Just a few pictures from Becca Godman's baptism.

From the left: Brittany Simmons, Becca Godman, Becca's mother, and Abbi Lohman.

Brittany's not normally emotional, so I really liked this moment, where she got choked up while sharing.

Just a snapshot of part of the crowd, there to see Becca get baptized. Taken in the dining area of our new church building. The baptismal is usually in the sanctuary, but I think they're fixing something with the area it sits in.

A Little Comedy from David Hyde Pierce

I found this video on YouTube and wanted to share it. It features one of my favorites: David Hyde Pierce. Pierce played Niles Crane on that classic sit-com Frasier.

"Hit the couch!!!"

Shots from a Jack and Jill Shower

My friends, Brittani Brown and Gerald Fults, are getting married on May 8th. These are some pictures I took at their recent Jack and Jill shower.

One of the party games was to gather as many rings as possible from people by catching them using wedding- or marriage-related words. Jared was the winner with 5 rings.

Project 365 - W03

Week Three of Fifty-Two.

On Monday, I listened to Phoebe Sexton's thesis presentation on the state of photojournalism and the newspaper industry. It appears that while the numbers of staff photographers has decreased, the number (and percentage) of images they take that are published in newspapers has increased.

Simple caption: migraines suck. And I have recently figured out that the shaky feeling I sometimes get is actually me getting jittery because of the caffiene in my medication. I hate how my allergies lead to my migraines.

Shots from my EPJ Project

For my EPJ Project, I have been working with Romanda Walker, a 31-year-old PhD student.  Romanda has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which is characterized by the degeneration of motor neurons which results in progressive muscular atrophy (wasting away) and weakness. As a result, Romanda hasn't been able to walk since around age 6. But she's very handy with her wheelchair.

Getting to know her has really made me aware of how I take some things for granted. For example, being able to use the lavatory whenever I want. Because Romanda needs help moving in and out of her wheelchair, she's at the mercy of others when she has the urge to go. If it was me, I might feel bitter about things like that, but Romanda isn't like that. She's very kind and giving. Here's some pictures from my chapter on how she gets ready in the morning.

EPJ Photographer's Multimedia Website Review

I chose to review the multimedia on Patrick Farrell's website.

Patrick Farrell won 2009's Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography and was part of the staff that won a Pulitzer in 1993 for its coverage of Hurricane Andrew. He also spoke to our Business Practices class via Skype earlier this semester. I find his still images very moving and wanted to see how he handled video.

His first project on Haiti wouldn't load. His other project - on trash children in Honduras is the piece that I ended up reviewing.

The piece starts out with the title card and ambient - a lot of chattering in Spanish and the sound of big trucks. The title card is up for about 6 seconds - a little long. Then we proceed to see pictures of children climbing around the dump, wading through trash. The ambient continues but dies down some when the doctor begins speaking, telling up of the children's plight. I don't know how to spell his name because Farrell didn't include any identifier information in the slideshow. As the doctor began speaking, plaintive piano music began to swell and played while he was speaking. This use of music made it really feel like a UNICEF add. That and images like this.

Project 365 - W02

Here's my second week of pictures.

A Skype interview with Patrick Farrell as part of my Business Practices class. Farrell won his first Pulitzer in 1993 for his coverage of Hurricane Andrew. More recently, he won a Pulitzer in 2009 for his work in Haiti. He has also won numerous awards from POYi and the Overseas Press Club. He is a staff photographer at The Miami Herald.

Three awesome dogs after a day at the dog park: (from the left) Riley, Cullen, and Dudley. I've had Riley almost 4 years and the other two I acquired in the last year. Cullen seems to be a perennial favorite of people because he's so cuddly. He somehow ends up in people's laps with them petting them. Duds is just super sweet. (I do have to admit that Ri-Ri is my favorite. .We just share a special bond.)

Job Profile: Barbara Michael, Pet Minister

Wow - it's been a while since I posted anything to this blog. I have been remiss. For my latest project in Picture Story, the job profile, I was able to feature Barbara Michael, who leads the pet ministry team at the Unity Center here in Columbia.

What's a pet ministry, you might say? It's a ministry in the church that focuses on giving to its animal lovers. Michael annually provides a pet blessing ceremony (in the spring, as close to St. Francis' Day as possible) and a pet bereavement ceremony (in the fall), as well as providing comfort to those members who have lost furry friends. While she doesn't marry animals, she will do a ceremony similar to a baptism.

Barbara Michael, Pet Minister from Elisa Day on Vimeo.

When I asked Michael why her ministry was important, she stressed that it helps promote better human-animal and human-human relationships, while providing a space for people to feel accepted and validated in their love for their furry friends.

I loved Michael's enthusiasm for her work and for the animals (and people) that she gets to interact with. Much appreciation goes out to her for her flexibility in letting me come out and videotape her.

Although I am going to be doing another edit of this video, I have to say that I am GLAD that this assignment is over. In retrospect, I think putting this video together took me the shortest amount of time yet - which was lucky, otherwise I wouldn't have finished for class.  There were many things that went wrong:

1.  MU's lovely mail issues - where getting my e-mail seems to be hit-or-miss - lead me to miss Michael's reply to me that she sent 2-3 days after I e-mailed her. So I didn't read it until this past Friday. (Bright spot: Barbara e-mailed me the day I responded and we set up for later that night for me to tape her interview. She was really great throughout the entire process.)
2. The camera I got, I don't know if it was just a jinx on me, but the thing didn't seem to like to hold a charge (or something). When I went to film some of her action at CMHS, the battery died so I had to plug it in to charge during about 1/2 of the walk Barbara and Perra (the black dog) took.
3. Someone was nice enough to change the setting in camera from headphones to AV, so that anytime I tried to listen to playback, all I heard was an annoying buzz. 
4. One of the most frustrating thing about this whole assignment was the fact that I could not seem to be able to get the files off of the video camera onto my laptop so that I could edit them. I tried for over 4 hours to try to work a solution last night, to no avail. The cable supplied with the camera connects readily to Macs, but I own a PC (which I prefer). The other cables that came with the camera that might allow me to connect it to my computer were gone. I tried looking through all of my cables to see if one would work. They did not. I tried going to 2 different Wal-Marts to purchase a cable that the manual said were "sold commercially." No dice. I went over to campus, to the convergence lab, to use one of the computers there, and that just lead to more problems. 
5. On campus, I could readily download the files, but then transferring them to something that I could leave the machine with - Hah! The backs of the Macs won't connect to my hard drive's fire-wire cable. I tried putting the files on Bengal, but I couldn't find a link to MU's Bengal space anywhere (and no I don't have the address memorized to Apple-K to it. I couldn't find a way to FTP to my website, so I decided to upload the files to a folder on the class folder, because I can access those and download them. I thought the problem was solved, but no!
6. I get home and attempt to connect to the class server, which I've done several times before, and it won't. And there's nothing wrong on my end!!! (And I can access it just fine today.)
7. I try to log my footage, so that at least I can plan out exactly what's going where and the buzz makes it difficult. I can barely hear it through the speakers on the camera, and then stopping and starting the video so I don't miss anything - a joke. After about 10-15 minutes of stop-starts, I gave up.

I want to send out a big thank you to Barbara for being so flexible and understanding in the face of some hiccups (including my foster dog letting my own dogs loose out of my yard because of a hole he pushed in my fence - I spent about 30 minutes hunting them down.) She was very congenial and made getting to know her very enjoyable.

Project 365 - W01

Okay, so I'm embarking on my third attempt at taking at least one picture a day for a year. I almost made it the first time until I got overwhelmed with school. The second time, I mislaid the object I was using as the focus of my project. This time, I think I might just make it, partially because I'm incorporating my iPhone in the process. I'm wanting each picture to represent something significant about my day. Here's the first 7 pictures.

Inspired by Lost, a series that I love and which is sadly ending after 6 seasons, I thought I would start my project with my eyeball.

A picture of Dudley sprawled out next to my roommate, Tracy. It almost could be Riley, but his ears say Dudley.