Blog

By Jim Stroup, Virginia Tech

Be-da-deep. Be-da-deep. The sound of my alarm clock breaks the silence of the night. 
I open my eyes to see it’s 4:30 a.m. Instead of cursing the alarm for disturbing me so early, I leap out of bed with excitement knowing what’s in store for me. Peering out the window, I see the full moon hanging in the nighttime sky.

At dawn, I’ll be on the Virginia Tech campus to photograph the full moon setting. I’ve already determined where and when the moon will set, so all I have to do is show up at my predetermined location with my camera and tripod.

Allowing myself a half hour to get ready, I brew some coffee for the 40-minute drive to campus. I swing by my office to grab my gear and a university van – special license plates allow me to park anywhere on campus. Heading over to my location, I see the moon is just about ready to drop into the composition I’ve pre-visualized.

The Winners Gallery is up for the December/Janurary Monthly Image Competition. Check it out at: http://www.upaa.org/mic-archived-galleries/december-2011

Photo by Kelly Gorham/Montana State University

Prepare in advance. Research your subject. Have they appeared in interviews before? Read up on them. Think about the core message and think of specific questions to help your subject communicate this message. It’s okay to email the questions to the subject in advance so they have time to think. Give the subject a rough outline of what you think the story will be about, when and where it will appear.

Develop a story arch. Think in terms of a beginning, middle and end. Take the reader on a journey. Don’t masquerade statements as questions. You’re there to listen, not to show off how much you know about the subject. Simple, open ended questions lead to better information. Why did you do that? What happened? How did it start? What happened next? What did it feel like? What were you thinking?

In addition to any specific questions regarding the topic there are three questions that work well in any situation. The questions can even be used exclusively and will elicit rich and thoughtful responses.

The 51st University Photographers Association of America (UPAA) Symposium will be held at the Miami University campus in Oxford, Ohio, June 18-23, 2012.

Your hosts at Miami University are Scott Kissell and Jeff Sabo—we look forward to seeing you and we hope you will enjoy your experience. Last year UPAA celebrated its 50th Anniversary in scenic Utah, hosted by Brigham Young University and organized by photographers Mark Philbrick and Jaren Wilkey. This memorable symposium was attended by creative university photographers from all over the country who were eager to learn and to share and to inspire each other with ideas and information. We all have something to contribute, and it is important for you to attend. The UPAA symposium has become an annual reunion of professionals who help each other grow and succeed, and it needs YOU to accomplish this!

If you were able to come to last year's Symposium, you were lucky enough to spend a full day learning from Robert Seale. In case you missed it, check out the recap or watch the video below:

One of the reasons that Robert was so excited to come out to the Symposium was that he really wanted to do some personal shoots both in Southern Utah and at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Over on his blog he just put up some posts showcasing the photos he took. Check it out on his blog: http://www.robertsealeblog.com/

By Mark Carriveau, Elgin Community College

Now that using small strobes for most photo shoots is becoming more mainstream, it also brings a new set of problems. The biggest problem I had was getting the strobes the fire consistently. I always had to make sure I had tape, foil, and white paper in my bag so I could modify the strobes in order to catch the infrared signal. I tend to shoot a lot in the classroom when class is in session. This is not the last place I want to start messing with the strobes to try to get them to fire. At the advice of David Tejada I purchased a set of Radio poppers and that has helped tremendously to alleviate these problems.

The Winners Gallery is up of the November Monthly Image Competition. Check it out at: http://www.upaa.org/mic-archived-galleries/october-2011

A team of BYU Computer Science students recently won a computer hacking contest against some prestigious competition. When we were assigned to create a photo illustration to accompany the news release, I was stumped. Shooting photos of guys sitting in front of a computer is one the the hardest things that we have to do as University Photographers. The morning of the shoot I came up with the idea of shooting the photo from the perspective of the computer screen in order to show the team working together trying to hack into a computer. I also thought it would look cool if we did a really long exposure, and used some blurred colored lights in the background to separate the hackers from the dark background.

First off, we cut out a computer screen sized to match one of our Apple Cinema Displays and set up a conference room with the screen cutout, lights, keyboard, mouse and speakers. I wasn't a big fan of the wall in the conference room, so we set up a black background that wouldn't show the shadows of the screen or the models on it. Then I set up my Canon 1D Mark IV on a tripod with a 14mm lens on it. I wanted it to look like the hackers were being lit by the glow of the screen, so I put an Elinchrom Ranger right behind the camera to act as my main light source. Here is one of our first test shots with Elisa serving as our stand in model:

Homecoming is always a stressful time for a University Photographer. Every year there seem to be more and more events to shoot, and never enough time to do them justice. I always try and block out that one week of the year and focus on all the assigned events that I have to cover and nothing else. I don't even try to do anything fancy, it is about survival, plain and simple. Unlike me, the boys at Baylor Photography are always up for a challenge. This year Robbie Rogers and Matthew Minard decided to create a multimedia piece with stills and video captured during their homecoming celebrations. Even more impressive is that they turned out the finished piece on the Monday after homecoming week. Matthew was kind enough to share how they approached the project with us. Check out his comments after the video:

An Invitation from Baylor Photography on Vimeo.

As has been tradition every year for Baylor Photography, Robbie and I have produced some type of multimedia project for Homecoming. Our goal is to evolve our storytelling efforts every year. This year we decided on incorporating video.

"An Invitation" was a concept we came up with a couple of months ago when we discovered the original Homecoming invitation sent out by the Baylor President in 1909.

The September winners of the Monthly Image Competition have been posted, check out the gallery at: http://www.upaa.org/mic-archived-galleries/september-2011

This is not your every day admissions piece. In fact, it is one that only works for one day out the year, specifically October 31st. Radford University decided to show off their University in a unique way by highlighting how they have something for EVERYONE at their school, including zombies and vampires. Today their webpage was taken over by these special students and their stories.

Check it out on their homepage.

Here is the video that tells their story:

Happy Halloween from Radford University from Radford University on Vimeo.

I got a kick out of the fact that they were willing to do this on their homepage for Halloween. It is a very novel way to get some attention for their University; they even got a writeup in the Washington Post. I asked Jaslyn Gilbert, Radford's Multimedia Producer, to explain how this project came about and here is what she shared with me: