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Congrats to Mike Ekern for his Best of Show winning portrait of Father John Malone. Check out the rest of the Monthly Image Competition winners on the MIC Gallery Page.

John A. Huffer, Ball State University Photographer

May 2,1959-Sept. 26, 2013

The UPAA Board of Directors was saddened to learn that John A. Huffer, Ball State university photographer and two-time UPAA Photographer of the Year (2003 & 2005), suddenly passed away on Sept. 26, 2013. He was 54 years old and is survived by his wife Pam and his two daughters, Emily and Jordan.

John’s images made a huge impression, especially in his uncanny ability to capture the decisive moment in sports action. His images were way ahead of the quality curve during the earlier years of digital fast-action photography that seemed to challenge so many of the rest of us.

John was a lifer at Ball State, having moved up from the ranks as a student shooter to university staff photographer to coordinator for Photo Services. He also had been teaching two classes a week in photography for the High Technology Department.

John left an incredible archive and legacy of photography in his more than three decades of shooting at Ball State. He was beloved and respected as much for his personality as for his photographic eye. John’s impact and the enormity of his loss were evident in the enormous turnout by the student body and Ball State faculty and staff at his memorial service, which was held on campus.

John’s legacy in photography at Ball State continues as his daughter Jordan is now excelling as a student photographer in her own right. Donations are being collected by the Ball State University Cardinal Varsity club in John’s name, with proceeds going toward construction of a new baseball stadium.

I’ve wanted to shoot a dancer on the water for the longest time, so when I found out that our Theatre Ballet would be presenting “Swan Lake”, I knew that I finally had my opportunity.  Shani Robison, the Director of BYU’s Theatre Ballet, liked the concept and we set about to make it happen. My idea was to put the dancer on a platform about an inch below the water, and take the photo at sunset with a simple background. I used Google Earth to scout all the small lakes within an hour or so of campus, and I found one that was about 45 minutes away. I went up to the lake early one morning to see it for myself and found a spot that would allow me to get the shot I wanted in about 2-3 feet of water.

Next came the platform. Stability was the most important thing about the setup, because I didn’t want the ballerina to end up in the lake instead of on top of it. My dad is a general contractor, so of course I went to him for ideas on how to make this happen. What we settled on was a metal platform that is used by guys that hang drywall. It was about 12 inches wide with very sturdy adjustable legs.

My plan was to set the platform in the mud where the water was 2-3 feet deep and then carry the dancer out to the platform.

By Matt Cashore, University of Notre Dame

I suppose you could say I got serious about this whole photography thing around 1990, give or take.  The first "serious" camera I bought for myself was a used Nikon FE-2.  Black.

I got my first digital camera in 2002 and shot my last roll of film for a paid job around 2004.  So you can arguably say half my photographic career has been in the film world and half in the digital world.

Which Withstood the Test of Time – Alkaline, Lithium or Ni-MH?

Past experiences with lowest-bid AA alkaline batteries and poor performance from rechargeable AA batteries has made me a devout Duracell Alkaline user for years. But battery technology has improved greatly in recent years and I was eager to test some of the new AA battery and battery charger technologies. Armed with three brands of popular single-use batteries, three brands of Ni-MH rechargeable batteries, three different AA chargers and a strobe that closely matches the features of the Nikon SB600 I started my testing. My battery testing methodology was quite simple, four identical batteries were tested using a Nissin Mark II Di622 strobe. The Di622 is comparable to the Nikon SB600 with a guide number of 44 and many of the same modes and features. For this test, the strobe was used exclusively in manual mode at full power.

The Winners of the Monthly Image Competition have been announced, check them out at UPAA.org

Congrats to Susan McSpadden for taking Best of Show in the October Monthly Image Competition, you can check out the rest of the winners at UPAA.org.

Scott Kelby visited our own Donald Page and the University of Tennessee to cover their game vs South Carolina. He shared a interesting article on his blog about covering football with remote cameras. Check it out at scottkelby.com.

The votes from the first installment of the Monthly Image Competition are in, and a Best of Show tie was indicative of the high level of photography entered in the Summer Competition. Check out the rest of the winners by clicking on the photos above or visit the UPAA MIC Page.

Digital Asset Management is a phrase that always seems to evoke the emotion of its acronym. Whether at a large university or a small community college, we are all challenged with the daunting task of organizing our large photo collections and sharing them with those who need access to them. Mike Ekern, of the University of St. Thomas, came up with the idea for a series of articles on the different DAM systems used by our membership. Hopefully this proves to be a useful resource to the UPAA membership who are struggling to create their own management system. Here is Matt Cashore's review of Photoshelter.com:

Although I've worked for Notre Dame in some capacity going back to my student days 20 years ago, I wasn't hired as an official employee until June 2007.  One of the very first things I did was open a Photoshelter account.  I still rank that as my single best decision of the last six years.

At that time my department had no Digital Asset Management solution to speak of.  Some photos were on Flickr, some were on a home-brew server, and there were a couple of external hard drives of images, but most floated amongst the designers and art directors on physical media.  I needed a low-maintenance searchable archive and distribution network & I needed it right away.  (Oh and if we could sell stuff, that would be great, too.)

LineCamp2013 from Baylor University on Vimeo.

Baylor's Matthew Minnard and Robbie Rogers are at it again with a video highlighting the Baylor Line Camp, which is easily one of the most involved freshman orientation programs in the country. I checked in with Matthew to get some more information on the creation of the video:

"We primarily used 5DMKIIIs...mostly hand-held. This actually was the first time we used a Glide-Cam for many of the shots. This was the first time we've done a video or any multimedia on Line Camp, so we wanted to produce an overall piece to show the excitement and energy that happens during this event which is always held in the middle of the summer. The intro to the video was created through using a template in Motion and dropped into the overall FCP project."

You can see more of Robbie and Matthew’s work on the Baylor Facebook Page, The Baylor Proud Blog, Current Students Site, Baylor Photo on Tumblr and of course at Baylor Photography.

At the 2013 UPAA Symposium, Wake Forest's Ken Bennett was named one of the UPAA's Master of the Profession, our organization's highest honor. The Winston-Salem Journal recently wrote a great profile piece on Ken and his recent accolades. Check it out at journalnow.com.

Wake Forest University also did a release on Ken's award, which you can see at inside.wfu.edu

If you would like to see more of Ken's work, visit Wake Forest's photoblog appropriately named Focus on the Forest.

The results are in for the 2013 Multimedia Competition. Here are the winners:

Honorable Mention - Baylor University - A Social Gathering

3rd place - University of Notre Dame - Silent Stone Houses

2nd place - University of Georgia - Georgia Fishes Field Study

1st place - Brigham Young University - BYU Mathletes Recalculated

Here are the winners of the 2013 Print Competition. You can see a gallery of the winning images at upaa.org:

Sports Features
Honorable Mention – Mark Philbrick, BYU
Honorable Mention – Matt Cashore, Notre Dame
3rd Place – Matt Yeoman, Ferris State
2nd Place – Andrew Tucker, University of Georgia
1st Place – Eric Bronson, University of Michigan

Sports Action
Honorable Mention – Martin Vloet, University of Michigan
Honorable Mention – Eric Bronson, University of Michigan
3rd Place – Jaren Wilkey, BYU
2nd Place – Justin Hayworth, Grinnell College
1st Place – Trice Megginson, University of Wyoming

People and Portraits
Honorable Mention (tie) - Nancy Evelyn, University of Georgia
Honorable Mention (tie) - Nancy Evelyn, University of Georgia
Honorable Mention – Todd Paris, University of Alaska
3rd Place – Jim Stroup, Virginia Tech
2nd Place (tie) - Ken Bennett, Wake Forest
2nd Place (tie) - Jaren Wilkey, BYU
1st Place – Jeff Etheridge, Auburn University

Science and Research
Honorable Mention – Caroline Summers, Samford University
Honorable Mention – Jim Stroup, Virginia Tech
3rd Place – Eric Bronson, University of Michigan
2nd Place – Jeff Sabo, Miami University
1st Place – Jaren Wilkey, BYU

Campus Environment
Honorable Mention – George Hartmann, Western Illinois
Honorable Mention – Matt Cashore, Notre Dame
3rd Place – Ken Bennett, Wake Forest
2nd Place – Matt Cashore, Notre Dame
1st Place – Robert Jordan, University of Mississippi

News
Honorable Mention – George Hartmann, Western Illinois
Honorable Mention – Cydney Scott, Boston University
3rd Place – Ken Bennett, Wake Forest
2nd Place – Eric Bronson, University of Michigan
1st Place – George Hartmann, Western Illinois