The first couple of days here at the Odessa American have been amazing. I was able to go out with my editor Mark and the other two shooters on some assingments. I should have a couple of photos in Wednesdays paper which is pretty exciting. I know it's corny but I plan on getting out tomorrow and buying a couple of copies for myself so I can see my work in print and keep one to take home to my wife, Maria. Yesterday I went with Mark to shoot some photos of a girl who has not missed a day of class in 13 years, which I find pretty amazing. I also shot an award presentation by the Chamber of Commerce with a photographer named Cindika. This type of situation is called a "grip and grin". There is not much room for creativity, but it is an event that is important to the community so we need to be there. The last assigment was a event called "Meet the Coaches". The football coaches from Permian High School were at a local Catfish joint, Big Daddy's Grill and Bar, while the cheerleaders and dance team waited on guest. The whole event was actually a fundraiser for the booster club, which confused me a little. When Cindika and I first got the assignment, we thought the coaches were serving dinner, something we thought would be pretty funny since football coaches are gods here in West Texas (unless they lose). It still turned out to be a good assigment with some funny moments of it's own. At one point, I saw what I thougth was an empty booth next to a family enjoying a meal. I thought I would squeeze into the booth up against the wall so I could get a good shot of a cheerleader serving them. I moved the two mostly empty tea glasses on the table aside, positioned myself ans waited for the server to return. While I was waiting the couple who had left the booth to go to the buffet line returned, which caused an awkward moment which was resolved when they laughed and told me to stay where I was if I thought it would help me out. I ended up taking a few shots, which were ok but could have been better if I had stood up and shot down at the group to simplify the background a little. I will try to post it here tomorrow when I copy some files from the office. As for todays assingment, the first one was a jello throw for elementary students who had done well on the TAKS test (a standardized state exam in Texas). The kids threw jello at their principal, assistant principal and teacher. Everything was going well until I got a little too close while attempting to get a close up, and got some jello on myself and my bag. I backed up, but somehow still managed to get more jello on the front element of my 200mm lens, much to my dismay (the kids had some really bad aim). I cleaned it off and in the process took off some of the coating as well. Needless to say, tomorrow I am buying a protective filter to put on the front of the lens ($15 mistake versus a $650 one). On a positive lens note, Mark let me borrow a 14mm lens to try out, which was very cool of him. I guess that makes up for the jello incident. The last assigment of the day was in a town called Crane where we shot some photos for a feature on two senior baseball players. All of the other photographers are really good at using fill flash and location lighting with the strobes for features and portraits, something I need to improve on if I want to apply for a full-time job on a daily. I was watching one of them, Kevin, in an attempt to pick up some tips on posing for an sports portrait (commonly called a sportrait). When we got back and turned in our photos, I learned that one of mine was going to run, as well as one from the jello throw. So yeah, I am pumped up and can't wait to see the paper tomorrow. I will post pictures here soon, after I copy the files from the office. From here on out, I hope to have the photos the same day as much as possible. For those of you who made it this far, thanks for reading to the end. Let me know what you think, I am up for suggestions on how to make this blog as interesting as it can be.
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