So my name’s Chloe and I am an assistant photo editor at the DTH. Today, Thursday, January 24, we were short on photographers so I covered two photo assignments, which ended up being front-pack and 3-pack in the paper on Friday January 25th.
The first one was about these kids at Phillips Middle School that have been working on recycling and composting programs in their school. I collaborated with Allie Russell, the visual managing editor, on photo ideas for the story. She came up with a photo idea where the photo looks like it is being taken out of a trash can with the kids standing above taking recyclables out of the “trashcan.”
I told the kids the idea and they liked it, but after seeing the metal wired trashcans at the school I knew there would be no way of actually getting inside of one. I was hoping we would be able to photoshop a trashcan surrounding the photo but it didn’t quite work because my lens wasn’t wide enough even though I was laying on the ground. It was kind of difficult to get all the kids faces in focus and in the frame without the trash covering another one’s face so I would have to adjust their hands until everything lined up. Oh, and I forgot to mention we were in the front lobby of the school so there were middle schoolers and teachers walking past us the whole time giving us weird looks. Anyway it worked (minus the trashcan)!
After spending the afternoon at Phillips I ran over to the office to talk to Katie Sweeney, the photo editor, about the play/ballet A Rite dress rehearsal, which was my second assignment. We had some graphically interesting ideas for the front page that we wanted to try but weren’t sure if they would work.
I went to the dress rehearsal, and to my surprise there were a ton of people there. Turns out it was an open rehearsal to donors of Carolina Performing Arts. I knew instantly that this was bad news because every time we shoot in Memorial Hall we have to shoot from the light booth, which is almost three stories up! I stressed and stressed thinking I wouldn’t get solid art for front pack. Luckily once we got up to the light box there was no one on the balcony so I got to sit right at the front of the balcony.
I had our 300mm lens so I could still get close-up shots from that far. The play was amazing. It was a combination of both modern dancing and acting. The only downside was that it was so dark in there, even though I had my ISO at 1600 and my aperture at 2.8, I still had to stick to a shutter speed of around 1/100 and 1/250, which mean’t every time they moved fast the pictures would be blurry. Luckily it was about time so half of the play/ballet they danced in slow motion! Anyway check out some of the art that I liked the best:
Also don’t forget to check out the articles that accompany the photos here and here.
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