Competitions Entered this semester. 12/03/09. John Cameron.

This semester I entered the Virginia Museum of fine Arts Fellowship, the 30th Annual College Photography Contest, and also the www.photoenter.com contest.

For the VMFA Fellowship I entered all of the images (8) and the prize is a $4000 dollar grant.

www.vmfa.state.va.us/LearnMoreArtists.html

For the 30th Annual College Photography Contest, I entered; Exposure Balls, The Kick, Required, Energy and Experienced. Winners will be published in the May 2010 Photographer's Forum Magazine, cash Grants, and also the chance to win a Nikon D90. www.pfmagazine.com/Contest.aspx

For the www.photoenter.com contest, I entered; Required, and Energy. This is a week to week contest and winners receive a prize of 50 dollars.

Dunk, Digital Photograph. 2009. 20"x30" - John Cameron

Exposure Balls, Digital Photograph. 2009. 20"x30" - John Cameron

The kick, Digital Photograph. 2009. 20"x30" - John Cameron

Aced, Digital Photograph. 2009. 20"x30" - John Cameron

Required, Digital Photograph. 2009. 20"x30" - John Cameron

Energy, Digital Photograph. 2009. 20"x30" - John Cameron

Experienced, Digital Photograph. 2009. 20"x30" - John Cameron

Broken, Digital Photograph. 2009. 16"x20" - John Cameron

John Cameron. 12/02/09. Idea/Concept Blog

This week I'm going to get into a little self portrait work. I usually shoot photographs of my friends, but with finals in the minds of everyone, photo shoots aren't what they want to do. Next week is going to be a little slower for everyone, so I'll photograph some friends then. I'm also going to bring in an old photograph that I took earlier this year. I originally thought that I had to turn in 7 photographs, but just found out that I have to hand in 10.

We Want You, Digital Photograph. 2009. 20"x30" by John Cameron

I gave it a quick edit, but I'm gonna go back in and re-edit it and maybe give it another background. I wanted to give it a look where it related to recruiting. Recruiting is big for our team, and I totally feel as though they are both saying the "we want you!" type deal.

My idea for the self portrait work is to relate it around basketball. I played basketball a lot when I was younger, but now, I don't have as much time for it, as I play Rugby so much. I'm 6'6" so basketball is really fun for me as I have an advantage. I want to show myself in a photographing stance with a camera, and then have myself in the photo again with a pose as though I was getting my own photo taken by a photographer. Something I haven't done much before. I have done self portraits, like this one below, but I was in a move/action. I want to show the shoot, and show how I would be in a photo shoot. It's gonna be fun, and I know it's going to be a good image.

Dunk, Digital Photograph, 2009, 13"x19" by John Cameron

Artist Lecture - Jonathan Rosenbaum. John Cameron 10/14/09

Jonathan Rosenbaum

I needed one more artist lecture for my class this semester, and I was left with one last available visiting artist before the due date on Thursday. The visiting artist came for the VCUarts Cinema program and I thoroughly enjoyed the lecture. Jonathan Rosenbaum is a very well known film critic and he is known as one of the best in the country. The Grace street theatre had a good crowd, and I think everyone realized that it was a big event. When I was in the lecture, I was trying to find similarities with photography and cinema, and I didn't really need to find anything. It all came so easily. Jonathan showed a short film titled "The Last Jew In the World". All I focused on was the scene, the angle of the camera, and the close up shot on the man's face shown. This is where I saw a photograph. I also saw the similarity between setting up a scene that both photography and cinema create. Jonathan is now in his 60's, and has been a film critic pretty much since he was a child. He mentioned how his Grandfather built cinemas back in the early 1900's, so he was always watching films.

Moving Places, A Life at the Movies, With a New Introduction - By Jonathan Rosenbaum

Jonathan Rosenbaum worked for the Chicago Reader for many years and he retired last year. He is now a freelance film critic and he has his own website. www.jonathanrosenbaum.com . Jonathan published and edited many books and I have two images of his covers.

In the lecture, Jonathan went on to talk about how he was asked to nominate five of the best films from last year. His main point was that he nominated three films that were unknown and were not in any major exhibitions. He wanted to point out that the best work isn't always in exhibitions and that you have to really search to find new interesting work. I took this in as a solid statement and I totally agree with him. I related it to myself by saying if I want to find new techniques, then maybe I shouldn't look in all of my favorite magazines, but maybe try a new style of research.

Essential Cinema - On the Necessity of Film Canons - By Jonathan Rosenbaum

He also went on to talk about a question that he never asks himself. It was "what do you look for in a film?". He said that he hates this question. He felt as though if he was to have guidelines of what he wanted in a film, then it would make his film watching experience negative. He didn't want to go into a film telling himself what is right and what is wrong. Rather go into a film and judge whether it was good or bad just like anyone else. I related this to photography with critiques. Where if I was to critique someone's work, then I wouldn't want to have those same guidelines he talked about. Rather judge if I like the photograph or if I don't like it. I took a few film classes and I really enjoyed them and learned a lot. It was cool to see how the cinema students get lectures just like our photography department also.

Artist Lecture - Kevin Morley. John Cameron 12/01/09

Looking over Richmond Skyline from James River. Digital Photograph. By Kevin Morley

Kevin Morley is a staff photographer for the Richmond Times Dispatch Newspaper. I went to the Times Dispatch building for a another one of my classes, and he spoke for over an hour on how he lives life as a photographer, and also how he takes photographs. Kevin is a considered a photojournalist and he talked about the differences between freelance photographers and photojournalists. An example of this was saying that as a photojournalist, you are given hours to work each week, and as a freelance photographer, you have to make up your own hours.

By Kevin Morley

He then talked about how he has to take photographs of all kinds of things. Working for a newspaper makes him travel all around the state. If something crazy happens, the newspaper is expected to go to the scene, take a photograph and write up a story about it. So this photograph above, is an example of what he was talking about. This photograph is of a public restroom, that was voted one of the top public restrooms in the country. Crazy stories like this is what he has to do. But he also mentioned that it can be rough at times because he is trying to photograph scenes, where some people may think he should not be there. Say if he was photographing a funeral, someone might think it's wrong that he is photographing the people who are at a loss. To defend this, Kevin took a photograph of a young boy at a funeral, standing next to his father's coffin, who had passed away from the War in Iraq. This image was spread all over the news, and a miracle happened where groups got together to give the young boy a college fund. So without the photograph, this may not have happened.

By Kevin Morley

Kevin Morley was a really confident speaker, and I told myself that I need to be as confident as him when I speak in front of people. It just makes you look better and makes people take you seriously in my opinion. As for his style in photography, I agreed with one of his quotes. He said that if he's with a bunch of other photographers photographing a scene and they're all in the one spot, then he makes sure that he wants to be on the other side to get that different view than everyone else. Kevin Morley showed that he loves what he does, and it gave me an ambition to maybe work for a newspaper one day.