best of both worlds

While researching for my class presentation on a professional photographer, I really grew to like the photographer I chose. Her work is wonderful and she seems to have a great attitude to go along with her job. Annie Griffiths (much of her work is still listed under Annie Griffiths Belt) is one of the first female photographers to have worked for National Geographic. And not only did she make a big step for women photographers, but she is also inspiring when it comes to mothers who have careers. When she had her two children, she didn’t give up on her career. She kept right on going. Her daughter Lily and her son Charlie would come along with her on her assignments as she traveled the world. I think that she is a really inspiring person for doing this because I feel like a lot of women think they have to choose between family and career. Annie Griffiths showed that you can raise happy and successful children and still have a career. And her career was demanding to say the least. Photographing for National Geographic caused her to travel and live all over the world. Since she took her children with her, they constantly lived in different areas and spent a lot of time away from school. But now that her children are older (in their late teens and early twenties), she looks back on her decisions as a mother and thinks she made the right ones. I found a statement from her online that described that she still feels that her children grew up happy and educated. She said that since her children grew up all over the world it has made them sympathetic towards others and different cultures and caused them to be easygoing and outgoing. I was pretty impressed by her attitude and ability to juggle these two huge aspects of her life. She does, however, understand the importance of education and recognized that her children needed to attend school regularly for higher education. She now usually only takes on long assignments during the summer, when her children are not in class.

Overall, I was very impressed with Annie Griffiths’ attitude and ability. She is said to have a great sense of humor and that she is very easy going and friendly. Her ability to tell stories through beautiful travel photography is impressive. I think she is a great inspiration for anyone who is interested in making a career out of photography, but especially for those who do not want to give up the idea of having a family and a career at the same time.

Annie Griffiths Belt Photography

Closed eyes, back of the head, and blurry

Since it was Easter last weekend, I went home and spent some time with family. Because of this I got to spend some time with my boyfriend’s twin nieces, who are 16 months old. Of course I tried to take some pictures of them walking around and being held by various people. It’s so important to have nice pictures of the different stages of children’s lives. They grow and change so fast that you want to remember when they were little. However, taking pictures of them is so hard. If you’re trying to take a nice picture of them with someone else, they’re always either not looking or not smiling or doing something else. Cute candid shots are extremely hard to get. For some reason, they love to turn their head as soon as you push the shutter. It’s like they know exactly when you’re going to take the picture and that’s when they break their cute pose. So I ended up with a lot of pictures of the back of their heads. Not all that great. There were a few in there that happened to be cute, but I thought there have to be some tricks out there that would help with photographing children. Getting someone to make a weird face behind the camera is a classic, but that doesn’t help with candid photos when they’re interacting or just playing around. I looked through some websites about photographing children and found a couple of tips, although much of it is still going to be up to chance.

Some suggestions were: use a long lens so that you can stay further away and just zoom in – this will keep them from getting distracted from what they’re doing; try to shoot outdoors if at all possible, this prevents red eye and allows you to use a faster shutter speed, making it more likely that you’ll capture the shot than get a blurred turning face; take a LOT of pictures – if you just keep clicking away your chances of getting a cute expression or action will greatly improve. Don’t keep your camera in a bag or on a table and go to grab it when they’re doing something cute. Chances are that by the time you get your camera and turn it on, they’re already doing something else; get down to their level, always taking pictures from a standing position will make all your pictures look the same and might keep you from getting good facial expressions in your photos since their faces won’t necessarily be seen in the shot; some people also say to avoid “say cheese” at all costs, it causes kids to focus too much on smiling and usually ends up with that huge teethy grin that we all know from our elementary school photos. Instead, some people suggest coming up with a word that your children find funny, or using and inside joke to get them to laugh. Getting a real smile or laugh is always better than “cheese”; try to use a digital camera that has a fast recycle time – this refers to how long it takes the camera to be ready to take another picture; try to keep your gear/equipment simple – the more stuff you have to fiddle with while you’re shooting, the more likely it will be that you’ll miss a great shot.

I’m sure there are plenty of other tips and tricks out there to use as well. I plan on trying some of them out the next time I see the twins. But I think when it comes to young children and babies, a lot of it is going to have to come down to chance. All you can really do is be as prepared as possible so you have a greater chance of getting that cute expression of funny pose.

Final Project

The end of the semester has definitely snuck up on me. I can’t believe we only have another couple of weeks of class, and then a week of exams. We’ve all been asked to come up with our proposals for our final project. For the final we’re supposed to make a 2 minute presentation about a person, place, etc. and use still images along with audio. After some brainstorming I decided that I would really like to do my project on the Riverbanks Zoo. I couldn’t really think of a better place to collect some interesting sounds that would help make the background of my story really come to life. I hope to get interviews with people that work there to get some behind the scenes information on how the zoo is operated and maintained. I look forward to this project. I think overall it will be very fun. And i’m excited to see how it will turn out.

Aside from the final project, I am also working on our Pro Photographer presentation. We have to do a 5 minute presentation about a photographer. My presentation is on Annie Griffiths, an amazing travel photographer. She used to go by Annie Griffiths Belt, but apparently she recently got divorced. But a lot of the information online is still under her old name. I was somewhat disapointed when I was told she was divorced. One of the reasons I was interested in doing my presentation on her was because I thought it would be nice to highlight someone who has a very successful career in travel photography while at the same time maintainging a successful family and private life. However, she still takes amazing photographs and I’m still happy with my choice of photographer.