Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Schooling Kids in Rock 'n' Roll

School of Rock in Watertown, Mass. This music school is pretty much exactly like the Jack Black movie. Reporting for this was pretty fun - I always enjoy assignments with a built-in soundtrack.

The audio slideshow was fun to produce, too, though after editing this I'll be happy if I go a year without hearing Billy Joel's "Pressure" again.

There are a few things I'd change with my 20/20 hindsight, but I'm happy with the final product and I encourage your viewership. It's straightforward and fun, like a KidSpot should be. Follow the link, check out Amy's article, and hit the play button on the guitars!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Wanted: More Science and Math Teachers














Photographed a science classroom in New Bedford to accompany an education story. The students were working from the overhead projector and all the lights were off. I did my best with the D200 and steady hands at 1/15 and was pretty pleased with the results, but several were too dark or grainy to salvage. Situations like this will be so much easier once I get that faster lens.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Compulsory, like a thunderstorm

Some portraits of my lovely friends during recent holiday celebrations.

Lindsey
Lindsey, getting ready for Tani's cocktail-attire Christmas party. She looks like a painting.

aaron
Aaron, drinking some stuff Tani mulled out of a mug.

Tani
Tani in front of bokeh from her Christmas tree.

Ariel
Ari, chatting on the phone and being generally adorable in front of some Andy Warhol pictures in her apartment during her early Chanukah brunch

Disinterested

Jamie and Ari, lounging and looking like uninterested* models in window light.
(*uninterested is different from disinterested.)

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.
Garrison Keillor

Photo published in a nat'l news magazine where I don't intern!


CSMonitor syndicates our work through Getty, and Time Magazine bought my gas pumping photo for their web site. It published with an editorial suggesting higher gas taxes. I found it when I got a misdirected email from someone who strongly disagreed with the editorial. He thought the photograph was excellent, though.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Boston weather's pretty gross these days.

I miss autumn.

imissautumn

Minnesota Obama Volunteer

Vince King didn't see a black person until he turned 12. Now a lawyer in St. Paul, Minnesota, he volunteered as a "foot soldier" for the Obama campaign in the weeks leading up to the election. In an interview, he talked about Obama's unique ability to help him connect with black people and others in his community who he wouldn't have met otherwise:



Photos, audio by Sarah Beth Glicksteen. Edited with help from Alfredo Sosa.

I've been holding onto this one for a while, finally got a chance to share. The dinner table conversations I had with the father of my friend I stayed with during my Twin Cities trip were so interesting, I wanted to interview him 'on the record'. I shot this one afternoon, thinking there might be space for it in the Monitor's election day video. It didn't quite fit, but makes a nice short portrait on its own. Enjoy!

Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Ten Thousand Things Project

Ten Thousand Things theatre production of Twelfth Night in St. Paul, Minnesota on CSMonitor.com.

Article by Matt Shaer, photos and audio slideshow by me.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

BAAM: Radical Caroling, for Holiday Shoppers

Here's a second edit of the package I produced for our last radio class. I wanted to put it up today, while it's still timely.

It's from the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement's rehearsal for their annual tradition of radical caroling. BAAM, or those I've met, are a lively and open group of friendly people. Always a pleasure to do my homework in front of a wood-burning stove at a vegan potluck. Listen and decide for yourself, but I kinda dug their message.

Also, a couple quick google searches didn't show any other news outlets reporting on anything similar. Breaking news from SBG!

One of the newscasters introduced it on WTBU with this script I wrote:
Heading to Newbury Street or the Prudential Center to start your holiday shopping this Friday? Well, some local anarchists want you to think twice about consumer culture. And they're making a whole song and dance about it. WTBU's Sarah Beth Glicksteen has the story.


(Press play above to listen.)

He came with the name. It's important to me that you don't think that I come from the kind of family that would name our dog Buddy.

I ask, rhetorically: What is the point of having a photo blog if not to post cute/silly pictures of my dog?

Buddy and I went out to the beach to hang out for Thanksgiving. I think of Thanksgiving beach trips as a tradition. Usually my dad comes too but he said it was too cold (at 70 degrees) and was too busy being boring/playing Wii. He doesn't consider the beach a Thanksgiving tradition, but thinks it's funny that I do. I just took the dog instead. My dad warned me that Buddy's not really into walking too far in his old age. With the way my knee's been feeling lately, that was fine with me.


We made friends with the guy and dog you see playing fetch in the upper right.



"Co-Pilot". My dad thinks this photo really captures Buddy's personality. He appears to be looking for the most annoying place he could possibly sit.



(Vignette added post-prod.) Buddy 's totally bored by video games but did you see how happy he looked at the beach? This is purely projection, mind you...



Dad and Glenda like playing on this thing, but again, Buddy's totally bored. I admit it's pretty cool, but considering I can hardly do the 2 minutes of balance they ask of me at Physical Therapy, standing on this thing long enough to "ski downhill" or "head soccer balls while avoiding panda bears and cleats flying at me" is not too much fun.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Front page photo for real

I photographed people pumping $2/gallon gas for a Monitor story yesterday morning in the freezing cold. It was kind of awkward to lock my bike near a gas station and walk up to it with my camera, but not really a problem. Everyone I talked to was in a good mood because of the low prices, and the photos came out fine. They were up on entry to the homepage and also on the front page of the print edition-- jury's out on which is more exciting.

I asked about copyright to post entire pages where my photos appear in print to my blog, which opened up a huge can of worms. If you happen to be near a newspaper box that has the Monitor in it, at least take a peek, because my front page photo actually ran bigger in print than it did online! Also stay tuned for news on how this blog will look in the future. For now here's a screen shot of csmonitor.com from earlier today when my photo (which appeared on an inside page with the jump of the story in print) was up on entry. Click through to read the story and see my cover photo. Pretty boring assignment, but seeing my byline on the cover of a national newspaper is cool no matter how you look at it.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

ReUse Center, Minneapolis, MN

The first of the stories I shot in the Twin Cities ran a little while ago. It was an Environment story about stores that sell salvaged and donated building materials, like the Re-Use Center in Minneapolis. My two favorite photos weren't chosen for print or web, so I decided to post them here.

You should also read Matt Shaer's article and see the photos that ran online.



This is Jamie Heipel, the executive director of the Green Institute. This portrait ran in print and online. He says Re-Use Center has kept 41,000 tons of waste out of landfills. Cool guy, huh?


Above is builder Jason Decheine, who was at the Re-Use Center buying a door for a renovation client. Jeremy Maxwell-Parish, the employee in red, helped him choose a door that he could modify to fit the opening.



Jeremy and Jason proceeded to dig through a corrugated box of assorted metal items until they found a this complete doorknob to fit the door. In the end, the builder paid $25. Customizing a door for the space would have cost over $250 otherwise, and this Victorian-style door that they estimated is from the 20's or 30's would have just gone to a landfill. The donor gets a tax deduction, everyone leaves happy!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Milkman dry milk



I staged & shot this in the studio to go with a HoFo essay about this exact brand of milk-- apparently the writer is quite nostalgic for it. We didn't have to track it down because he mailed us the box of it himself. I mixed and scattered Shaw's brand instant milk for effect. I got to borrow a D3 and 50mm 1.4 lens from the other intern, Ann Hermes, which really rocked this shoot. But we all know it's not the camera it's the photographer .

I wouldn't have bothered posting a boring studio shoot except that I got the sweetest email from the writer, who said the photo was "Absolutely fabulous".

College applicants, bigger.

I just downloaded all the choices I sent in to see if I wanted to post a different one to the blog than the one that published, but I agree that this is the best. What a pleasure to work with great editors.



Crunch time: Ayo Yayo (foreground), on a campus tour at the University of Massachusetts Boston, is considering transferring in to cut tuition costs. Dylan Begin (center) is also considering transferring in from a private school, which would reduce college loans, says his mother, Alice Gentili (right).
Me/The Christian Science Monitor


Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Frontpage photo



A photo I shot yesterday is on the front page of CSMonitor. "Above the fold," if you will.

Not breaking news, just a campus tour to go with a related news story about prospective students in the financial crisis, but I was happy that I managed to turn it into a pretty good picture. Alfredo said on a normal day it would have gone on the front page in print tomorrow, too, but another staffer in Colorado filed something awesome for the lead story. More soon...

Monday, October 13, 2008

Fall Foliage Searching Adventure Part I



This photo I took during a fall foliage viewing drive to Vermont published with a Home Forum essay about fall foliage in Vermont.

It looked really great in print, I ought to ask permission to publish a PDF of the page on my blog.

Honk!Fest bands at Oktoberfest in Harvard Square

Many of the activist marching bands from the Honk! festival in Somerville on Saturday performed in Harvard Square for Oktoberfest the following day as well. I was excited to have the day before Columbus day off. We don't publish on holidays so I got a "real weekend". These bands were so much fun and I shot tons of photos. I also recorded audio. And I danced a little bit, too.

They keep a flickr group so that the bands and other folks can see all the photos that were taken, so I played along, joined, shared. You can see MY photos in a slideshow of a very loose edit (read: lots of 'em) below.




Other places that might interest you now:
Read what Honk!Fest says about itself here.
See everything tagged honk!fest2008 on flickr.

Finding Nemo In Rhode Island


Alicia Lenci holds up a butterflyfish she caught while snorkeling off the coast of Rhode Island. (Me!/The Christian Science Monitor)

Check out the audio slideshow I did on tropical fish that follow the Gulf Stream north-- I photographed these "gulf stream orphans" off the coast of Rhode Island, and the folks who collect them. There are plenty of things I would have changed had time permitted, but I'm not unhappy with the final product as it was published. Hit play below or read the full article here.




I shot tons of photos for this; 3 ran in print here, and 4 ran in the int'l edition. I'm also doing a voiceover myself and re-editing the audio to make a package for my radio class. You might see this stuff in the future as well, but check this out for now.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Promised Caryopteris

This is a Caryopteris. I shot it to accompany a first-person essay about the fact that this is the only true-blue flower, not purple-blue or blue-purple. All of the photos I found on photo agency sites were too purple so I biked out to the Arnold Arboretum in JP to find this one. It was the bluest one I could find. What can you do?

See it the one that published with the article here: http://features.csmonitor.com/gardening/2008/09/30/amid-fall-hues-a-splash-of-blue/

And a few of my other picks that didn't run:








I thought the bee was kinda cool, but I guess it distracted from the story.

All taken on a sunny fall day at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University in Jamaica Plain, Mass.

Ho Fo Fo Toes

Here are some Bison Albondigas, buffalo meatball tapas that I shot to go with an article on restaurants' preference for local meat that was published in The Home Forum on Wednesday.


I staged and shot them in our tiny studio. I found some burlap at the bottom of a cabinet where we keep camera equipment. The cloth is actually Kendra Nordin's scarf (the reporter who wrote the article and cooked these). I haven't really done studio work or food photography before and frankly it was kind of challenging to make meatballs look appealing. Anyway, I managed to pull this off in about twenty minutes. I think it's pretty good.

The recipe's attached to the article if you've got a hankering.


Saturday, September 20, 2008

(Un)exciting

Here's the first photo I had published in the Christian Science Monitor through my internship.


Exciting because, hey, it's my first photo published in the Monitor!

Unexciting because, hey, it's a pretty boring photo. Television through your Blu-ray is pretty innovative, but not exactly what I'd call a visual story.

I was actually out shooting something else and I remembered we had a story coming up about Blu-Ray and I shot this quick portrait of Nick Bernard with display in Border's at Downtown Crossing. It was better than the archive photos we had from the wires shot in a Best Buy so we used it.

Stay tuned for more CSMonitor assignments: Buffalo meatballs, Caryopteris, and tropical fish hunting in Rhode Island.

Jessy, owner of Yellow Cab Co, Cincinnati, Ohio



I had a nice ride with Jessy, who drove me to the Cincinnati airport in Kentucky at the end of August. He had this fantastic classic cab driver hat and he wore a yellow uniform. He owned a small cab company with about 15 drivers and he said he couldn't manage to convince anyone who worked for him to wear a uniform. He likes it, though, so he wears it himself every day. And the hat: he bought it on ebay.

In other news, since this is a photo blog I'm going to be making the photos bigger within the entries. There's always been an option to click the photo to see it bigger but I like this better.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

a good journey under a pleasant sun

Photos coming soon, I know it's been a while.

In the meantime, a quote from the beginning of a book that I'm really getting into (thanks, Grandpa!)

"Perhaps there is no meaning in it all, the thought went on inside me, save that of journey itself, so far as men can see. It has altered with the chances of life, and the chances brought us here; but it was a good journey--long, perhaps--but a good journey under a pleasant sun. Do not look for the purpose. Think of the way we came and be a little proud. Think of this hand--the utter pain of its first venture on the pebbly shore.
Or consider its later wanderings."

- Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Camel Wins Free Timbuk2 Bag

So, I'm not big on "stuff", per se, but there is this company out of San Francisco that makes really tough, reliable messenger bags that are great for hauling gear around (comfy, waterproof, etc.) They're a little expensive for the student budget (probably on account of being high-quality, built in the US, and cleverly marketed). My grandma got me one for Chanukah over a year ago and it's been all over the world (once during my travels during and post-study abroad, once with Maddy when she went on Int'l Honors Program). Anyway, I digress-- this is a photo blog after all, not a gear blog. When I heard they (Timbuk2, the bag company) had a travel photo contest "tell us the best place your bag has been" to win a free bag ($200 value!) I got really psyched and looked back at photos I had of some adventures.

I took several photos and tried photoshopping my bag into it as a good creative exercise (the contest encouraged this). I'm pretty good with Photoshop when it comes to anything I'd need it for in a journalistic assignment, but when it comes to things like adding and removing objects from photos or doing other unethical or borderline-ethical alterations, I have little to no experience. Suffice it to say, none of the ones I photoshopped my bag into turned out to be anything special, but I did have a photo of my bag on a camel during a desert excursion Emily and I took in Morocco last summer which turned out to be exactly what they were looking for--



I had some better photos of the camel (I'll probably put them here later, just for fun) and of the trip, but this one showed the bag the best. Read their blog entry about my bag, it's really great. Plus I just noticed this button on their front page linking to the contest: they made a graphic of a camel in the 3 colors of my bag. Awesome. Such clever folks in the Bay Area...

Friday, August 8, 2008

Coheed and Cambria review

They published my review of the concert. Kind of cool. Stay tuned for photos & commentary. Also, I'm in Sarasota for the weekend, so expect some neat stuff from here soon as well.

Hope you're well! I know no one comments, but I've convinced myself I've got a readership of sorts...

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Coheed & Cambria

For now I'm just going to post a link to my album of Coheed and Cambria photos from last night. I figure I ought to review the T-U's blogging policy with the community entertainment editor before I post my favorite picks and commentary.

I'll edit this post within a day or two. But until then, check out the album!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Carry & Conceal video on Jacksonville.com

I actually finished editing this video on a concealed weapons permit class at a gun show about a week ago. It was supposed to run alongside a story on the second amendment ruling that kept getting pushed back. I thought the reporter was going to do a voiceover about halfway through to link some of the parts together, and, looking at it now, not all of the visuals make total sense. I think it's still a decent piece-- there are a couple of things I would change if I had endless amounts of time but I think I did a pretty good job with what I had to work with.

This was the most challenging video edit I've had all summer for a number of reasons. Luckily each of those reasons taught me something useful or valuable, either about editing or shooting. Also, the head videographer at the T-U looked it over before publishing it and gave me this really great and genuine-feeling compliment, saying how impressed she was at how I'd put it together to make a logical storyline. She knew it was tough. That felt good.



It's basically self-explanatory but I did want to make two notes-- If you can't read the writing on the sign with the picture of Barack Obama in the first clip, it says "He's coming... buy one now while you still can!" Also, please note the pun in the very last clip (after the credits).

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Ain't gonna get no better

I've been fighting an awful cold and also wrestling with the best way to tell this story. For the moment and for the purposes of this blog, however, I'll explain a bit, add a couple additional photos and then stick with the audio slideshow I posted a couple of days ago.

Of course Molly got a flat tire and we didn't get around to fixing it until about 7 p.m. on Monday, when we were due back in Jacksonville the following day (I had an MRI scheduled for 6:45 a.m.!) because if not, it wouldn't have been an adventure. And, of course*, the only place open was this used tire place on Felicity Ave. that we drove past twice before realizing that it was the place the mechanic at the closing auto shop across town had recommended if Wal-mart couldn't help us out, which, not having a tire dept, it turned out they couldn't.



Directly across the street from the tire place was Greater Full Gospel Church, where Pastor "Dr." Leonard Banks sat preaching the good word into a microphone to be amplified down the entire block. In the 20 or so minutes we were around, most of the people I saw just walked on by and ignored him. I even talked to one person who said he usually avoids this street when they're outside preaching. But there was one man you'll see in the slideshow, head leaned back against the passenger seat in a pick-up truck listening to the sermon and looking totally at peace.

I recorded audio most of the time we were waiting to get the car fixed, but decided to track this with a clip I recorded while we walked to the ATM around the corner (cash-only, of course, of course). You'll hear sounds from the tire shop, of us and other people walking on the sidewalk, and of the Pastor, who was very kind and welcomed us, blessing me over his intercom several times for taking pictures and asking that I photograph his sign. Listen closely about 11 seconds from the end and you'll hear a young man walking past us on the sidewalk say, "Beautiful ladies, how y'all doin?" partly because it's NOLA where everyone talks to everyone and partly because we are such beautiful ladies...





I'm pretty happy with the slideshow given the quite limited amount of time I had to shoot and gather audio. Next time in New Orleans, I'd love to go more in-depth with this story. For example, I would have loved an interview with the pick-up truck churchgoer, but not enough to interrupt the sermon. He looked too much at peace, and we were running late.

Molly's tiny, fixed car, ready for our drive back to Jacksonville.


*If you wonder why I say 'of course' regarding these things, you should try traveling more often.

Friday, July 25, 2008

15 Minutes of Fame

One great thing about our hosts in New Orleans was that their 15-year-old son (also Patrick) loves to play music. The second they found out my traveling companion Molly loves to sing, they invited her to sing with him and some other local musicians that very night during a "15 Minutes of Fame" event at a great coffee house called Neutral Ground.


He's been playing guitar since Katrina, and his mom talked about how shocked she was that neighbors and members of the music community just kept giving him their old instruments without them having to buy it. He's a young performer, but I never saw him without a guitar. I hope he makes it big.

They'd never played together so before the performance they sneaked off to practice outside. Molly read the lyrics to Amazing Grace on the internet on someone's cell phone screen. They did it to the tune of "The House of the Rising Sun". They had an incredible sound, very moving. The photos don't capture it nearly as well as the recorded audio from their rehearsal and performance.

Listen to the rehearsal by pushing play:




Everyone sat on comfy chairs and couches and listened to them play. It was like being in a friend's living room. Strangers introduced themselves and shared couches with strangers. That kind of place.

Listen to the performance:




Full disclosure: it's possible that I'm jumping to conclusions. But I love this photo because it appears that our musician friend here is trying to chat up a pretty young lady at the coffee house. The light on her is great and they both look a little nervous, but totally unaware of my camera. One of those timeless moments, and, again, from Patrick's point of view. The only part of their conversation I overheard was them exchanging names, but I do wish him the best of luck with both the music and the ladies.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Some Dogs Whose Names I Forget.

When we first walked up to the house of our New Orleanian hosts (see last post), this little guy was standing in front of the big one, between his legs, and I about melted. Of course I couldn't get my camera out fast enough and they didn't do this cute thing again during our entire stay but I still got some fun shots whenever I could keep them far away enough from me to focus. Such friendly dogs.


Sorry, but I've got to indulge in a tiny bit of projection/anthropomorphism. That little dog reminds me of myself when I'm pretending to be tall-- I stick my nose in the air, extend my neck as far as it will go, and puff out my chest. And that big dog is totally smiling. He knows he won the height contest, and he was barely trying.

I've had a theory in the works since sharing a city with snobby Parisian dogs, that dogs' friendliness is proportional with that of their owners. Thoughts?


At my birthday party in March, Dominick Reuter and I passed his camera back and forth shooting goofy photos of my friends. By the end of the night the only way you could tell who'd shot which photo was that his were all from a much higher perspective (kid is a couple of feet taller than I am.) Point being: I've been trying lately to get my camera off my face so that all my pictures aren't from the same perspective. For this and the last one I held the camera at about knee-height, and got this guy to look up at me.


This is not an example of the effort I just explained, but I was playing with what Bruce Lipsky told me-- this photo has a clear point of view (my face!)



I call this one "Role Model". It'd dedicated to my mentor, former TA, former editor, and close friend, Ms. Phoebe Anne Sexton. I assume she likes friendly dogs.