Blog

By Jaren Wilkey, Jon Hardy and Marcos Escalona/BYU Photo

It wasn’t that long ago that I would spend a long day on Saturday shooting a BYU football game, go back to the office and set the 20 or so rolls of exposed film on the counter and go home. On Monday I would send the rolls into a lab to get processed, and I wouldn’t get the first look at the slides until Wednesday or Thursday. It may have been a simpler time, but it is also ancient history. Now whenever a great play happens on the field I instantly have somebody in my ear asking me if I got the play (of course I did) and how soon they could get it to post on the Football Team's Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Pinterest account (ok, maybe not the last one). In this new era dominated by social media, time is a luxury we can't afford. The sooner that you can get your photos out into those social media channels, the better usage you will get out of them.

In 2011 the Super Bowl had 3.1 million social media interactions, that is 3.1 million people said something about the game on a social media network while the game was going on. In 2012 the number jumped to 17.4 million. This year, that number skyrocketed to 52.5 million. (Source: Trendrr) 27.7 million comments were posted about the game on Twitter, and only 2.8 million were posted on Facebook (Source: Bluefin Labs) 88% of the social media chatter was uploaded via mobile devices; presumably people interacting with their tablet or phone while watching the game.

The winners from the April Monthly Image Competition are up, check them out on the MIC Website.

Our president is being featured over on Calumet's blog this morning, check out the post Glenn Carpenter's Photo of the Week which is about a star trail photo he created with the Triggertrap app and StarStax software. You can learn more about this technique in Robert Jordan's article Doorknob To The Universe.

Mike Ekern always has the coolest stuff to share with us. This time it is a crazy video of the Red Bull Crashed Ice competition. Learn more about it at The University of St. Thomas.

We're really excited to announce that Peter Read Miller will be one of our featured speakers at the 2013 UPAA Symposium. He'll be speaking to us on Thursday June 20th from 2:45-5:30 at the Elgin Community College Business Conference Center. Check out the symposium page for his bio or check out his portfolio at www.PeterReadMiller.com.

By Glenn Carpenter, UPAA President

Congratulations to Dawn Van Hall on receiving the 2012-13 Excellence in Professional Service Award from SUNY Cortland. I have known for a very long time that Dawn deserves this recognition because of her service on the Board, service as committee chair, and for her famous chocolate-chip cookies. Dawn has given of herself in order that UPAA, SUNY Cortland, and others may excel.

From the Cortland Website:

A long-time member of the College’s Center for Gender and Intercultural Studies (CGIS), Van Hall organizes and presents a Native American History Month film series in November on behalf of the center. Over the years, the digital-film acquisitions have formed the basis of a very complete collection representing the diverse lives of American Indians as well as Canadian First Peoples and Maori people.

The annual screenings, often accompanied by discussions with visiting filmmakers or cultural presenters, are awaited eagerly by a loyal following of students, staff and visitors.

“I don’t know (Van Hall’s) secret ingenuity of pulling together an impressive program and asking for only nominal support from CGIS,” the nominator wrote. “I can only imagine that she is well-known for her efforts, and that filmmakers happily comply with her request and give us an opportunity to ask about the making of the film, the cultural settings, etc.”

The March winners have been posted for the Monthly Image Competition. Check out all the winners on the MIC Site.

By Nick Romanenko, Rutgers University

The hospitality room at the Miami Inn, Oxford Ohio, not in the southern climes of sunny Florida, was packed following the banquet that closed out another annual UPAA symposium. I was tending bar, making sure the guests were well tended to as they spent the waning hours of Friday night catching up with friends they probably wouldn’t see face to face for another year. Brigham Young University senior photographer Mark Philbrick had just captured his seventh Photographer of the Year award earlier in the evening, and was being approached with congratulations from colleagues as he made his way across the room.

By the time I saw Mark I was struck by the glazed look of euphoria on his face. He was obviously very happy, stunned, buzzed. Perhaps the reality of the moment was still sinking in, but then there’s no one else who has had his experience with this kind of moment in the thirty plus years he’d been a university photographer. He had won six times before, twice the number of any other photographer.

Aperture Magazine has joined the UPAA family and will be sponsoring an award for the Annual Print Competition (APC). Aperture Magazine will award a subscription to the photographer who has the highest scoring print in the Personal Vision category of the APC.

Created in 1952 by photographers and writers as “common ground for the advancement of photography,” Aperture today is a multiplatform publisher and center for the photo community. In addition to publishing a quarterly magazine, Aperture also produces between twelve and fifteen new photobooks and books about photography each year. They also publish e-books, apps, and a daily blog, as well as online features on their website.

We are very excited about this relationship with one of the most prestigious photo magazines in the world. Members attending the Symposium in June will receive a copy of the latest issue of Aperture Magazine.

The Monthly Image Competition has posted the winners for February. Check out all the winning images at the UPAA MIC.

By Kelly Gorham, Montana State University

The first camera I ever got to play with was my father’s Regula Werk King that he purchased while serving in the Army in Germany. It now sits on a shelf in my living room and over the past several years I glanced at it and longingly wished I could have a digital version of a camera like that. Yes, of course there are the Leica’s but…well, we’ll discuss my bank account another time.

Along comes the Fuji X100. On the surface it was exactly what I’d dreamed of, classic styling and high-resolution images. However, it wasn’t perfect, and if I’m going to spend over $1,000 I want what I want. I waited patiently until the arrival last fall of the Fuji X10. Compact, retro, and cheap, this is what I’ve been dreaming of. I put my name on a list and received my X10 in a glossy, black box one day this winter.

Our own Donald Page, staff shooter for the University of Tennessee Athletic Department, wrote a guest post on Scott Kelby's Blog. He shared his insight on how to overcome the fear of failure in our photography. He also shared this video created by his university to showcase his work:

Donald Page - University of Tennessee Sports Photographer from Donald Page on Vimeo.

By Glenn Carpenter/Moraine Valley Community College

“This changes everything.” This was my first thought as I watched the behind the scenes video of Brigham Young University photographers using an iPad at a photo shoot. I watched as the art director held the iPad and the images appeared, I was amazed. This is the future of photography.

I quickly put together a list of what I needed to make this magic in Illinois. Along with the link to the BYU video I submitted the request to be just like BYU! The iPad and Eye-fi card arrived a few weeks later. The only problem is that I use Nikon. You see a Nikon D3 only uses CF memory and the Eye-fi card is SD memory. With the help of an adapter, I eventually got it to work but it was not perfect. I was not like BYU.

Photos and Text by Andrew M. Daddio/Colgate University

Full Disclosure: for the past twelve years all of my personal photo gear has been Canon bodies and lenses. I used to diss on Nikon, quite heavily I may add, until the introduction of the Nikon D3, which really leveled the playing field, if not taking a quantum leap forward. I shoot with Nikon for work, and I still retain and shoot with my Canon gear, but I do on occasion consider jumping ship to Nikon...

A great portrait session where you are able to break through your subjects’ apprehension and genuinely capture the personality of the individual you are photographing... Gaining access to environments and situations that many people will never see... Solving a technical challenge or exploring an untried technique that produces a new body of work... The rush of excitement you receive after seeing the image in the viewfinder as you click the shutter, or when it pops up on the back of the camera, and realizing that you have just captured a great and iconic portfolio shot...

These are some of the high points that are the rewards and pleasures of our professions as professional photographers. One of the other high points that is also central to our experience, since almost all photographers are serious gadget freaks and techno geeks, is that great feeling we get from opening the packaging and taking a brand-new camera out of the box for the very first time. Ah, so factory fresh and clean.

The November numbers are in for the Monthly Image Competition, click here to see the winning photos.