John Cameron 03-31-10. Idea/Concept blog.

So last Thursday, I went and shot a baseball game for the local high school here in my college town. I chose a school that I have been following over the past few weeks, and I'm going to stick with them for the rest of the semester. They have a game tomorrow, that I can catch, so I will have more to show next week as well. But I am trying to get in closer still. But I have to find the right time to do it. I think it is going to be around April 14th. So last week, I focused on all kinds of things. My teacher advised me to have a list to go by. Such as getting the field, subjects in different areas of the photograph, shooting in different areas etc.

"Double Play" - Digital Photograph - March 2010, By John Cameron

"Dugout laughs" - Digital Photograph - March 2010, By John Cameron

"Safe Slide" - Digital Photograph - March 2010, By John Cameron

"Decision Time" - Digital Photograph - March 2010, By John Cameron

"Hyman Field" - Digital Photograph - March 2010, By John Cameron

I liked what I got, but in order for me to really impress my teacher. I have to get on a bus with the team or in the dugout. This will prove to him that I can get access, if I need it for something important. When I get out of college, I may get similar situations like this. Where I need to ask to get into places where people should not be (like a photographer in a dugout). There is a game tomorrow once again, and I'm going to try and shoot that, to capture emotion, and also different environments. The team I follow is playing away tomorrow, and I look forward to the new environment that I will face. Maybe I can get in a little closure to the dugout. We will wait and see.

John Cameron. 03/28/10. Artist Cameron Spencer

Once again this week, I have found a photographer from Getty Images. I have been looking at a lot of Australian photographers, to see what sports they cover. This week I have found Cameron Spencer. He photographed my favorite Rugby League Football team the Wests Tigers last friday night, and I wanted to look more into his work. I could not find his website, but he has a lot of his images online with getty images. He has won awards with Getty images, and I'll show some of those images.

U.S.A swimmers celebrate Gold Medal win - Digital Photograph - 2008 - Cameron Spencer

Australian Soccer players - Digital Photograph - By Cameron Spencer

Table Tennis player - Digital Photograph. By Cameron Spencer

He has a wide range of sporting events. Such as tennis, the Olympics, Rugby, basketball, sailing, wake-boarding, cricket, swimming and many more. This is something, I dream of doing one day. I love all kinds of sports, and capturing the unique and exciting moments is what I'm really into. Spencer really shows a diverse range of angles of capturing these moments. He is either up high, looking down on the action, or down low, looking up. He also has a conceptual side to his work, where he will find the moments that look different and capture them. Like the image with the ping pong ball being in the position of a man's eye.

I have just started my own website, and I have been trying to decide what images I should put on it. I told myself that I want to show different angles, to show diversity. This is something Spencer does, and I think it helps his success.

John Cameron. 03/24/10. Idea/Concept Blog

So Spring Break came at a bad time for me, as it may have for everyone else. So I was a little bit worried about my plan to capture a season long story with a high school baseball team. But my teacher gave me some good advice as always, and advised me that I did not need to be around for the whole season to capture a story. He still wants me to get closer to the team. Like getting access to the dugout, or a bus ride to an away game for example. I am going to try and do this, but first, I am going to shoot a few of high school baseball games of one high school. I can show the coach and players my images, and hopefully they will let me in from this.

"Deep Thoughts" - Digital Photograph. March 2010 - By John Cameron

"Dugout Laughs" - Digital Photograph. March 2010 - By John Cameron

"Good Catch" - Digital Photograph. March 2010 - By John Cameron

So I went home for Spring Break and I shot a few high school baseball games. I did it to get some experience. It was fun, and I learned a lot. But my teacher wants me to get in closer. To prove to him that I was able to get access, and to get the up close and personal shots. I'm looking at getting a press pass, so I can get in the dugout, or on the bus ride and hopefully this will let me get some good shots. My teacher also mentioned that I should show everything if I can get this access. If a player cuts his leg from diving to a base, then I should capture that in a photograph and then relate it to emotion.

John Cameron. 03/21/10. Artist Matt Blyth

So it is the end of my spring break, and I got to photograph some baseball games played between some high schools in my home town. I mainly tried to focus on emotion, and I found that smiling, and being upset were two of the main trends in emotion at the games I went to.

I'm originally from Australia, and the National Rugby League season just started last week (kind of like the NFL). I grew up loving this so much, and it is hard to keep track without being able to watch games on television, and also have sports shows like ESPN to keep me updated on league news. So I basically visit the NRL website everyday. It has the basic format of a main photograph on the main page. I always examine the photograph and see what took part in making the image (available light, ISO, aperture, emotion, action etc). But yesterday and today, the main photograph on the site was of emotions.

Parramatta Eels celebrate, March 2010. Digital Photograph by Matt Blyth

This is not the image that was on the main page, but it is very close. I could not find the photographer who took the photograph. When I find an image that I like from someone. I usually search in Getty Images. This time I found Matt Blyth, and his style was interesting to me because he had a style that I tried to use while I was taking photographs at the baseball games last week. That is capturing the game and emotion. Emotion is a huge part to the assignment, and Matt Blyth does this. I could not find a website for Matt Blyth, but I looked over his images in Getty, and I learned some techniques that I intend to also capture. It seems as though he is at a low angle, having a nice background in his images. This is something I will try to incorporate in my work over the next few weeks.

Luke Burt, March 2010. Digital Photograph by Matt Blyth

John Cameron. 03/12/10. Visiting Artist - Sanford Biggers

It shows that being confident, and proud about your work will most definitely help out your lecture. Sanford Biggers was a delight to listen to. Just the way he informed the audience about his work, and other aspects of life, made me realize how a successful critique/lecture should go. I also appreciated his work ethic, as most others do too. You can tell how hard he works for his pieces of art, and it glows through his lectures. After all of the visiting artist lectures I have attended, this is definitely one of my favorites.

Sanford Biggers, Prayer Rug, 2005, Colored sand poured unfixed directly on floor, 40 ft x 20 ft. at Triple Candie, New York.

This piece was a stand out because of the precise work done to create a rug out of sand. For it to be so big, and perfect, is amazing. He said that it took 300 hours to complete. He created another piece similar to this. He made it with black and white rice. I can't find a picture of it, but he made every piece of rice stand up to make a picture of a man.

Blossom, 2007. At the Tate Modern. By Sanford Biggers

I think Sanford Biggers spoke really well. I think the fact that he is an art teacher helped him. Also the fact that he used to teach here at VCU. The main thing about Bigger's work, is that it seems as though he works at 110% towards every piece. You can see all the hard efforts that he puts in to his work. He is a multi skilled artist and he can do anything very well and I wish that I could have half of the skills he has. I liked how he was starting to take photographs of his work in the end, with style. I liked his technique. For someone who doesn't specialize in photography, he showed the artistic eye in a lot of his images. As far as cropping out, and using a low aperture. It showed that being a smart artist is all you need to be able to succeed in any aspect of art.

John Cameron. 03/10/10. Idea/Concept Blog

So I went out to Benedictine High School's second scrimmage match, against Deep Run High School. The game started at 4:30pm, and I learned my lesson, by leaving at 4:15pm. The highway traffic in Richmond is busy around that time and I showed up late. It wasn't like I was late for work, but I was late for the good light that was available earlier on. So I was forced to bump up the ISO to 1600. I still really enjoyed the experience, and got to figure out where I need to be to take some good shots.

"Strike 3 Expression" - Digital Photograph, March 2010. By John Cameron

The image above was my favorite for the shoot. It's nothing special, but there's something about it that I really enjoy. I think that you can really feel his emotion by getting a strike out. This is what I will be looking for in the semester. Spring break is next week, and it's almost come at the wrong time. I'm going back to my home town for a week, and I will miss a lot of Benedectine's games (like 3 or 4). However, they do have two home games this saturday, and I am going to stay in town for an extra day, just to capture that. It will be during day time, and the lighting should be a lot better. I want my images to be smooth and clean, and my camera isn't the best camera to use an ISO of 1600. I'll really study the diamond also, to see where I can shoot from. I will be at the home field of Benedictine a lot, so Saturday will also be a learning experience. I don't want to shoot through a fence, and I need to be near the dug out. This is where a lot of emotion is found.

"Stealing Base?" - Digital Photograph, March 2010. By John Cameron

John Cameron. 03-07-10. Lisa Blumenfeld

Digital Photograph, By Lisa Blumenfeld

So I had a critique last week and I wanted to focus on an artist that captured emotion, and also close up (tight crop) photographs. My idea of capturing emotion in sports is going to be a fun job ahead of me. When I heard advice from classmates and my teacher it also was a big plus in making good work for this class.

Hamilton - Digital Photograph, By Lisa Blumenfeld

I was looking through some artists for the Major League Baseball pre-season, and I found Lisa Blumenfeld. The image above was the first one that I found, and I was glued in immediately. Her tight crop, the sharp focus on the subject, and the action of the player gave a lot of meaning to the photograph. The type of feeling, where a person is doing their job. I looked into more of Blumenfeld's work on her website, and I really liked the lay out of her website. She focuses on all the moments in sports, like most sports photographers. But there was a section that I really liked on her website. It was the "Game day" section. This showed athletes before the game, and the emotions were shown on their faces. This is something I might try out. A few photographs way before the game. When the players show up to the field and such.

Terrell Owens. Digital Photograph - by Lisa Blumenfeld

With this image above, the image is very tight, and is cropped into the smallest of crops. This image was emotion screaming out of it. Something I want to show. My teacher advised me to get up and close with athletes, to show a view that not many people see. This image is beautiful. Once again, I really liked Lisa's website. It was simple, and the sections were laid out very well.

www.lisabphoto.com

John Cameron 03-03-10. Idea/Concept blog.

So I have not been able to photograph the baseball team yet, due to rain and also having the fact that I practice on the college rugby team three days a week. But I had a mid term critique today and I really thought that it was great and beneficial for me. I thought the critique went well because I really liked the feedback I got from the class. A lot of good ideas were thrown out that I totally agreed with. I do not think that there was one comment that I didn't agree with. This was great, as this critique has helped me out so much. Now, it is all up to me to get the work done. Some of the major points that I wrote down were that I have to separate myself from other sports photographers that might also be shooting high school baseball. I can do this by getting to know the baseball team, and being able to get up close and personal with them. From this, I might be able to get shots that other people cannot get (locker room, dug out, bus etc.). Also, I can borrow really nice equipment from an internship job that I did for two semesters. This can provide me with being able to shoot wherever I want. It could be up close, or far away. Having nice lenses can help me with this.

"Emptiness" - Digital Photograph, March 2010. By John Cameron

Yesterday I went out to look at the practice field. I took a shot of their dugout, and I liked the mood that I captured from it. I do not think I will use this image for my portfolio, but I thought that it was worth doing.

Another good idea that I got from the critique was that someone said that I should create a blog to show the players what pictures I am generating. This could make their parents want them, and then I could also maybe make a book from this. I want to make a season long story. From start to finish. It's gonna be fun, and a tough journey at the same time.