Photojournalism
A picture is worth a thousand words. I used to dismiss this saying as a silly cliché, but the longer I've been in journalism, and the more I've taken photos, the more I've understood its truth. I'm always taking pictures of everything—friends, family, food, clouds, tourists attractions and everything in between (I have over 46,000 photos in my camera roll on my phone, it's a problem, I know). Every story we post on our website and in print gets at least one photo, and most have more, and I think photos are able to work with the words we write to tell the story of an event, a person or idea. Scroll down to see snippets of my photo galleries!
Girls Flag Football
This was my first time taking sports photos, so I was a little nervous going into this day. I used a 70-200mm lens that I had never used before, that we gave the nickname "Big Lenny," so for the first part of the practice I was playing around with the best way to hold it and how to comfortably adjust and zoom to get the best shots. It helped that it was super sunny out, so there was really good lighting, and one of our yearbook and newspaper photo editors Sydney gave me some good settings to use before I went to practice, so I could be well prepared and not spend the whole time adjusting my settings. While it was super hot outside, it was really fun to take these, and these successfully made me like sports photography. I'm really proud with how these photos came out, and how they showed the attitude of the team!
"Puffs"
Whenever there is a new drama production, I typically do videos to show what the show would entail; however, this time I really wanted to take pictures to capture it, so I could pair my gallery with a news story about the show and rehearsal process by a new staffer, Adriana. I really didn't know what I was getting myself into when committing to this, as the show ran for over three hours every time I saw it. The first day I took pictures, they only did the second act of the show, house lights were still on, there wasn't full stage lighting to coincide with the show, which attributed to the lighting being more difficult to work with; however, when I went the second time, there was full lighting and they ran through the entire show, so I was able to get a larger variety of shots during that day. Watching two theater tech rehearsals isn't something that I would wish on my worst enemy, but I really enjoyed the show and I feel like I was adequately able to capture the spirit of the show in my gallery.
Elementary Cross Country Meet
I originally set out to take pictures of a National Honor Society event at Hagerty; however, the donation truck for the event was late, so all students went over to watch the elementary school cross country meet. All of the run clubs from each elementary school in Seminole County met at Hagerty for the teams to compete in different distances depending on grade level. While it was extremely bright and sunny, I was able to mess around with my settings to make sure I was getting crisp photos of the runners and onlookers, while also making sure that they weren't too overexposed. About an hour into the meet, the donation truck ended up arriving, so I want and took more pictures of our students sorting donated goods, but these pictures ended up being the best part of the day. This event in particular showed me to pivot and always be ready for situations to not go as planned. I had no idea that this meet was happening, so I really just happened to be at the right place at the right time to take some photos—and they turned out pretty well!
Early Childhood Education
On my first day at Hagerty, I remember looking seeing the big sign on the side of our school that says "Husky Pups Preschool," and thinking "What kind of high school has a preschool?" This came incredibly full circle, as one of my big enhanced feature stories my sophomore year was on our early childhood program. I had heard about the program from people in it, but I knew I had to know exactly what it was like inside of the preschool, so I could adequately describe it in my story. A challenging aspect of these photos in particular was getting the photos to capture the chaos of the preschool itself, as there was so much going on at any one given time, so I really didn't know where to look. Every day, the preschool teachers, juniors and seniors, prepared lessons for the kids to complete, as well as art and STEM projects. Safe to say, there's a lot going on at once, and I think my photos captured the environment well. Click here to see an extended photo gallery showing all of the shenanigans happening at Husky Pups Preschool.
Spring Kids Night
I went back to the preschool to cover Future Educators of America's annual Spring Kids Night. When I was taking pictures this time, I knew I wanted to be level with the kids, as all of my photos from my previous ECE photo gallery were shot from above. Unlike at the preschool, kids ages 3-9 attended the event, and it was even louder than a typical day at the preschool. In order to get some good shots, I made conversation with the children, so that way they didn't look directly into the camera's lens, and weren't confused or scared seeing a photographer. I moved around to different activity stations to make sure I adequately captured the entire event, and I like how these photos captured the fun, casual event.