Assignment 4: Honest Emotion

This week was possibly or trickiest assignment of the quarter: to capture honest emotion. It's already difficult to build up a relationship with a stranger, and for them to be comfortable around the camera is an added challenge. I needed to find some event to find emotional people who won't be distracted by a camera.

I heard about a pinewood derby taking place on campus, to benefit the Make A Wish Foundation. It was a small event - last year they raised $200, and I looked like less this year unfortunately - but there seemed to be some tough competition among the engineers and industrial designers. These seem to be the only people the event was advertised to, as I saw no other posters around campus.

The races were going well, but I realized I essentially kept taking the same photos. I looked outside of my camera at who was reacting. I spotted Andrew Thorsvik, who had one of the few motorized cars, with clenched fist and some wild gestures each time his car was in the race. I had found my subject. He ended up in second place after a nasty spill inches before the finish line in the final race.

Assignment 3: Environmental Portrait

Assignment three required finding a person with a notable environment and willing to pose for a portrait. I spent a good time going over possible businesses and people I could catch around town. I went home for the weekend, bringing a pair of boots needing to be sent to the cobbler. There, I realized just how wonderful this man and his shop were – I needed to photograph this.

When I eventually got the courage to go the the counter, Roy, the owner, seemed confused, then embarrassed but flattered, also making a vague reference to Andre Serrano’s “Piss Christ” and that he agrees as long as I don’t make something like that.

I ended up in the shop for two hours, until I’d used my whole role of film. Our conversation was a great success, and I only touched the surface of his history, which focused mostly on his recent liver failure – poisoning from applying industrial super glue to his injuries for a quick fix.

Assignment 2: Icebreaker

Our second assignment involved asking a question and taking a portrait of of subject, the question being: "If money were no object, what would be your dream job?" I'm still working on approaching people, but this assignment is true to it's name.






Gordon Hempton, 57, currently an Audio Ecologist, author and founder of One Square Inch of Silence. This is a project to eliminate noise pollution from Olympic National Park, and eventually all of our national parks, by turning them into no-fly-zones. Hempton said his dream job is exactly what he's doing right now, "My daughter asked me a similar question: Dad, what's you dream car? And she couldn't believe it when I said that VW bus I drive right now." Hempton has traveled the United States in his bus, recording natural silence while it still exists.











Since her freshman year, Laura Jones, 21, has been a life drawing model at Western Washington University. Jones says she has plans of a future career with art, as an art therapist. "I'd like to help kids that have a psychological setback," Jones says, "to show them they can create things that last forever".












Marty Hitchcock, 60, says she always wondered what career she might have as an adult. Now, working as an adviser in the department of accounting at Western Washington University, she has realized what she wants to be: "retired."











A junior in the industrial deign department at Western Washington University, Ryan Hume, 21, says he would like to use his art and design skills to become a successful freelance concept artist. Hume says he'd like to "inspire the animated sequences" of films, without the "nitty gritty computer work" of being an animator. It's important that the objects in the film function realistically, says Hume, which his design experience will provide.




Tom Evans, 57, finds his quite spot in the Outback Garden in Fairhaven at Western Washington University, drawn to a cinder block seat beside the beehives. Tom said that over his life, he realized his main need; "What I've come up with, is I've got to have a link with with water." Evans is a retired electrician who has lived in six states before settling in Bellingham with his wife Annie , and buying a sailboat. "You've got to find a way to get your driving needs met," Evan says. His goal is to someday circumnavigate either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean with Annie; "Usually the man is very gung-ho," but Evans says Annie is the one that really takes charge on their adventures. Now, their problem is just picking an ocean.

Assignment 1: Disposable

Our first assignment for journalism 305 is to use a disposable camera to create a captivating and newsy photograph. I learned that I can be pretty shy when trying to talk to strangers on purpose, so I had quite a challenge with this assignment. Maybe it was the camera, maybe it was that I didn't have a direct purpose. And I was just intimidated.

Well, I did get some photos I like though, from a domestic violence awareness project on campus. It's a collection of t-shirts decorated by people around the community, with their stories and messages to other victims of domestic violence.