t-minus

thailand is now about 36 hours away. and when i say thailand, i really mean the time i embark on the journey to get there, seeing how i won't actually BE there until monday.

but i truly am getting excited... the kind of excited i used to get before i began traveling frequently. the kind of excited that you get antsy when you think about prepackaged plane food, buying trail mix in the terminals, waking up in the middle of the night while breathing stale air, and watching movies in a cramped seat to fall asleep.

that kind of excited. seriously, that stuff used to thrill me in middle school, now i dread it. but the reward of new cultures is always worth it.

if i had looked at this stuff first, i might have pushed past all the administrative details to let my anticipation truly build.

i finished the first part of my internship at the paper on wednesday. i'll be back in late july, but here's what's been in front of my lens lately...

fife & drum corps web gallery [click]

pen show in cary:


this woman was straight from harry potter. she had so much personality and something about her was... magical? yes, magical. in a harry potter kind of way. except she specializes in inkpens, not quills.

just to give you an example of her verve, let me just give you some excerpts from my notebook.

"one of my specialites is things that write in extreme ways."
"i'm flamboyant by nature."
"[Choosing pens] is stagecraft."
"Imagine having a signature so great that it becomes a common noun." (in reference to John Hancock, of course)
"Its like having a Ferrari; you can shift it any way you want, but it will tell you when you're doing it right or wrong. And in a few days you'll get really good."
"[A fountain pen] is not judgemental. Its like dancing with somebody. There's some people or pens you never want to dance with again. And some it gets better every time you dance with them."
"[Fountain pens] make you better."

see what i mean? i had no idea there were people on earth who loved pens so much.

i had another assignment that i worked on all week, but i don't think its been published yet, so we'll have to wait for that one. i went back three separate times to do photos because the lighting wasn't so great. i've been told that is 80% of assignments, so i suppose it was good to learn.

since i'll be on the plane for hours and hours, i need some good music. any suggestions?

so much hot

its so hot. for such a long time this spring i kept saying, "what nice weather we're having! this is incredible for north carolina in may!"

i am now eating my words. the first week into june has felt like july 4. its absolutely sweltering.

so what do newspapers report on during weather extremes?

the weather extremes! so three times in the last 6 days i have taken pictures related to the heat wave. day 1 and 2 i struck gold with a story about a farm in chapel hill that hoses down their horses to keep them cool. (as sandra has requested pictures, i will link them here, but also post below)





today one of my editors told me he has made a conscious effort the last few days to not assign me heat pictures. thanks matthew!

yesterday the trouble i ran into was FINDING people outside in the heat. who stays outside when its 102 degrees?

after a few hours of driving/walking around/sweating off 10 pounds, i found some delightful ladies at a garden center in carrboro who were most helpful and seemed virtually immune to the heat. barbara told me that when she goes home at night she puts on long sleeves and sweatpants because her house feels so cold after being in the heat all day. good gracious.

good news: thailand will probably be even hotter than this.

oh bloggy blog blog blog. i was reading somewhere today how we plaster our whole lives on the internet and are then amazed that our privacy does not remain intact. how much the world has changed...

also reading somewhere else about generation y (that would be me, and probably most of you reading) and how they (we) have never known life without computers.

NOT TRUE. i remember before our family had a computer and my dad would bring home his "laptop" (the size of a microwave) from work and we'd play solitaire. then we got our first MS-DOS machine with elmo's farm, all in black and white, where we'd push dump trucks around and feed chickens DOS pellets for hours.

and here i am blogging on my couch with a sleek silver machine, connected to a superhighway that can broadcast my words far and wide in the blink of an eye, to the remotest places that i may never even see.

wild.

well, as this is a practical rather than philosophical blog, i'll return to updates on life in journalism.

last week was intern orientation aka learning company software, ethics policies, meeting the bigwigs, hearing about the perils of the industry and how its taking a nosedive, and most importantly, learning our way around the labyrinth that is the news & observer bureau.

if there was an anthrax spill in the air vents and we had to run to the safety of the streets, i don't know if i could find my way out alive, but there are some very interesting nooks and crannies on the way out.

first off, shout out and props to judson, who works in the graphics department, for having a really sweet office and sitting on a yoga ball instead of a chair. if ever i have a job that requires me to have an office (which i hope i don't) i want to be just like you and have a yoga ball as a chair. what judson doesn't know is that after all the interns left the office, we commented on how he probably does crunches on the yoga ball when no one is in there. multipurpose, multi-tasking. its what journalists do best. go judson.

also saw what is known as the morgue, or where the computers go to die, and also where they keep dead papers. aka papers that are older than today. so whenever i am published and my mom and grandma want copies, i go to the morgue. it is as morgue-ish as it sounds.

actually the entire building is rather dark and dank and creepy. it was apparantly built in the 50s and some think it is a prime example of modern architecture. in my opinion, the 50s and 60s produced some of the worst architecture known to man. did they know about windows then?

anyhow, i've had some interesting assignments lately and "been driving a lot" as robert goulet likes to say. its true. i have been driving. a lot. some days i put in nearly 200 miles.

last week i helped cover this child abuse trial in smithfield, which is an hour and a half away. all day i sat in the media balcony with various news stations and travis, who did video and transmitted, and listened to testimony from the defendent's adopted children about the technique and frequency of the abuse. so depressing. then i drove all the way home with those thoughts in my head and then went to work and was in a bad mood.

how do you distance yourself from these things? is there some kind of firewall i can erect to prevent my soul being permeated by misery and the terrible things that people do to each other? and is there a way to do that temporarily like an on/off switch so i can just keep it up while i work? how permeable does that wall need to be in order for me to make an effective photo and connect with my subject?

photography is exciting and can lead to a rewarding career, but it definitely comes with mega wear and tear physically and emotionally. i know a photographer in his 20s who has already had knee surgery. and what about the countless journalists who have divorces because what they see and experience changes them beyond the understanding of their spouse? how do i avoid all this? can i?

today i got sent out feature hunting, which as i said is 85% of the job. waiting for news to happen and trying to make good pictures in the meantime. i didn't have to drive far (for once) to find something interesting, but little did i know that my editors would find it THAT interesting.

i went to a horse farm in the country, beautiful place. i saw two white arabian horses in the shade, and thought what a nice picture it would make. driving a little further i saw a foal rolling in the dust and thought he must be trying to cool off. since i was instructed to look for pictures of people cooling off, i took some interpretive license and took some of animals cooling off. the editors liked them so much they told me to go back and take more tomorrow so that they may run front in a few days.

its funny, the things i think aren't a big deal at all end up being important... always. life lessons in journalism.

aaaand i'm back to philosophical.

potato cannon physics

this assignment has definitely been the most fun so far. again, a 3B picture (or pictures? i never saw saturday's paper), but there's also a gallery online.

potato cannon

i wish i had gone to DSA.

day 6

today is day SIX at the news & observer. last week, the week of welcomes and first assignments, feels like a long, long time ago. i've learned so much and really feel like my time here is valuable, though a bit slow.

the thing is, you have to WAIT for news to happen. and if its not happening, you go out and follow your nose until you find something. thats 95% of what i've been doing. mornings i come in and read the news, see if my picture is in the paper, check to see what they did to the caption, and then check my email, look at some quality photos/multimedia online, get some lunch, and then maybe an hour or two before i leave, i'll get a photo.

thats a typical day. today i'm in the office, blogging. i figured i should update the masses on what i've been doing so far.

i was surprised to come in last thursday and see my first picture published on 3B. since then, i feel like 3B has become "my" spot. i've been published 3 times since then, so 4 of my images have made it into the paper all together. since the papers have already come out, i think i'm allowed to post them. these are original edits, but once i turned them in, editors altered them...

and here are some outtakes:

they refer to these as "slice of life" photos... just whats up, whats going on around town, what people are doing, where the moments are.

going out and making pictures is the highlight of my day, and the reason i am here this summer. but inbetween these, i have conversations with the people that work here day and day out, some of them for 25+ years. i have a mentor and he tells me the nitty gritty of the industry, but also encourages me to try new things, to use my nose, to look for good stories and dig to make them better. i tell him my ideas and he says they're great and ambitious and encourages me to go after them.

its nice to have a coach, cheerleader, and teacher all in one.

day 1s and welcomes

welcome.

i heard that word so much today and didn't realize how much it could mean to me and how truly welcomed i could feel. i started a new job as the photo intern at the News & Observer in Raleigh, one of the largest papers in North Carolina. its a super opportunity and i feel really honored to be there. its almost like a real job... today was day 1 and if its any indication of the norm, i think i'm really going to enjoy and be challenged by my time on McDowell street this summer.

and as this is a new blog, i felt i should extend the welcome to readers. i needed a new blog... or i felt like i did since all my friends who are having experiences abroad this summer are blogging them. so the purpose of my blog shall also be to chronicle my experiences not only in the field for the N&O but also as i travel to Thailand, mid-june through mid-july.

as for the title... naming things is so hard! dogs, cars (never have understood naming inanimate objects though), babies... names are hard to pick. so i recently brainstormed some title ideas during a meeting during which i was supposed to pay attention, but lost focus and chose not to. i decided on one word: closer.

"closer" speaks to several different things:

1) legendary war photography robert capa once said, "if your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." i try to take this to heart when shooting any assignment or personal work and try to push the envelope. for one who is naturally reserved, this is a difficult task, but the results are always better if i do. so "closer" is about moving physically closer to the subject, but also emotionally and intuitively... taking time to understand the issue, to build rapport, to establish trust and create a relationship.

2) "closer" refers to depth, proximity. to know the heart of something, of someone, you have to get closer. to find the gems, you must dig, you must get closer, close to the mother lode, to what you've been looking for all your life. if i distance myself, i'll miss out.

so hopefully "closer" will become a definition of my life, of my way of living and interacting, not just because of this blog, but because i must constantly foster curiosity, tenacity, and passion.

first day pics coming soon...

on a quick ps... i'm currently listening to the greatest playlist of this year... songs all given to me via mix cds for my birthday last week. so good. my friends have great taste in music. here you can see...

also included is my latest feel-good song, benny & the jets. how can you not sing along?