Archive for October, 2009

My new resume, because it’s that time of year again

Posted in Internships/Careers, Journalism, Photojournalism on October 27, 2009| 8 Comments »

Because it’s that time of year again — internship application season — I’ve completely redone my resume.

For two years or so, I’ve used a variation of the following format and style:

I’ve been pondering my new brand and style for several weeks. One thing that I knew I wanted to change was how regimented my old resume is. So last night, I played around, and here’s what I turned out:

My actual new resume is a little different from the one I’m showing and have uploaded. Namely, I removed my mailing address and cell phone number for privacy reasons and, accordingly, shifted the top heading (“(photo)journalism by Chris L. Dunn”) a bit.

But I really like my new resume. The new format — two columns all the way down, indentations instead of bullets and no lines — is clean, airy and organized. To punch it up a bit for impact (and save on what would be excessive costs for color printing), I’ve introduced an 80-percent opacity on the body text. Finally, the new heading typeface gives the whole page some pizazz and a creative feel.

Now it’s time to whip up a letterhead that’s congruous with this resume — and pump those applications out before deadline! Wish me luck. And, as always, I’d love to know what you think about my new (or old) resume.

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Lessons from the courtroom: A photography faux pas

Posted in Introspection, Jeff City/The Missourian, Journalism, Missouri, Mizzou, Photography, Photojournalism on October 23, 2009| 30 Comments »

UPDATE (10:38 a.m., Nov. 25, 2009) — By my general reckoning, at least thousands of people know there’s more to this story, as of this past Friday. Various editors, journalism school faculty and I have since worked to remedy the situation. Now that we’ve tied up our loose ends, I believe now is the time to clarify exactly what happened — at least on my part. Please read my blog entry for the second (and final) component to this incident.

“Hello, this is Chris.”

“Hi Chris, this is Josh. You need to tell me the truth about what happened in court yesterday. And don’t lie to me, because lying isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

That’s how, via a phone call today at 9:13 a.m., I found out I was in trouble.

Here’s why:

Yesterday, I spent almost six hours in the Boone County Courthouse as the pool photographer for the fourth day of William Clinch’s first-degree murder trial. Armed with a 300mm lens, a 70-200mm and a 17-35mm, I knew the following before I entered the courtroom at 12:45 p.m.:

Do not photograph the jury.
Do what the judge tells me to do. Do not anger or even mildly irritate the judge.
Be respectful and quiet. This means not firing off more than three frames at a time.
Do not photograph the jury.

I photographed the jury.

That is why:

the Missourian reporter was kicked out of the courtroom this morning,
the photo director (Josh, above) called me,
I had to explain exactly what happened to several editors,
I could have been put in jail for contempt of court,
I spent the next hour tearfully worrying and wondering what would happen next,
I wrote a letter of apology to the judge,
I ended up on A1 of The Columbia Daily Tribune and
I am writing this blog post.

More specifically, I am writing this blog post to clarify exactly what happened. I believe in transparency, and I believe that other journalism students and journalists can learn from my mistakes.

Therefore, I am laying out everything that happened. This is the truth and is consistent with my letter of apology and my explanation to various Missourian editors and colleagues. And the truth is long, so this blog post is long. But I hope you’ll keep reading.

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Lessons from Bill Eppridge

Posted in Internships/Careers, Journalism, Photography, Photojournalism on October 22, 2009| 2 Comments »

Ever seen this photo?

Photo courtesy of Time Inc.

The man who captured this tragic moment, this stunning blow and this iconic photo is an MU photojournalism alumnus.

His name is Bill Eppridge. He’s shot for LIFE, National Geographic and Sports Illustrated, and he was in town for the past three days. He gave a presentation to about 150 journalism students and faculty, received a Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism and talked to my staff photo class. He also reviewed my portfolio on Wednesday afternoon.

I’ll be honest here:

I haven’t seriously looked into summer internships/jobs (yet). Being in class 16 hours a week and working at The Missourian and the equipment locker for at least another 20 hours a week have stretched me thin on any other pursuits.
I haven’t given a good, long, hard look at my work over the past year. Plus, between photo editing at The Maneater in sophomore year, reporting in Jefferson City in junior year, working at Philmont for three summers and interning at washingtonpost.com this past summer, I haven’t had much time or many opportunities to be an actively shooting photojournalist until this semester.

But as soon as I heard that Bill Eppridge and his wife Adrienne — who is a photo editor — were volunteering to review students’ portfolios, I knew I couldn’t pass this opportunity up. So, in 10 minutes, I threw together a quick portfolio of single images (fortunately, I’ve been posting all of my best work from the past two years on my Flickr). And then I swallowed my nervousness as Bill and Adrienne looked over my work.

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Tony Hawk and Twitter bring skate tour to Columbia

Posted in Jeff City/The Missourian, Journalism, Missouri, Photography, Photojournalism, Sports on October 18, 2009| 5 Comments »

Tony Hawk is a MAJOR twithead.

The one and only Tony Hawk.

Using the hashtag #THTH (“Tony Hawk Twitter Hunt”?), Hawk has started a Twitter revolution in which he reveals stops on his BirdHouse tour. He tweets scavenger hunt-like clues to locations where more clues are hidden — and then, whoever finds a clue must reveal its contents and, therefore, the location of his next tour stop.

On Friday, Hawk announced he would be in Columbia… on Saturday.

So, of course, every little kid with a skateboard, every college student with a camera and a lot of other people showed up. And I showed up.

Simon Midkiff, Logan Prange and Bubby Rios-Diaz vie for the attention of Tony Hawk's promoters, who were tempting the crowd with a free skateboard.

Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins warms up on the half-pipe before the demos officially start.

Jesse Fritsch on the half-pipe.

I arrived late to the event after I wrapped up another Missourian assignment, so I missed Hawk’s street-skating demo. I wasn’t assigned to cover Hawk, but my editor called as I was walking toward the skate park. Turned out the assigned photographer was 40 minutes away — so, a darned good thing I was already there to make up for him!

Walking into the skate park knowing I was legitimately covering this for a newspaper empowered me to ask the promoter to get me behind the barricade and in front of the nets. A few complications and 20 minutes later, I got access.

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Study break: Dancing the Thriller

Posted in Mizzou, Photography on October 15, 2009| 1 Comment »

I feel sorry for our neighbors downstairs.

When I arrived back home after work today, I found all the furniture shoved against the walls and Chelsea saying, “Oh, you missed it!”

“I missed what?”

“We were dancing the Thriller!”

Apparently, at 12:30 a.m. UTC/GMT on Oct. 25, there will be “an annual worldwide simultaneous dance of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.” It’s an actual, vaguely organized event called “Thrill the World.”

And my roommates are participating. And apparently have been practicing for much of the afternoon and evening.

After I declined their invitation to join them in their final practice run of the night, I decided to take photos. At the very least, it’d be a good break from editing… more photos… for a presentation tomorrow.

And why is every photo from generally the same angle? Because our living room is small, and they warned me in advance to stand on top of the sofa.

“It’s the only safe area,” Chelsea explained. “That’s why the computer is there.”

And now, back to work. I think it’s gonna be an all-nighter.

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Neither rain nor wind nor cold: Shooting my best football game yet

Posted in Introspection, Jeff City/The Missourian, Journalism, Missouri, Mizzou, Photography, Photojournalism, Sports on October 10, 2009| 10 Comments »

Missouri lost to Nebraska, 27-12.

Where to start?

It was cold, rainy and windy.

Missouri sophomore quarterback Blaine Gabbert runs the ball against Nebraska junior safety Eric Hagg during the first play of the game.

Tons of sloppy play.

Nebraska freshman running back Rex Burkhead fumbles a punt from Missouri senior punter Jake Harry IV during the second quarter.

We lost.

Missouri freshman Morgan Stephens covers her eyes during the last play of the game against Nebraska.

And I shot a lot, learned a lot and tried not to worry a lot.

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Missouri vs. Nebraska: It’s college football game day!

Posted in Jeff City/The Missourian, Journalism, Missouri, Mizzou, Photography, Photojournalism, Sports on October 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Kickoff against Nebraska tonight is in five and a half hours. In an hour and a half, I’ll be meeting with other Missourian staffers to shoot the game.

versus

This means that right now, I am stuffing my face.

Last time I shot football, I became physically weak due to hunger during the third quarter, and I’d eaten the food provided to media. Now that Missouri Athletics no longer provides courtesy meals to the media at football games (instead, media can pay $7.50 for a cold-cut sandwich — ick), I’m currently loading up on carbs and proteins.

I’m also covering and taping up every piece of equipment I’m bringing out there. In stark contrast to yesterday’s sunny skies and 60 degrees, today features torrential rain and 50ish degrees. Last night, I went out to buy a rainjacket (something I haven’t had in fours of college, somehow), garbage bags and rubber bands. I’m also wrapping up the cameras in Ziploc bags — a trick that Jason learned from Sports Shooter Academy and taught me.

There are a few other complications that will make shooting this game especially interesting, but nothing changes the fact that I’m going to stick with this and do my best work regardless of what the weather, my body and anything else throws at me.

Two days ago, I tweeted:

5 inches of rain = Thurs forecast. If I survive shooting the Nebraska game, it’ll be a miracle. If I get good shots, the world will explode.

So, here’s to hoping the world will explode — for no reason other than I’ll have shot good photos.

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Belated lesson from Week 5: It’s all about the people

Posted in Jeff City/The Missourian, Journalism, Missouri, Mizzou, Photography, Photojournalism on October 5, 2009| 1 Comment »

The past two weeks have been pretty hectic, which is why I haven’t blogged about my Missourian photo shifts and assignments until now.

So here is Week 5, which was Sept. 21-25. Of that week, I worked Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday — but you’ve already seen Friday and Saturday’s material.

The big theme for the other assignments I completed during Week 5? It’s all about the people.

Wendy Savley, an instructor at the Show-Me Gymnastics gym.

On Tuesday, I photographed Wendy Savley at work for VOX’s “On The Job” feature. Savley, who used to be a gymnast, is now an instructor at a local gym, and my assignment was simply to photograph her doing whatever she does at work. So I tried to have fun with it and play with the rear-curtain feature on my strobe, as you can see.

Savley gently reprimands two of her young gymnasts for lying to her about when they could come to practice last week.

Above, you can see another aspect of Savley’s job that I hadn’t considered before. Working with younger children so closely often results in the instructor’s assuming a mentor role.

After I wrapped up at the gym, I met photojournalism student Mallory Benedict for one of the stranger assignments I’ve had to complete.

Mallory Benedict drives to the site of her Aug. 2007 crash. Benedict had been driving home from a friend's house at 4 a.m. when she texted the friend for directions out of the neighborhood. While typing her message, Benedict overcorrected her steering three times, which led to her rolling and totaling her car. Although her airbags did not deploy, Benedict, who had worn her seatbelt, was not injured.

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I’m finally (kinda) building a portfolio Web site

Posted in Journalism, Photography, Photojournalism on October 5, 2009| 2 Comments »

Simply put, I haven’t yet made a lot of progress on my Web site.

Right now, all I’ve got are the index and a few linked pages that I created for my Electronic Photojournalism class. And right now, everything’s still on my school-sponsored Web space.

But soon enough, I’ll have a functioning Web site with my own domain name. In the meantime, with the help of 10,000 Words and a few other blogs, I’ve been exploring other photographers’ portfolio Web sites.

One of these sites belongs to Chase Jarvis.

Jarvis, who operates out of Seattle and Paris (!), is definitely a commercial photographer who’s had quite few big-name clients. For example, he did photography and video for the worldwide launch of Nikon’s D90. He’s done ad campaigns for Reebok, REI, Windows Vista, Volvo, Jeep and more. And he has a few more string projects that, it seems, he does for fun.

Jarvis also has a really good Web site.

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