Assignment #2 Freeport water facility

Ok so my first real assignment on my own. I get the call saying to go to Sac for this water facility thats opening. 1 billion dollar facility that is just huge. It says 85million gallons of water can move through it on a daily basis. Then the engineer, Hal went on to talk more about the facility but I stopped paying attention hah. They gave us a tour and i was there to take photos. My inspiration was a guy who I idolize as a photographer…Brian L Frank. He did an assignment recently at the Oakland port that I thought was a good thing to get ideas from. What I didnt know until recently was that he too was an Oakland Tribune intern, that got me excited

enjoyy

Photo Intern Oakland Tribune

Ook this post has been a long time coming. So for those who dont know, which is probably most, I landed an internship at the Oakland Tribune as a photography intern. To put things into perspective, there are about 15 news photography internships in the US…yeah of like 500+ dailies. Of these 15, ive applied to each one at least 2 times (some 3). In California, there are about 4, the Oakland Tribune, the LA Times, the SF Chron and the OC Registrar. Of those 4, only 2 are paid, and the Tribune is one of those two ;). Soo, these things aren’t easy to come by and im really excited that im able to shoot for a paper…at least until July.

So far I really havent had the most extreme learning curve, which is a good things cause I am kinda of used to shooting all kinds of stuff, but its a huge huge huge help seeing how other people shoot, and getting feedback from professionals for every assignment I take is invaluable. Apparently EVERYONE who was or is an intern is going to school for photojournalism, I know this because every time I meet someone new, they ask me what school I go too. I just say Davis and that I learned photography on my own. Im not sure if thats a good thing because I am self-taught and am in a position where most people go to school for, or a bad thing that I never committed 100% to studying this craft…either way Im here so who cares, haha.

ok so Monday the 28th was my first day and I had 2 assignments. Well they were ride alongs to show me the ropes, see how to shoot and see how to get caption info and stuff like that. The first assignment was a press conference at a school. Apparently, there are safe zones in and around Oakland that are designated to be gang free, and they have issued these court ordered injuctions where the “top 40” gangsters of Oakland cant enter in them. Legally its an interesting battle of infringement of freedom rights vs being a public nuisance. Anyways, here are a few photos from that assignment…..AND surprisingly my photo was chosen to run in print.

and the pièce de résistance

Davidson Family Photographs

My first foray into family portraits. Did them with the Davidson family of six on Saturday. I’d say there was a world record achieved for most photographs in the shortest amount of time…30 min total for all these shots.

Sports photos

Good Guys Mechanic

Meet Kewal. A local mechanic from India, turned American, who has been in the auto industry for over 22 years now. Wanted to work on lighting techniques and he was kind enough to let me hang around and shoot for a few hours at his work. I must have came on a slow day as no customers came, but business always moves in waves.

just in SF

Skatepark

Decided to work on my flash technique so I went to the skatepark and took a few photos of one of the locals, Marc Gordon.