Photographers given opportunity to reflect on conference attendees
Humans of CMA
FIRST PLACE AND CLASS FAVORITE: “I grew up on the north side of Las Vegas, Nevada in a single parent household with a father that found better things to do than be a father. I watched my mother work two jobs to make sure that the bills were paid and there wasn’t enough money for food. I’ve been without food before sometimes even for days. We scratched, clawed, and begged for an opportunity at sustenance and this taught me to never waste food. When I was younger, I had high aspirations of going to college, and maybe one day in the future I could visit New York City. I could have never imagine that both would happen so soon. I go to an HBCU in Louisiana and I’m in New York attending this wonderful conference and learning so many new things. This city has shown me that any dreams could come true and as long as you work hard and are advantage of a God-given talent, in which writing was my saving grace. Langston Hughes asked a question, What happens to a dream deferred? I live to show you want happens when a dream isn’t.
Don Montrelle Green, Southern University, Advisor Jermaine Poshee, [email protected]
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SECOND PLACE Kiarash Abhari, Missouri Western State University (James Carviou); [email protected];
(This is the first time I feel free in New York. This is the first time I experienced not being lost in the New York subway for over three hours. I used to study finance at my previous university. When I visited New York before CMA, I saw it through the lens of economics. I spent many hours warming up to the Meryl Lynch bull down on Wall Street watching the numbers being tabulated. I was dressed as business woman ready to make a deal. At the moment, I am studying digital media and I serve as the design editor for my university yearbook. My perspective of New York has transformed. Going out outside of the business infrastructure of the city, I was able to meet people from all over the world. This allowed me to discover the opportunity the city has to offer through the lens of its diversity and aesthetic beauty. As I explore this new uncharted vision of the city, New York is becoming my dream!)
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THIRD PLACE “I’ve never been in New York City before. I’ve pretty much been to every another major city in the States, so this is like a whole new experience for me. I’ve completely fallen in love with everything about it. I feel like there is just something very romantic, I guess this is a good word about New York City. It’s very stereotypical, and it lives up to its stereotypes. To me, I like that a lot. You know you also heard that New Yorkers are pushy, they are rude. Everything is fast pace, it’s ‘go, go, go’. That is very much how I am as a person, so I felt I fit right in here.”
Kainan Guo; University at Buffalo; Jody Kleinberg-Biehl, adviser, [email protected]
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HONORABLE MENTION Juliana Wall, Cedar Crest College (Dannah Hartman);[email protected];
“It started sophomore year of high school taking pictures with a cell phone, but when I borrowed a friend’s camera, I loved it. I didn’t get my own camera until a year and half ago and I love having control of the settings like exposure and aperture. I had the opportunity to spend a weekend working with National Geographic and that opened my eyes to the world of journalism and photojournalism. I want to learn how to tell stories with photos, like how do we tell a visual story of this dude in a molecular lab that’s researching endobiosis? I want to help to bridge the divide between the academic scientific journals and what people what to read and see in order to engage them in science. This is my first time in New York and it’s very different from Hawaii, where our tallest building is about five stories. It’s also very cold here, but it’s exciting! This conference is a way to connect with people and see what kinds of opportunities there are in the media world and I want to perhaps to find an internship in science journalism, specifically with marine mammals and biopsychology.” - Zachary Gorski, University of Hawaii at Hilo
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HONORABLE MENTION, Greg Babush
Moraine Valley Community College
Ted Powers
[email protected]
Josh Mira waits for a love that leaves him blinded to the city.
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HONORABLE MENTION Michela West, University of Massachusetts Boston (Donna Neal); [email protected]
“I grew up in New Jersey, five minutes outside of the city. I spent every weekend up until in New York City. Being back in New York is a nostalgic feeling. It’s very nice being in what now is my rival city. It feels more at home than Boston does. I’m a New Yorker living in Boston.”
By Bradley Wilson CMR Managing Editor
I couldn’t be at the College Media Association convention in New York City this spring. It was just bad timing the week before our spring break. Yet I knew there would be an enthusiastic group of students wanting to participate in the Shoot-out. Jack Zibluk again stepped up to help with the administration.
Co-sponsored by the National Press Photographers Association
But I wanted to get a feel for what I was missing. So working with Brandon Stanton’s basic reporting concepts in Humans of New York, I tweaked the assignment to challenge the students so we could all have a little fun and learn a little more about our conference attendees as well.
Just based on the results, I’d say everyone had a little fun and learned something in the process. It was good to see that the students had time to get out of the hotel, visiting different parts of the city that never sleeps. The top entries made me feel like I was there.
But they went beyond that. The best entries also gave me some insight into the individuals who attended the convention. The write-ups didn’t take a shot-gun approach, telling me a little about a lot. They took an in-depth approach, as Stanton does, telling a lot about a tiny piece of the person’s life. If there was ever a time to exercise what a friend of mine used to say — “If you have five minutes to take a person’s photo, spend three minutes getting to know them and two minutes taking their picture. — this is it. Get to know them. Pick one interesting aspect of their life and tell me more about that.
RECOGNITION
First place and class favorite | Don Montrelle Green, Southern University, (Jermaine Poshee, adviser)
Second place | Kiarash Abhari, Missouri Western State University (James Carviou, adviser)
Third place | Kainan Guo, University at Buffalo (Jody Kleinberg-Biehl, adviser)
Honorable mention | Greg Babush, Moraine Valley Community College (Ted Powers, adviser)
Honorable mention | Juliana Wall, Cedar Crest College (Dannah Hartman, adviser)
Honorable mention | Michela West, University of Massachusetts Boston (Donna Neal, adviser)
THE ASSIGNMENT: Emulating the style of Humans of New York, your assignment is to document the visitors to New York City for the College Media Association conference. This is your chance to meet someone new. Get to know them. Tell their story in a new environment.
Go beyond the superficial.
There are three key components this adventure: getting to know someone, taking their photo and telling their story.
Get to know someone new or someone from a new angle at the CMA conference (a student, an adviser or a staff member).
Take a photo of them in the New York City environment, preferably not the hotel lobby. Visit the website and emulate that street photography style.
Document a vignette of that person’s visit to NYC and write that up in a style similar to what Brandon might do. Put that information in the Description metadata field.
JUDGES: Amy Kilpatrick, Bonnie Dodwell, Bretton Zinger, Carole Babineaux, Cary Conover, Chuck Cook, Elena Jarvis, Ellen Banner, Eric Thomas, Hillary Hollis, Jamie Gilbert, Jim McNay, John Beale, Lauren Roberts, Leah Waters, Lois Weiss, Mark Zeltner, Matt Stamey, Michael Koretzky, Mitzi Lewis, Nils Rosdahl, Park Street, Pat Gathright, Peter Huoppi, Rich Riski, Sam Oldenburg, Sherri Taylor, Tara Haelle, Tom Hallaq
