My camera might be sea sick. Honestly. If you needed proof that our country's rail infrastructure is in a bad way, try shooting pictures on a commuter train.

We rocked back and forth, up and down so much on this trip I'd say 90% of my shots looked like they were taken as I threw the camera around the train.

In the interest of showing the bad and the not terrible, here are two of my favorite bad shots of the day (the worst I've left off since they're um, well, really awful).

I'll leave the bad angle just for fun.

Trying to take a picture of the conductor...but the train hit a bump in the line.
Tom Bullock

My luck wasn't much better as we walked down the train. Tom Bullock

-- Tom

5:45am Friday morning (no joke). There I was, standing at the Marc station at the foot of Camden Yards in Baltimore. I got up that early hoping to catch a bit of "Golden Time", that brief moment as the sun rises and sets where colors just pop.

I was suppose to be on the water -- having arranged a morning commute Baltimore style -- water taxi from Locust Point to downtown. But my captain called me VERY early Friday morning late to say he was out -- and so were all the water taxis. The city was repairing their docks.

I scramble.

With a commute on my mind, I headed to the nearest rail station camera in hand.

Here's where it all went funny...and I've got the pictures to prove it. Read on...

-- Tom

Continue reading "Is There a Filter for Being a Dope??" >

I can not count the number of times I have tried to photograph a studio, and failed. I really like taking photographs so it has been enormously frustrating to not be able to take a photo of where I work.

Today though - I did! The reasons studios are so difficult to shoot is because the lighting is (for the most part) very low and varied. So when I try to get a shot of a host, engineer, director or, God forbid, the entire studio, the flash takes control and the studio looks really dark.

By using the highest ISO, though, the lens takes in more light, and the shot looks grainy, but acceptable, like this.

The master at his ship. Sound Engineer Arthur Laurent at the board in studio 2C at the top of a newscast. Nicole Beemsterboer

 

Nicole Beemsterboer

A brand new group of Knights started this week and I have felt very guilty for being absent for the first three days! When I finally returned today, from a training session of my own, I encountered a truly beautiful sight. Huddled around Karl (back from the Columbus Dispatch) the group was going through a very constructive edit and the photos looked GREAT! As I walked from computer to computer, scanning the tagged photos from a portrait assignment still sitting in their Photo Mechanic window I couldn't help but turning to Kim and whispering excitedly, "They're so good!"

I can't wait to see the work everyone produces for their first project tomorrow!

-- Becky (K.A.T)

When I was an apprentice butcher at Acords Market growing up in Laguna Beach, there were four guys behind the counter: Shelley, Jon, Tom and Gabe. They were all good guys but this posting involves Gabe. Gabe was a funny fast talker from Brooklyn who had an story for every situation, many of which involved, shall we say, the flexible moral landscape of certain elements in Brooklyn. One story about the perils of gambling involved a guy who worked at a butcher shop there who wasn't able to pay his debts.

The real Susan Stamberg is at the right. As if you didn't know that. David Folkenflik/NPR

Gabe said he found the guy one morning dangling from a butcher's hook in the meat locker. Gabe also said he decided maybe California would be a better place to look for work.

As a fifteen or sixteen year old apprentice butcher, I listened very closely.

He also showed me about 70 ways to cheat customers at the butcher's counter. Putting your thumb on the scale was the least of it.

This matters only insofar as our dazzling visiting lecturer, Karl of the Columbus Dispatch, was telling us not only what TO do, but what NOT to do. So let me say, relying on the integrity of my Knightness, that these pictures are not Photoshopped to insert basketballs, add phantom missiles, create a golden aura, clarify the colors of the president's jacket, or anything else.

Instead, I took pictures depicting one of my favorite NPR folks, Mme. Stamberg, and a restaurant nearby where I remember consuming more than a few pomegranate drinks......and as Gabe might have said, no thumbs on the scale.

-- David Folkenflik

If you work in radio long enough you will start hearing more than you've ever thought you can, more than you ever wish you would. People eating and making noises with their mouth, heels hitting against the sidewalk, the exhaling sound a bus makes when it stops, etc. The sounds seem louder to the ear and more differentiated. Today, Karl Kuntz tried to teach us the same skills for pictures.

A portrait: Dalia Martinez Monika Evstatieva

 

The pictures need to have great lines, colors, details, the light should be enough and the composition interesting. I am taking baby steps here, so don't be too harsh...hope you like some of these images. Monika

A close shot, but not real depth of field. Monika Evstatieva

 

An experiment that needs improvement. Monika Evstatieva

 

Two assignments today:

A portrait of someone in their office, and a close up of them. I chose the highly photogenic Katia Dunn for the first assignment.

The light is directly overhead in the studio, but it works because the white paper she's holding reflects it into her face and illuminates it.
Dianna Douglas

I feel like there's a certain tension in this picture, so I liked it. That wide angle lens covers a host of sins.
Dianna Douglas