Aaron Paul Vogel

Learning Through Mistakes:
A Reflection on What I’ve Learned This Sesssion as it Relates to Gilles Peress and Martin Parr

The one thing that constantly amazes me as I progress through the curriculum here at Brooks Institute of Photography is the speed and clarity with which I learn. Never before have I been able to look back on a year of schooling feeling proud of the amount of knowledge - not just information - but genuine knowledge I’ve been able to take in and utilize. My technical and aesthetic skills have grown beyond what I’d previously imagined in high school and my college years before now. The session I’m currently in is no exception to this trend, and I’m happy to say that I feel it has been one of the most eye opening, if not the most successful session I’ve had to date. I’ve stumbled a lot this session, and come very near to falling flat on my face. I feel that I have not been doing the work I’m capable of producing, and I’ve come short in areas I should already be strong in; like captions. I’ve been late turning in assignments - a failure that I’ve very aware will lead me down a short road to being jobless in the real world - and I’ve been slow to jump at the opportunities to display the talent I know I have. Despite my failures I feel that this has been a time during which I’ve learned more about both the subtle and simple skills required to truly excel as a professional photojournalist.

I'm happy today for a number of reasons. First of all my school session is almost over; the final projects are turned in, the tests are over with, and now I can look forward to a short break in the action before the deadlines and pressures return. Also, I finally got an RA number so I could ship my Presonus Firebox off for replacement. For those that don't know, I accidentally installed firmware for a Presonus Firepod onto my Firebox, rendering it pretty much unusable. I've been having a heck of a time with their tech support people; getting bounced from one person to another, having voicemail and email alike ignored, and some generally sad responses when I did get a hold of someone. Well today I finally got the Return Authorization number I needed and promptly boxed up the Firebox and shipped it off. Hopefully I'll get it back quickly as I've got a number of projects I want to use it for. Last but not least on the list of reasons I'm in a good mood is that it's Thursday, and that means Midnight Cinema... well, actually Seven-thirty Cinema. Every Thursday night one of the smaller local movie theaters, the Regency Buenaventura, shows a single show of a classic movie. Last week it was Fast Times at Ridgemont High and a few weeks before that was The Blues Brothers; both movies I'd never seen on the big screen. This weeks selection: Spaceballs! A bunch of people from school are getting together for it shortly. May the Schwartz be with you.

It seems that everywhere I look these days I'm seeing Colin Mulvany's name popping up. Mulvany - who's Video Journal blog for the Spokesman Review's website is something I've reading and linking to for about 6 months now - just turned up in the SportsShooter.com newsletter as a featured interview in an article written by another SS.com member G.J. McCarthy. The dialog is really cool, and interesting and encouraging to see on what I'd say is a 99% still photography centered website.

In addition, Mulvany is serving as part of the faculty for the 2006 Southern Short Course which I'm sure has a lot to do with his previous 15+ years of photojournalism, but I can't help to think that his recent success with video, and the integration of audio and slideshows he's done had something to do with it too.

For my photo class this session we had to write a paper critiquing a photojournalism, or photography based website such as magnum.com, nytimes.com, sportsshooter.com and the like. I chose to do my critique on Mulvany's Video Journal. I wasn't going to post it, but since I now have a category (did you happen to see that addition on the right hand side?) for essays and articles, I think I'll post it now. So follow the link below to read my critique of Spokesman Review's Video Journal.

Sony MiniDisc recorders to support Macs - DV Guru

As Ajit Anthony writes in this post over at DV Guru, "I don't know why a company like Sony would take so long to include a major population of the creative community," but they finally have; or will be. For quite a while indie audio gatherers - journalists, DJ's, podcasters, etc. - have been using the MiniDisc format as a highly portable, fairly cheap, and big-on-storage means of recording good quality sound in the field. If they were working on a mac, however, they were pretty much out of luck for support. In order to get the music off the recorder and onto your Mac you'd have to plug the recorder into the mic jack and play the audio back as you recorded it... all of it... minute by minute... very slowly. so if you had 5 hours of audio from a protest or an interview, you had to listen to all of it over again. This could be good as you had a chance to make notes and stuff. But really...

I looked into MD when I was first looking to buy an audio recorder, but decided the lack of support for Mac was something I didn't want to deal with. It seems like with this tick off the con side of the table MD stands a much better chance against solid-state digital recorders like the Marantz PMD660 or my M-Audio Microtrack.

On the other hand, the MD format has been less than popular in North America - apparently it's huge in Asia - so many industry people seem to think the MZ-RH1 is the last of a breed. With price estimates from $275 - $325 it seems Sony is betting there's still someone out there that needs one. Perhaps all those Mac people they've been ignoring until now. Then again, Sony hasn't been know for good ideas as of late.

I awoke Saturday morning past to head out for work - shooting youth soccer tournaments in Santa Barbara - only to see this beautiful sight. I obviously couldn't pass up taking a picture. As much as I dreaded what a red sky at morning (sailors take warning) means, it was a delight none the less. California is paradise.

Those of you looking for more content will be pleased to know that I'll be headed out for the Southern Short Course in News Photography tomorrow and while undoubtedly be posting often - well at least once a day - about my experience. This is sure to be an interesting weekend with Ami Vitale, Colin Mulvany and Vincent Laforet all working as faculty.

I've also just re-recorded the voice over track for my MPV161 class final, so that 5-minute documentary on Parkfield, Calif., will be posted up within the next few weeks. It's rough, and it's not exactly as I would have done it, but working in groups means making concessions. I am no less pleased to present it regardless, and working with Dominic Colacchio and Grant Morris was a terrific experience.

...and no wireless access!?! And $9.99 a day for wired access?!? What the heck is this? I can't figure if this is some major new trend in hotels - I haven't traveled much lately - or just southern mentality, but I just checked in to one of the nicest hotels in the middle of nowhere I've ever checked in to. First thing I look for: internet. What do i find instead? A stupid little box and instructions on how to connect: 1) Connect cable - already a problem 'cause who carries an ethernet cable with them these days? 2) turn on your computer - duh 3) open your web browser. Now that third one is always a dead giveaway that there's going to be a problem. Next thing I see is a little stand-up sign saying that it costs $9.99 a day for high speed internet access. Lame!

After a few select words to no one in particular I called down to the front desk to inquire. The response was that there was free wireless in the lobby and the main club. No big deal. Only, there isn't free wireless in the lobby and main club. Nothing. Nada. Sucks. Fortunately, having been in similar situations before I know that there's always somewhere in the area that's bound to have free wireless. I mean, it's pretty much like air these days, right? I called up my mom - always my backup, "will you google something for me?" - and asked her to check out Jiwire.com, a website that lists hotspots, both pay and free, in any city across the country. Sure enough there is a Panera Bread somewhere around here, so you'll be sure to find me there tomorrow morning. In fact, I'll be posting this tomorrow morning because I'm writing it in the wireless-less club as a get my dinner. At 11 pm. I hate traveling.

Gripes about my restricted ability to geek out aside, the weather here is wonderful. Actually it's even better than in California. I left 60˚ weather and arrived in 70˚ weather. How great is that! Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this weekend. 8 a.m. sharp registration starts, and I plan on being the first one in line. Look for updates to the blog at least once a day, probably in the A.M. since I'll be hitting Panera for my daily coffee and internet fix.