Research paper

    There are so many different types of photography and a lot of career paths in the field. I really enjoy so many different types of photography like lifestyle,Sports,Action,Portrait and more but, the one that sticks out to me the most is Appropriation photography. I like appropriation photography because the subject that you are using is already in your hands, you just have to make it your own. Appropriation is the use of using a pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. You don’t see to many photographers using appropriation but a famous artist that does it is Andy Warhol & Pablo Picasso.

    The employment opportunities for this type of photography is not much. You are more self employed with this type of artwork. You can make money helping out a artist do appropriation work. Throughout the year it is important to pick up jobs through companies to get your name exposed more and to support your projects you want to work on. You can even pick up on photography jobs like food,wedding,commercial photo shoots to support your living as a appropriation photographer.

    Additional training for this work is needed. Knowledge of well known art pieces is a must. Also knowing the history of art is a good when making art piece using appropriation. Although you can go into the profession with no knowledge and still come out successful. It’s easier if you have the knowledge of course. The Photographer I interviewed is John Messinger. He was introduced to photography at the age of nine years old. John and his grandmother built a darkroom in his basement. He went to a arts oriented high school he wanted to pursue photography even further. After high school john attended Boston university to study photojournalism then got his masters at the school of Visual Arts.

    To get started in this career you have to look for jobs that are going to support your ideas and artwork. Getting your name out in the art world is very important and crucial if you want to become successful in this field. Always keep yourself busy with photo work. John Messinger worked several non-related photography jobs to afford his pursuit of photography.  He also did photography related work like family portraits, weddings, and shot photos for the newspaper part time.

    Work days revolve around a studio. John says, “As a photographer that is self employed, you don’t need to work every day but you should push yourself to get in the studio and create something.” “I find that having a regimented schedule around my work to be helpful.” Other photographers works days could be answering emails from clients, Meetings, researching new content. Printing and developing photographs throughout the day and planning work out for the next couple of weeks or months. Most self employed photographers have the same repeated days all week.

    One of the hardest things to come up with as a photographer is pricing and how much you should charge clients for work. A way you can price your work is in you include these 5 factors, the quality of your work, perceived value, confidence, competitors, cost of goods. Photographers don't always feel comfortable talk about how much they make a year because they all make a different amount of money.

    Networking is important to photographers. Getting to know people that are successful in the field can make you a successful photographer. Networking is great if you need access to certain things places that you need to get into. Although when I interviewed john he said he does not feel entirely comfortable networking but, having a great body of work and a little networking can make you successful.

     At the end of the interview with John Messinger I asked what kind of advice would you give a young photographer trying to make it? John replied, “Just don't stop. The people who will be  photographers 15-20 years from now is not always because they were the best image makers, or the most clever, or knew something that others didn't. In most cases, the folks who are still making work 15 to 20 years from now are simply the folks who never stopped, who never took no for an answer.”

    From writing this paper I discovered that as a photographer there are struggles. In order to get what you want you need to work hard for it and push limits. Also networking could be used a great tool to get in contact with certain people or to get access places. If you become really successful you could make a lot of money from this career. Its also Important to find jobs and contact companies to do work for them. But, Being a photographer is what I want to do. I’m going to go as hard as I can until I get where I want to be in the art world. Even when I get to that spot where I’m comfortable I will still be trying to get to a better place then where I’m at.

Reaction Paper #3
Steve McCurry Video


     Steve McCurry is a photographer for the National Geographic magazine. In our seminar class we watched a video on his work. The video was about Steve shooting the last roll of Kodachrome that was made. Steve began shooting his photographs with Kodachrome film. He left for a trip to India with a few rolls of Kodachrome and his camera to shoot photos for a small newspaper job. The images he came back with landed in the National Geographic magazine. National geographic asked Steve to shoot photos for them after that trip to India. Now Steve is known as one of the greatest photographers in the world. 
      Kodak annouced in 2009 that they will stop producing Kodachrome film. Steve saw this as a great opportunity and asked if he can shoot the last roll Kodachrome. Given his reputation it's no superise that Kodak let him shoot the final roll of film. The national Geographic crew gathered up to film Steve process of shooting the roll of film. In the begining of the video Steve wanted to Shoot photos around the city. He was finding anything in the city that would worth the shots on the last roll. He then came up with the idea to shoot portraits. Will Steves connections he has he was able to get Robert De Niro to sit for a portrait. After that session Robert travels around taking portraits of important people and the way people are living. 
     I thought the video was really interesting and was glad I got to watch it in class. Steve really shows his love for Kodachrome in the video. He also shows how important every shot was for him. Film is a great way to learn how to shoot photographs. Using a film camera teaches you to make every shot count.
     

 This past weekend has been absolutely crazy. Rushing this final project was not a good idea. My time Management has sucked because of how much is going on. But I was able to push through it and shoot a bunch of images for my final. I had so many ideas of what i wanted to shoot for this project but most of them did not work out. I love shooting life style pictures and I just recently got into shooting portraits. So I wanted my final projects lifestyle portraits. Here are some of the images I printed out for my final. I learned my lesson with time management with this project and will be a lot more on top of my next photo project.

Photo by John Messinger

John Messinger came into our class to talk to us on 11/29/16. I was super pumped on listening to his lecture he had for the class and was interested in what he had to say about photography. John is one of Professor Cyr friends from college and professor Cyr showed us a video on John Messinger on how he shoots his projects.
 John first showed us a video that Fuji Film made on him for a project they were working on. The project they were working on was with the new Fuji Film Instax. John's work was made of multiple Instax instant pictures that were put into grids and all taped together. All of his pieces looked very abstract. He zoomed into pictures on a digital screens and came up with all of these unique colors. John explained the process how every photo has to be produced the same. From the timing he peels the cover off of the photos to the angle he shoots the photos. Some one in my class asked him how he came up with this idea. He said that he always kept the history of photography and one day he was taking pictures of the girl swinging on a swing from a odd prospective. Every time he took a photo he laid the photos out on the ground next to the swing. When he looked over his photos from that day he liked how he was making a grid with all of these polaroids. John then applied to use a space at a museum in the Hamptons. He told us it was one of the worst applications he has ever filled out. The museum gave him a shot to produce work that they were going to present. They gave him the winter to shoot photos for them. Shooting in the winter is tough because there is not a lot of color out doors. He shots photos outside the building and he thought the out come was terrible. He then was in the darkest room in the museum and looking at the computer screen and started shooting photos of the wallpapers of the screen. He was impressed with the colors that were being produced. Making a grid out of the polaroids. Thats how he came p with his style. John works as a visual artist and is self employed but sometimes during the year companies will hire him to do projects for them.

This past weekend  went to the city. I didn't bring my Sony A7 or Canon 7D because, I went there to ride my bike with my friend and I didn't want it to be in the way of my riding. I felt really empty without my camera and every spot I went to that day had something I could shoot at. So I took out my phone and just started taking pictures.

This past weekend I went to Penn State to go watch the hockey team play. I wanted to shoot photos of the hockey team and I thought it was a great opportunity to put my Sony A7 to the test. I knew that my Sony A7 was able to capture a great image when subjects are still and slightly moving but, I never shot any action shots with this camera. The game started and everything was moving at such a fast paste. I turned my camera setting to the fastest shutter I can shoot at. This was the first time i shot with a fast shutter speed on this camera and I realized that the camera wasn't handling fast moving subjects that well. That's why most of these images are clear because I had to wait when the players aren't moving as much. I wasn't expecting a great outcome with this camera with action sports but I wanted to put it to the test.

I went to Vermont this past weekend. Took some landscape shots of the mountains. When i was editing the photos I stuck with my warm tone feel that a lot of my photos have.