The Vanderbilt Women's Basketball team kicked off the season the right way with a 103-50 victory against North Alabama. It felt great to be back in Memorial Gym shooting basketball again.
A last minute assignment, I was charged with taking portraits of two of the players on our men's basketball team. I used a one light setup with a speed-light firing into a circular reflector, held by an assistant. They gave me less than 5 minutes with each player so I am fairly satisfied with the results.
Less than an hour after stepping off the plane from New Orleans, I was on my way to cover the Monster Block Party in downtown Nashville. With headlining acts Steve Aoki, Borgore, Waka Flocka Flame, and Garmiani, I was not really sure what to expect from the event. Other than horrible lighting, particularly for Waka Flocka specifically, It was much like Lights on the Lawn from a shooting standpoint. However, the one main complaint that I have with the concert is how they handled security for the event. Due to the high energy music, people in the crowd were crowd surfing and ended up being crowd surfed into the photo pit. Rather than being forced back into the crowd, security, for whatever reason, decided to leave them in there. There ended up being at least 50 people in the pit where it was previously just me and one or two other photographers. it did not bother me that they were in there but when security finally cleared out the pit, they took everyone else too. I had to find the promoter of the event to show him my credentials in order to be let back into the pit.
Bosley Jarrett, Vanderbilt University (Chris Carroll); edwin.b.jarrett@vanderbilt.edu; Mark Smith plays "The Saints Go Marching In" on the tuba with other homeless men outside of Jackson Square. Shortly after, Mark's peers scolded him for taking improvisational liberties instead of playing the standard fare. Passersby danced and sang along with Mark and the other performers during their performance on Oct. 25, 2013.
I was lucky enough to be chosen by Vanderbilt to attend the College Media Association's annual fall conference in New Orleans this year. I learned so much about various aspects of photojournalism and producing a newspaper in general. While in New Orleans, I participated in the All That Jazz photography competition where we were tasked with producing a photograph that best represented the culture and people of New Orleans. All in all, I shot around 40 or 50 frames for the contest, of which, there was 1 that I really liked (shown above). At the final critique of the images, my photo ended up coming in 1st place out of all the other photos, as voted on by my peers. I am extremely humbled by and thankful to those who voted for me in the contest. All-in-all, it was a great trip filled with new opportunities for me to not only grow as a photographer, but to grow as a journalist as well.
