Fall 2015 UPAA Contact Sheet

the CONTACT SHEET

JOURNAL OF THE UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHERS’ ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA FALL 2015 1

ON THE COVER: Yazier Henry, a lecturer in public policy at the Ford School at the University of Michigan. Photo by 2014-15 Photographer of the Year Eric Bronson. View more of Bronson’s work on p. 12.

FALL 2015

IN THIS ISSUE 3

President’s Message

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Symposium Review

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Sponsor Spotlight

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Best-of-Show 2015 Award Winner

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Jim Stroup: Creative to the Core

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Photographer of the Year

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

the CONTACT SHEET

JOURNAL OF THE UNIVERSITY PHOTOGRAPHERS’ ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

The Contact Sheet is the Journal of the University Photographers’ Association of America. Founded in 1961, UPAA has sought to advance the profession of university photographer through networking and continuing education.

The Contact Sheet is published three times a year, and is printed at the University of Miami, in Oxford, Ohio. For more information on UPAA or The Contact Sheet, visit www.upaa.org.

Printed at Miami University, Ohio Layout, Design and Typos by Ben Munson, St. Charles Community College

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President Glenn Carpenter Moraine Valley Community College 708.974.5495 carpenter@morainevalley.edu Vice President Robert Jordan University of Mississippi 662.915.7260 rjordan@olemiss.edu Secretary Mark Carriveau Elgin Community College 847.214.7528 mcarriveau@elgin.edu

Treasurer Nick Romanenko Rutgers University 848.445.1917 nroman@rci.rutgers.edu

Corporate Relations Caroline Summers Samford University 205.726.2939 csummers@samford.edu

Membership Chair Bill Bitzinger Ferris State University 231.591.2374 bitzingb@ferris.edu

Ken Bennett Wake Forest University 336.758.6009 bennettk@wfu.edu

MIC Chair & Symposium Co-Chair Jay Ferchaud University of Mississippi Medical Center 601.984.1973 jferchaud@umc.edu

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT Glenn Carpenter, Moraine Valley Community College, UPAA President photo by dana lenckus

NEW & IMPROVED

IS CLEARLY THIS YEAR’S MOTTO. October already, and yet early June is still fresh in my memory and will be for some time to come. Just a few months ago we were together at the University of Michigan for the Annual Symposium. Roger Hart and Michigan Photography hosted nearly 120 photographers and partners for a week of learning, networking and inspiration. Highlights of the week included record attendance and a stellar lineup of speakers including two Pulitzer Prize winners.

remainder of site, the images are as you the creator intended them. The site is built on Drupal 7 and can be upgraded as Drupal is improved and refined. CRMCore runs the user records portion of the new site and it has been simplified to meet our needs.

The UPAA and the Symposium work together to help you be a better photographer.

This is accomplished through competitions, where we strive to be better and push our own boundaries. Through the Symposium, inspiring speakers challenge our complacency and remind us to always “shoot just one more frame.” Another help comes in the form of networking with fellow photographers, reassuring us that we are not alone and there are solutions to the most challenging situations.

Our most popular contest, the Monthly Image Competition (MIC), is now a part of our CMS, Drupal. The old MIC application was a magnificent piece of custom programming that required hard coding to upgrade and make changes and could not easily be made responsive for mobile devices. A concern from many of you was larger images for voting in the MIC. Our new site has a maximum image size, and images will be displayed up to that maximum size, 1600 pixels on the long edge, depending on the monitor you are using. One change you will notice is the images don’t advance once the vote is cast. Currently, this is not possible in Drupal 7, but it is something we are actively pursuing and the Drupal community may have a solution soon.

The fall semester represents a fresh start, and a new Monthly Image Competition is more than a “Who is Best” contest, it is a connection to each other and the organization and, most importantly, it is a point of inspiration for new ideas from the best in the business. Even if you don’t enter, vote! Voting allows you to view images and gain that inspiration for your next project.

The website is brand new, and there will be a few bumps along way. When the board set out to remake the website the goals were simple:

1. Make it easier to use

2. Maintain the integrity of the photos

3. Provide a platform that can grow with the organization

Ease of use has been achieved with a member dashboard that lists current competitions, awards that you have won, status of your membership and when to renew your membership. The other major ease-of-use feature is the site is responsive and functions on mobile devices. We all cringe when we see our images cropped to an extreme horizontal for the web. There are only two places on the site that have cropped images: the Symposium page and the contest page. Throughout the

Like all projects, this one will be modified and pushed to better places in the next several months. We welcome your input and help as we move forward. Just like a new semester, this is the beginning a new adventure and growth for each of the organization and us.

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“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”

- Henry Ford

Hail! to dear old Ann Arbor!

Hail to UPAA.

STORY BY JAREN WILKEY | BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY We all come to Symposium seeking something. For some it is inspiration, for others it is knowledge; others still are looking for validation. Many simply need someone to commiserate with.

Whatever our reasons may be, the Symposium has become an annual gathering of friends that we look forward to every year.

This year the University of Michigan hosted the largest gathering of University Photographers in history. It was quite fitting that we began the week with a shootout at Greenfield Village, home of museums honoring Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.

It was fascinating to learn more about these two innovators who changed the world through their determination and will.

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One of my favorite experiences of the week was going to the reconstructed and relocated Menlo Park where Edison perfected the light bulb. The guide shared many stories about how Edison kept pushing forward despite the many setbacks and trials.

Edison said, “When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes.”

The Symposium was packed with what may have been the most impressive lineup of speakers to date. We began with award-winning photojournalist David Burnett. He shared many experiences from his long career and what he has learned along the way. David emphasized the importance of finding a great

SIR

SYMPOSIUM IN REVIEW

NIKON AMBASSADOR ANDY HANCOCK DEMONSTRATES BACKBOARD CAMERA INSTALLATION AND ARENA LIGHTING ON FRIDAY MORNING AT THE UPAA SYMPOSIUM.

composition and then having the patience to wait for the image to happen. “Waiting is the most important thing we do; it’s what makes a great photojournalist.” During the Iranian Revolution this patience paid off by giving him access to shoot inside a room with the Ayatollah Khomeini who was meeting with his followers. The scary part of the story is that the Ayatollah almost tripped over David’s camera bag lying on the floor, which he admits would have probably ended his career, among other things.

Burnett also spoke about his return to shooting film on a 4x5 Speed Graphic and how it forces him to slow down and see. “It’s a different way of seeing and shooting . . . When you throw up your own roadblocks, it makes you a different photographer.”

He’s chronicled everything from Olympics, Hurricane Katrina, A Mountain Man Rendezvous and even a gathering of Abraham Lincoln impersonators with his 4x5 camera.

Joe McNally began by telling us “After 40 years of doing this, I still enjoy the sound of the shutter . . . being in the field and making the world stop for just a brief moment.” He shared with

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portfolio should have your voice; it should feel cohesive and have the same structure and style.”

Wednesday’s final speaker was David Hume Kennerly, a photojournalist with a storied career covering national politics. One of his main messages was that the biggest challenge photographers need to overcome is fear, whether it is your fear for your safety or the fear of asking somebody if you can take their photo. As a young photographer, he was excited to go to Vietnam to cover the war, but just a few days before leaving he got the news that several photographers died when the helicopter they were flying in was shot down. He had a lot of fear about going, but after agonizing over the decision for several days he was able to face his fears and get on the plane. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for his war coverage, which set him on a different career path.

us his path through photography, from a young photojournalist to a self-proclaimed generalist that has seen the world many times over during the course of his career. “I tell young shooters to view their camera not as just a camera, but as a visa – it opens up the world to you.”

Joe also emphasized the importance of making time for shooting personal projects. “There is food for the table and food for the soul. Take time to make photographs that heal your soul and remind you why you became a photographer.” He reminded us that many of his most successful projects were the ones he initiated and not the ones that editors dropped in his lap. He concluded with the sound advice, “Your best picture is hopefully the next picture you shoot. Your eye has to be hungry for it; you have to yearn for the next job.”

Jim Colton drew on his 43 years of experience as a photo editor to teach us how we can be better photographers. He reminded us that photographers make the worst photo editors because they have a difficult time detaching themselves emotionally from their work and choosing photos that will convey a story. He reminded us that we should focus on the 3 C’s - Content, Color and Composition. As a photo editor, he feels that photographers tend to neglect the close-up detail shots that help complete a story.

In portfolio reviews, Jim advises photographers to cut down their selections to the absolute strongest images because “You are only as strong as your weakest photo.” At the same time, he said ‘A

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Later, he was working as a photographer in D.C. and got to know Oliver Atkins, who was working as President Nixon’s White House Photographer. Atkins had very limited access to President Nixon, who didn’t like having a photographer hanging around. David vowed he wouldn’t put up with such restrictions given the opportunity.

He explained, “You need to speak your peace to people in power” so you have the access that you need to do your job. When President Nixon resigned, the newly sworn-in President Ford invited David to come to the residence for a chat. David explained what happened next: The President started right in by asking me about the White House photographer’s job, and was I interested. I looked him in the eye and told him what I thought. “I would like to do it if I report directly to you, and have total access to everything that happens in the White House.” Smoke curled from his pipe as he though about that rather brazen request. “You don’t want Air Force One on weekends?” he joked.

This led to what many consider to be the best period of Presidential photography in history with Kennerly having unprecedented access to President Ford. He even was granted Top Secret clearance so he could come in to photograph the president at any time during any meeting. He finished his remarks by giving us the charge to keep fighting for opportunities to make pictures because “photographers are keepers of history’s visual flame.”

On Thursday, Deanne Fitzmaurice spoke to the group about visual storytelling. She spent several years as a staff photographer at the San Francisco Chronicle before becoming a freelancer in 2008. My biggest takeaway from Deanne’s presentation is that you can’t rely on others to hand you great assignments; you need to be willing to create them for yourself. “Something that is really important to

me is perseverance, whether to get a story or a particular photo.

Not giving up has really helped me out a lot.” Her Pulitzer Prizewinning story featuring a boy who was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq and sent to the U.S. for treatment began as a simple assignment from the paper to get one image. She decided there was more to the story and invested a lot of time and work to see it through to the end.

Her award-winning coverage of Barry Bonds during his home run streak only happened because she overcame her fear and approached Barry at spring training to ask if she could document the private moments of his life. After that, she had to keep fighting and pushing for every opportunity to photograph him, but the result was that she captured images that nobody thought were possible to get. “For every yes that I get, I get 10 no’s, but you have to push through it.”

The final day of the Symposium was full of workshops. It began with Andrew Hancock teaching us about how to safely set up and use remotes. One of his main points was that even though it takes a lot of work to set one up, a remote gives you a shot you wouldn’t otherwise have. Rick Osentoski taught a workshop on

shooting food. It was incredible to see all the little details that went into making what is often frozen or uncooked food look so appetizing.

The final workshop of the day was with Sports Illustrated’s Robert Beck. In addition to sharing many funny stories from his shooting career, he taught us exactly how he approaches shooting a football game. The best tip I took away was that he watches the offensive lineman as a play develops because they will tell you what type of play is being run. If they step back, it will usually be a pass play; and if they push forward, you can expect a running play. The day ended with a banquet where we honored the award winners and had a chance to bid farewell to one another for yet another year.

For me, there was a pervasive theme present in all the messages shared with us: You need to be willing to pay the price to find success. Whatever it was that I came to Michigan seeking, my week ended with many fond memories, several new friendships and a resolve to throw myself back into the job that I love. As Thomas Edison said, “What you are will show in what you do.”

Does thanks even cut it?

SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT

Probably not. Another symposium is past and there is much activity even now as we begin to make preparations for next year’s event at Austin Peay. There are facilities to reserve, speakers to schedule, meals to plan but especially there are sponsors to be contacted, some for the first time and some of them loyal UPAA fans who continue to support us and our mission year after year. Sponsorship is a win-win for everyone. The sponsors have an opportunity to connect with our unique and growing profession in the field of education and we benefit from being exposed to more and more ways to make our work more efficient and spectacular. The friendships that are forged along the way with the sponsor representatives are just gravy!

With that said, a million thanks to this year’s returning sponsors Nikon, Canon, Roberts, Extensis, PhotoShelter, Think Tank, Kelly Moore and KelbyOne. And a huge welcome and wave of

appreciation to our newest sponsors MacGroup, Workapture, ExpoImaging, and Lumiquest! \Our symposium would not be the success it always is without these companies’ (and especially their representatives’) support and participation. Moreover, their support is not confined to the Symposium but exists year-round in the form of technical support, product information and discounts to our members. Please remember to go to the Discount Program page on the UPAA website and check out the discounts that are available to members before making purchases!

Be sure to show our sponsors the love and appreciation they deserve throughout the year!

Thanks again to our amazing lineup of sponsors. We look forward to seeing you and a few new friends next year in Tennessee at Austin Peay!

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BOSS

BEST OF SHOW (SIMPLY )

WITH EIGHT UPAA PHOTOGRAPHER-OF-THEYEAR AWARDS UNDER HIS BELT AND COUNTLESS FIRST-PLACE PHOTOS IN THE MONTHLY IMAGE COMPETITION, BYU’S MARK PHILBRICK IS A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH. PHILBRICK GRADUATED FROM BYU WITH A BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN COMMUNICATIONS (EMPHASIS PHOTOGRAPHY) IN 1975 AND RECEIVED HIS MASTER’S DEGREE IN EDUCATION IN 1978.

check out that

surround

SOUND

(and the best image around)

MARK PHILBRICK | BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY Ever since I walked into the room years ago, I knew wanted to do something unique. Over the past years they just had a simple setup without any drama or design.

When the professor told me about using 37 microphones and a circular mounting system that extended below the floor, I was at the lab the next day. It was a very simply complicated lighting setup using four Einstein strobes with Vagabond battery packs.

For me, using barn doors is a must to put the light only where I

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want it. I used one light below the floor grid and three above. It took about an hour to set up with another hour shooting various angles, lenses and expressions. I started with a 9mm fisheye up to a 35mm lens. The image that I won with was shot with a 15mm lens.

I am always surprised that one of my images wins, especially with all the great images we had in the competition. On the other hand, I don’t enter unless I plan to win.

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TFP

TIPS FR OM THE PR OS

CREATIVE

to the core.

BY JIM STROUP | VIRGINIA TECH

This photo was created as a possible cover for our university magazine. The cover article was on our research to provide clean water and food for the growing world population. The white background was the designer’s choice. It’s not really a stream of water hitting the apple – I dropped an apple upside down into a fish tank, taking advantage of that Nikon D4’s 11 frames per second and the high speed flash recycling of the Paul C. Buff Einstein studio strobes. I inverted the photo and added the top-right splash from another photo. The continents were pulled off the Internet and then wrapped around the apple with the warp tool. The continents were then deleted using the mask tool and embossed and a drop shadow added. The peeled apple, which was shot once I was sure I had the splash elements, was layered below the splash layer. To make it a little more believable, I wanted part of the splash to wash over part of one of the continents, with the transparency of the water altering the color of the peeled section of the continent.

This was hand-done in Photoshop by adding the peel back to the apple and then using hue adjustments to give that part a different look.

“MY WORK IS AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE TO THE WORLD AROUND ME. I WANT TO PROMOTE AN UNDERSTANDING OF OUR PLANET AND ITS INHABITANTS THROUGH IMAGES THAT CONVEY PASSION, CURIOSITY AND WONDER. MY WORK IS A CALL TO CONNECT WITH OUR WORLD, WITH EACH OTHER AND WITH OURSELVES.” – JIM STROUP, VIRGINIA TECH

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POY

PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR

MICHIGAN FOOTBALL SPRING GAME AT MICHIGAN STADIUM ON APRIL 4, 2015.

ERIC BRONSON CAPTURES

SECOND POY in three years STORY BY NICK ROMANENKO RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PHOTOS BY ERIC BRONSON UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

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FROM START to FINISH The etched glass awards kept piling up in front of Eric Bronson as the banquet made its way to the top honor of Photographer of the Year.

When it was official and Eric captured POY for the second time in three years by placing five out of six entries in the Annual Print Competition and winning the overall Monthly Image Contest by a comfortable margin, one could see satisfaction and relief in his expression at the same time.

Eric admits that winning the POY for the first time in 2013 was a surprise. He worked hard for his second, motivated partly as a result of surging out in front during the first MIC competition in September

2014 and never looking back in the standings for the next nine MIC’s, partly knowing it would be extra sweet to win, “on his home turf” as the University of Michigan hosted the 54th annual Technical Symposium. Perhaps mostly because he and Katie, his wife of five years, are expecting their first child as this issue of The Contact Sheet goes to print.

POY winners tend to be driven, very competitive, with a healthy amount of confidence in their photographic abilities. Eric is no exception, he confesses, “This time I knew a little more about what it takes to win and the planning that goes with it. I felt I could really (win the POY), especially after the first couple of months of the MIC. I knew I was having a really good year and I had some good shooting opportunities that I could turn into something a little bit more.”

“That’s why I tried to push it this year,” Eric explains. “I saw the writing on the wall with the baby coming, and my energy is going to be diverted to raising a life. For example, I could try an interesting moon shot over campus, but now it will be that much harder that I have an infant at home. I was thankful with all the support from my wife, but it’s good to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.”

Going the “extra mile” is very much a part of Eric’s DNA. He admits he’s known as the “big production guy” in the Michigan Photo office. A prime example would be his APC Second Place image in Sports Features depicting a basketball player about to dunk, dramatically lit and shot from below. Eric was contracted to do the basketball team’s promo shots, which is always a treat and a challenge as they don’t give him much direction on how to shoot or approach the images, leaving him a great deal of creative freedom, plus the added stress of, “it’s all on me” if anything goes wrong.

About the photo, Eric explains, “It’s all Paul Buff lighting. The key light is a 3’ or 4’ octobank that I had on a boom directly above as high as I could get it. Still, we didn’t have the players jumping too high so they wouldn’t exceed the limits of a large black cloth background we had up on C-stands. There are two 30-degree grids positioned in back on both side, and one big parabolic diffuser off to the left to give me some fill light. And then I had some small speedlights popping into the feet a bit.”

For his APC Honorable Mention – Sports Features image of a diver, Eric was underwater in full free-diving gear and an

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APC Honorable Mention – Sports Features

MIGUEL ORTIZ OF CLUB WOLVERINE | SEPT. 21, 2014

underwater housing for his camera, also tripping some strobes off the surface. Eric says, “There’s something to be said for bringing that extra light and doing this and that to make an image the best it could possibly be. If you have the resources to do that, go for it.”

One of Eric’s favorite photos, showing the exterior of Michigan Stadium, was done in the wee morning hours of sunrise. As he explains, “I got up really early to try to get a blood moon over the stadium. I had all my long glass with me but none of the angles were working out. I was feeling really frustrated, but then I decided to take another walk around the stadium, looking for something else. The image I shot is not an angle you normally see of the stadium. It only looks good in that light because there are some knarly trees around it. So this was an accident that worked out really well.”

Sometimes a photo requires patience. The dramatic B&W image of a football player in a “Michigan Wins” shirt, featured for many months as an opening image on the UPAA website, looks to be a contrasty, edge-lit photograph against a black background look that Eric has really perfected since his POY win in 2013. “I got a lot of comments and emails asking me how I lit that shot. But I didn’t light it. I was at Michigan State and they have a new tunnel for the players under the stands. I saw this little slit of light and thought, I can really do something with this. I waited over and hour to get my photo. The players and coaches are running down the tunnel, so I’m shooting and shooting. I just happened to get the right expression, on the right player, wearing the right thing, at the right time. When people found out that I didn’t set this up they liked it even more.”

Eric describes, something a little bit more as, “Sometimes when you see something scheduled on a shoot you think can be really cool. So you ask the client to spend an extra 10 or 20 minutes or so trying something different. Lots of times they actually end up using that image instead of what they asked you to do originally. The pictures that do well for me in the MIC are more often than not the ones that happen at the end of a shoot.”

“The bird picture (APC First Place in Science & Research) was unexpected. During a day in the life of a research lab shoot I was shooting

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a student at a workbench and I saw this big magnifying glass. I got the idea I wanted to do something more, so we played around with the angle and lighting until I got the colors to fill the entire magnifying glass. We spent a lot of time and it worked on the very last shot.

That’s one of my favorite pictures of the year.”

Deviating from one of the classic “tips to winning” that I’ve heard from interviewing many POY winners, which is “don’t get too emotionally attached to your pictures,” Eric admits, “I really wanted (the bird photo) to place. You work so hard and you have so little time, you really hope something works and then when it does work, you get so excited. And then it wins, that’s a great feeling. It’s not generally good to be emotionally attached to your images, but when it works and you win, it does make it a little more special.”

“It’s interesting working with clients. You can explain and explain about what your vision is for a shot, but they’re not going to ‘get it’ until they see it. You build up trust if your goofy stuff pans out. Then you can push your vision of what you want to do more. The moral of the story is to try to push people to take the extra time and take some chances. In the long run you’ll be able to open more doors and be more creative, create more satisfying stuff, even if it’s just for yourself.”

Eric is a big fan of the MIC, and he was particularly happy finally winning the overall points total after coming close the previous few years.

As he elaborates, “I did make it my goal to win the MIC this year. It was one competition I hadn’t won yet, and I came in either second or third every year I’ve submitted entries to it. The way it’s set up now is if you win the MIC you’re in a good position to also win the POY.” I talked to Eric about choosing photos that do well in competition and he replied, “You need to ask a lot of people, like the MIC does. I think it’s an incredibly valuable tool that way, getting different opinions and you can see where your image placed in the 50 or so entries per category. That would be really cool to see in the APC too.

“We could take it a step further and solicit opinions on why something didn’t place well. We already post feedback about images that

win every month, but talking constructively about what does not win would really be educational to the group I think.”

Accessing the “state of UPAA” Eric observes, “Every year the work keeps getting better and better; there’s no question about that. I think that’s a combination of our members just getting better at what they do, and having all this information at their fingertips and the desire to get better. We’ve also had an influx of new talent from newspapers and other media that perhaps would not have gravitated towards university work in the past.”

The board is pleased to have awarded this highest honor a truly exceptional photographer. Eric’s drive to be better each day and to continue learn embodies the true spirit of a photographer in higher education – a university photographer.

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SNEAK PREVIEW

PHOTOS BY DONALD PAGE, TENNESSEE ATHLETICS Donald Page tested the new Canon 5Ds before it was released and chose to photograph the Vols’ new uniforms. Watch for a full review in the next issue of The Contact Sheet.

What’s in YOUR bag? Show us your favorite photos and the gear you use to help make them! Join the discussion in the UPAA Facebook (Private) Group. Haven’t joined yet? Type “UPAA” in the Facebook search.

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