable of shooting with a minimal to almost non existant budget and very little direction. Everything I have done up to this point has been done in a run and gun documentary style that is intended to bring visual interest into real stories. My hope is that someone will come across this reel, find value in my skills as a videographer and consider hiring me on for a project.

Fitting in time for photography.

Trying to be creative during a college semester can be extremely difficult, especially when all the classes you are taking are the University core requirement and  you have a part time job that are not exactly designed to stimulate your need for creative production. This becomes incredibly prevalent for photographers who think to themselves on a regular basis, “I would rather be out shooting.”As opposed to whatever political science class that you’e sitting in. If this is the situation that you find yourself in the only advise that seems plausible is to make time to go shoot every once and a while. This can be fairly hard to do sometimes but if you can  pull it off it can be extremely rewarding.

A few weeks ago in Albuquerque it finally felt like winter had fully kicked in with overcasting clouds and a light amount of snow which at first doesn’t seems too conducive for photography but I though to myself that if the overcast kept up it would be perfect for a mid afternoon shoot downtown. Sadly I misjudged New Mexico’s ability to stay consistent weather wise and it went back to being in the mid 60’s with bright sunny skies. However that didn’t stop me. I put out a post on facebook if anyone wanted to take part in a impromptu photo-shoot down town and like most statuses it go a handful of likes but not a huge response. However one person did happen to respond.

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Tara, a friend of mine that I have done photos of several times in the past was the only one who responded to the call so we arranged to meet up down town to snap off some shots in some of the back allies, parking grarges and other interesting locations in the down town area.

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One thing you’re always going to find in any downtown metro area is various degrees of street art and graffiti which can always be a great back drop for urban style portraits. Whether they are just a bunch of random tags some hooligans put behind random buildings or if they were beautiful works or art by a local artiest it’s always a great scene to add to your photos. The thought of shooting in back alley’s can seem a little bit sketchy but if you play it smart and don’t draw a whole bunch of attention to yourself you’ll be just fine. People will often leave you alone if you leave them alone. Especially when you’re shooting.

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One thing that should be kept in mind at all times is lighting. Being that this was done in the middle of a bright day it was important to find shaded areas to get nice even lighting. There are of course other techniques and styles you can use to manage the light but the important thing is that you do what you feel works best for what you want to do.

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The most important thing with being out on a shoot is to have fun really. If this was in anyone a more professional shoot with the photos having a more distinct purpose I would have taken in more seriously but this shoot really was for the sake of having fun. Tara is a relaxed and easy going person to be around and it made shooting with her all the more simple. You don’t have to get into insane director mode and you don’t have to be picky you just have to shoot.

I’m not only doing random portraits over the semester either I’m also doing freelance work with my universities independent student news paper so I also get to do that kind of photo work which is really exciting. Hopefully I get to do more photos in the near future.

Everyone’s a critic and I’m no exception.

Recently a close friend of mine posted some pictures she took at a local event in downtown Albuquerque onto her facebook and for the most part they were fairly decent photos. However as a photography enthusiast (Not a professional) there were a couple of nit picky critiques I had with many of them. For the most part the photos were all very low in contrast and some of them weren’t the best of compositions. To add to that I mentally went over what I would have done to make the photos better.  However I refrained from commenting with my criticism mostly because this was her personal facebook and I didn’t want to come off as a cynical asshole that I know that I can be in certain situations with all our friends witnessing.

However I got really twitchy when she post “I should really start my own photography business.” So many things raced through my head of why that wouldn’t work out, (at least right now) with the main thing being the startup capital. She’s going into her Junior year of college and I know for a fact that she doesn’t have the money to afford the higher end equipment to run a successful photography business. (I’m aware it’s not the equipment that makes a good photographer, but to run a photography business successfully you need to have the means to handle and situation when they are thrown at you.)

Now there are a lot of things I could have said in this situation. I could have made my earlier criticism public in order to crush her dreams, but that would make me a terrible friend. I could have pointed out the difficulty of starting a photography business with the over saturation of photographers out there now. Instead I commented with “Yeah maybe in 5 years.” Now as backhanded as this may sound I was only trying to be rational.

The 5 years  came from the idea of a 5 year plan where she could 1) learn the craft and get better at the finer details while at the same time build a portfolio of her best work. 2) Save up and invest in better equipment to be more versatile with what she can do with her photography and 3) Build a reputation with models and potential clients that will be vital in promoting her work.

Now her response to my comment about the 5 year plan resulted with her elaborating on and idea that it can be a student based thing where interested parties can donate and allow the students to make money on their photos. My problem with this is, who would donate into this? I honestly can’t for the life of me think of an individual or organization that would invest in a sort of business model that is so incredibly reliant on unproven talent alone. Not to mention this seems like something that photography classes are for. At the university that we both attended there are multiple classes that teach photography in certain fields. I myself am registered for a photojournalism class as in the fall. I’m hoping to take this class, learn more and find a way to use these skills and apply them to the work that I want to do.

I’m not saying that she shouldn’t go for it. She has the talent and I believe that she could develop into a top notch photographer. But that’s the thing, she needs to develop (I’m aware of how punny that statement is.) And I’m the same way. Whether it’s my writing, my photography or my video making I need to learn more about those fields and apply the skills I acquire over time before I get too starry eyed.

Maybe I’m being too much of a pessimist here and I should let her continue to dream big, but I’d like to think I’m being a realist here in saying “it’s great that you want to do this but work for it first then grab it when you’re ready. “