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| WSU students gather to protest the recent Chapel Hill, North Carolina shooting. (WSUPJ photos by Alexander Franzen) |
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| The march included members of the Arab Student Union, Amnesty International and the Muslim Students Association. |
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| Amistee Air Duct Cleaning Co. performs maintenance on Wayne State's residence halls. |
From this assignment I learned that a cell phone camera can be an essential tool for unplanned, sporadic photo shoots.
I had only heard about the on-campus march to protest the Chapel Hill shootings three hours prior to when it began. I had no time to hop in my car and retrieve my DSLR from home, so I put my faith in my cell phone camera to capture some photos of the protest.
First, I took photos when the group of students gathered in front of the Undergraduate Library, and then I hurried ahead to get a few shots of them actually walking together. The sun was setting behind the students when they began walking, and in this moment I learned the difficulties that come along with bright, overpowering sunlight. My photos of the students marching came out terrible—they were completely over-exposed.
I was not only shooting photos of the march for this assignment, but also for backup photos for a news brief for the South End website, in case a photographer couldn’t show up on the scene. Luckily, a photographer with a DSLR was able to make it and took some excellent photos. I did, however, post my cell phone photo on Twitter and within a few minutes, the Fresco News License asked for my permission to use my photo on their platform.
The photo of the Amistee air duct cleaning trucks was also quite sporadic. I just happened to be walking by when the trucks were parked out in front of Ghafari Hall. I pulled out my cell phone, snapped a quick photo and continued walking to class. Maybe this photo could be published with a future story about residence hall maintenance. Who knows?
From this assignment, I discovered the importance of thinking like a news photographer when taking photos on the scene or at an event. The Chicago Sun-Times article on iPhone photography basics touched on how writers and photographers use different hemispheres of their brain when at work. To me, this is very true. Now it’s time for me to tap into visual and spatial thinking when taking photos.
