The Day Before Independence Day Photos

I am at a bit of a loss as to what to say about these photos taken on July 3rd, 2014.  Environmental still life is what I would call this.  But it does not need a name.

Clearly, you can see that there was a bit of post-production work going on.  This is my preferred rendering of the photographs that I create.  Enjoy.

So, Now That I have Graduated…

Back on Saturday, June 14^th 2014, I graduated from California State University, San Bernardino with a BA in studio art (photography) and a minor in business administration.  All that with honors, mind you.  I just love saying that.  The really cool thing that a friend pointed out to me was that back in 1980 on June 14^th, we (we went to high school together) graduated from James Logan High School – again on a Saturday.  There must be a meaning behind that.  Just the same, 34 years and I finally got my bachelor’s degree is a good thing.  Though I spent 20 years in the Army in the middle of those 34 years and a bunch of other stuff, I have always been going to school.  I think I have enough units for another degree if I really pushed it but I’m happy with what I have but now what?  Since one of those super awesome careers didn’t fall into my lap, I guess I need to create one on my own.  But I’m always open to one falling in my lap.

American Photo on Campus, February 2013

This is a reprint from American Photo on Campus, February 2013.  I did it because I feel it is very important to understand what Ms. Leuchter is saying.

Editor’s Note

“Reluctantly, Some Advice”

            We don’t usually offer much advice in American Photo on Campus, hoping to teach more by example than by prescription.  But I couldn’t resist asking three of the photographers profiled in this issue to share their suggestions for students looking to launch a career in photography.

Matt Eich, who fuels his photojournalism and fine-art projects with commercial assignments (see “Triple Threat,” page 38), turned pro just a few years ago while still an undergrad at Ohio University.  “It is strange to start working while you’re still a student,” he told me when I asked about what that was like.  “I feel like ‘school’ really only began after I graduated – I was still in a bit of a bubble until then.  The best thing I did when I was in school was to pursue personal work and put it out into the world in its best possible form, then to go back and keep improving it.  That is how I first started getting work and exposure.”

And that personal work should be truly personal, says Marc Asnin, who started his seminal project Uncle Charlie when he was at the School of Visual Arts in the 1980s.  “Whatever you go to produce, it has to be something you really believe in – don’t let the marketplace affect your own vision,” he told writer Lori Fredrickson for her story “Document of the Lifetime” (page 16).

That’s not to say that the work you get hired to do isn’t important.  In fact, it will do more for you than just help pay the bills.  Asnin urges students to think of every job not as a stepping stone to something bigger but as an opportunity to lean.  His own internship at the Village Voice toughened him up for future work: “Getting thrown down a set of stairs the night of a state election and being chased down the street by a member of the Genovese crime family taught me to be fearless.”

Artist, teacher, and writer Tema Stauffer emphasizes the importance of participation in the community of photographers both in person and online.  As an emerging pro, she wrote to artists and writers whose work she admired, in the process developing lasting relationships with many of them.  We asked her to record a conversation with one of these mentors, Victoria Sambunaris, which you can read in “On the Road,” page 8.

One last piece of advice from the trenches: “The sooner you can start treating photography as a business, the better,” says Eich.  “Don’t rely on one client; diversify your sources of income.  It’s not enough to be talented or creative – you also have to be creative with how you manage your business.”  Echoing a mentor of his own, he adds, “As one of my college professors, Julie Elman, would always say, ‘Dare to suck.’”

Miriam Leuchter, Editor-in-Chief

February 2013

The entire issue is interesting and informative so you should check it out if you can.  And this is a photograph I liked that I took last year.  It has nothing to do with the above article outside of being a photograph.

Identity, dot, dot, dot

Here is the flyer for an upcoming show at California State University, San Bernardino.  And I have a few prints in the show too.  Nice…

Disability Sports Festival, CSUSB

In the spring of 2011, I began attending California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB).  I had a major and a minor which was studio art, concentration photography.  By the fall quarter of 2011, I had just a major – studio art, photography.  And I was in my first photography class at CSUSB.  It was documentary photography.  And like the first time I took a photography class (way back in Texas in 2009), I quickly learned how much I didn’t know all over again.  The disability sports festival is an annual event at CSUSB and it was our class’ first assignment.  I took hundreds of frames and the majority were done in the classic documentary style.  But these are among my favorites and they are far more artistic than documentary.  And it was the first time I was experimenting with “the movement blur” (or too slow of a shutter speed for what you’re trying to photograph) as a style.  Enjoy.

This shot is my favorite among the bunch.  It’s so crazily dramatic.

California State University, San Bernardino

There is nothing much to this entry, just a part of the campus at California State University, San Bernardino.  This is where I go to school and in particularly this is the Visual Arts building.  I spend a lot of time here.  I think I mentioned before that my major is photography.  I took these with my point and shoot – PowerShot A540.  I shot this last summer right after finals and I was done with my first quarter at Cal State.  I think I was just happy to be back in school since we left Texas almost a year earlier.  Ok, have a look.