KNPA Results

The UK Photojournalism program did exceptionally well at the KNPA conference last week, winning 15 awards in the student contest. As far as I can tell that is the largest number of awards UK has brought home so far in a KNPA contest, so I am really proud of you collectively for how well you represented the effort you’ve put forth this semester. It was also just short of the 19 awards that WKU brought home, a program with a much larger group of students available to enter.  That’s really promising.  The other exciting thing about the KNPA contest is that almost all of your winning images came from the fall semester. If one semester of shooting can place this well in KNPA, then imagine what your entries will look like next year, with this spring and next fall semesters being full of focused photojournalism.
Congrats.

Picture Story
3rd Place – Britney McIntosh

General News
3rd Place – Ed Matthews
HM – Ed Matthews
HM – Keith Smiley

Picture Package
3rd Place – Elliott Hess
HM – Elliott Hess

Feature Picture
3rd Place – Elliott Hess
HM – Brad Luttrell

Sports Action
1st Place – Keith Smiley
2nd Place – Keith Smiley

Sports Feature
2nd Place – Elliott Hess
HM – Ed Matthews

Portrait/Personality
3rd Place – Britney McIntosh

Pictorial
HM – Arkasha Stevenson
HM – Keith Smiley

UKPJ – February workhsop

I think most of you have at least heard that this was coming together, but now it’s official: UKPJ’s February workshop will be taking place on the 15th through the 17th outside of Bowling Green, Ky. We will be staying as a group at the Gasper River Retreat Center, and will focus our shooting on the Northwestern end of town, the zip code 42101. The workshop will focus on both still images and multimedia. The cost of UK students to participate is $50 and the cost for non UK students is 75$. Food will be on your own during the week, but I’ll make sure to take care of dinner one night for you guys.

I am working on having another still coach at the workshop besides myself to work with you guys, but as of right now, Hunter Wilson will be workshop coach for the multimedia team. Hunter Wilson currently lives in Bowling Green and produces multimedia for the Daily News, and has worked for the Roanoke Times and the Washington Post. Hunter is a phenomenal multimedia producer and, much more importantly, he’s a good guy and we’re very luck to have working with us at the workshop.

The Gasper River Retreat is at the little green arrow on the map above. 42101 is generally from the center of the map, where it says Bowling Green extending like triangle through the top right of the map.

The structure of the workshop will be different from those earlier in the year. For the still participants each day will consist of a series of assignments, shootouts and multiple picture packages. For the multimedia participants the workshop will begin with a general brush up on equipment, a couple programs and technique and then you’ll begin gathering audio, editing your sound and producing finished pieces. After the first day you will begin to add pictures to your multimedia pieces and will work with the still shooters to produce multimedia stories for their picture package assignments.

This is the first of a series of smaller workshops that will compose the Picture Kentucky spring workshop series. This first workshop is a really good opportunity for anyone who has not had a lot of photo experience as we will pack a lot of shooting and critiques in to a short period of time. You more experienced shooters won’t be left out though, as this is your chance to sink your teeth into a little multimedia and to find some really interesting people/pictures in the 42101 zipcode. When I was a student at Western 42101 was by far my favorite place to shoot. Questions?? Email me at dirtydozen@ukpj.org. Also, most people have been aware that the signup deadline was the 29th (yesterday) but I’m pushing it back to Thursday night so that more people have the opportunity to join in. To sign up send an email to me at that same address, dirtydozen@ukpj.org.

Children of the Americas

Carla and I are heading out tomorrow for Guatemala to shoot with the non profit (and amazing) medical team based out of Lexington called Children of the Americas. These guys volunteer their time and medical gear, travel on their own dime and get thousands and thousands of dollars of medical equipment donated each year because they are passionate about providing medical care to rural Guatemala. To learn more about COTA check out their site at childrenoftheamericas.com, or to see some older pictures from a couple of years ago, visit cotainteractive.com.

UK Photojournalism – Hearst Round Two Entries

Carla and I are going to be out of town for the next two weeks or so I had to make the final picks for Hearst a little bit early because of that, I and wanted to quickly recognize Ed Matthews and Elliott Hess, who will be representing us in the second round of Hearst – Sports and News. In contrast with portraits and features (round one), this round was really really thin – but you guys are headed in the right direction. We’ve already talked about a lot of different news opportunities (Republican Convention!!) and I think next fall you guys will have a very deep, well rounded group of sports and news pictures to turn in. That said, Ed and Elliott both did a good job this semester and their entries are below.

Ed Matthews – Sports

Ed Matthews – News

Elliott Hess – Sports

 Elliott Hess – News 

If you guys see Ed or Elliott, please tell them congratulations on being chosen to represent the University of Kentucky in this round of Hearst.  Also, I wanted to mention Britney McIntosh for coming in a very, very close third for this round.  Up until about 1:30 this morning the top two were Elliot and Britney, but some last minute editing Ed found a couple pictures that really helped his entry and he made it into the top two.  Another reason Britney didn’t quite make the cut for round two was that one of her pictures was pulled from an essay she has been following up on from the Winter Workshop in Evarts, Ky., and I decided to hold that image so that she could possibly enter it in round 3 later in the spring.

Congrats to all three of you…

UK PJ – Spring Mini Workshop – February 15 – 17.

The first spring workshop of the Picture Kentucky workshop series will be held on February 15th through the 17th just outside of Bowling Green, Ky. We will be leaving as a group early Friday morning (the 15th), probably around 7 or 8 o’clock or so and get started shooting around 11:00 Bowling Green time. The format will be a little different from the past workshops, stories won’t be the focus. Instead we will be giving you a series of assignments and shootouts through the day each day, and sprinkle in a little bit of multimedia also. We will be inviting a coach to the workshop, preferably two, one for stills and one for multimedia. Those coaches haven’t been determined yet, but I will be pinning that down shortly.

Carla and I will be out of town through the 27th to work on a project, and once i get back I need a definite list of who will be participating in the workshop. The cost for the workshop is $50.00. The deadline to let me know if you will be taking part is January 29th. To officially sign up send me an email at dirtydozen@ukpj.org.

KNPA Conference

Just a quick reminder, the annual conference for the Kentucky News Photographer’s Association is coming up soon and it would be really, really good for UK PJ kids were with a really large group to represent the photo community here at UK.

Here’s a run down: It is just $35 for
the seminar and it is packed with great speakers, tons of cool door
prizes and a chance to network, be seen and visit with PJ students from other schools (mostly WKU, really).
In a job market that is rapidly changing, shrinking and somedays slipping through our fingers, the KNPA seminar is a chance to recharge your professional batteries and spend the day with like-minded people
who share your passion, vision and thirst for visual story-telling. Visit the KNPA site at www.knpa.org to see all of the happenings and additional info on speakers, etc.

KNPA is a really great conference and at only$35 to attend it is a real deal.

Andy Olsen – Solid.

Carla and I had the good fortune to meet Lexington photographer Andy Olsen at a wedding show, and I wanted to point you all in his direction. At 26 Andy as already studied in several different countries, been an editor at a magazine, does both commercial and editorial freelance, and is growing a steady wedding business with his wife Erika. First and foremost both him and Erika are really great people, but to top it off they’re solid photographers too.

He doesn’t know it yet, but there’s a really good chance he’ll be one of our Dirty Dozen meetings this semester to speak too.

Check out Andy Olsen Photography.

You’ll find yourself in important situations.

As a photojournalist, even if international work or spot news isn’t your thing, you’ll inevitably find yourself in situations where you are called on to make pictures as strong and as important as the moment that surrounds them. John Moore, a photographer with Getty Images, was covering a political rally in Pakistan, held by Benzair Bhutto the leader of Pakistan’s largest political party. It was at that rally that Bhutto was killed, throwing Pakistan’s politics into chaos less than two weeks before parliamentary elections. It was intended that this election would restore democracy in Pakistan after eight years of military dictatorship — a vote in which Ms. Bhutto would have been a front runner.

Within seconds Moore’s role changed from covering a standard political rally to one of making images that portrayed a pivotal moment in the political, social and democratic future of Pakistan. The New York Times ran a multimedia piece on Bhutto’s assassination narrated by Moore, which you can see by clicking HERE. (please watch this)

Again, it is SO important that as students you work hard, now, to perfect and hone your craft of photojournalism because it’s your eyes that are responsible for communicating these moments to the rest of the world, and you need to be able to do that very, very well.