Sam Rides Again
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The Impossible Protest:The Westboro Baptist Church At Kent State
I had one of my more interesting post-graduation journalism experiences yesterday, and it was almost too surreal not to type up. I’ll get to exactly how in a minute, but we’re going to have to take a step back and give some context first.
Last week, University of Missouri football player Michael Sam came out as gay. While this was well received by his teammates, family, and America in general, it’s the unfortunate truth that some backlash was to be expected. One of the more vocal detractors was Kent State wrestler Sam Wheeler, whose Twitter feed looked a little something like this:
Unsurprisingly, the higher-ups at Kent State were none too pleased about those and suspended Wheeler from the wrestling team. And that’s when the Westboro Baptist Church got involved. True to form, WBC took to Twitter and put out a press release denouncing Kent State as “bullies,” and announced a picket of the university in protest. Because, well, that’s pretty much what these guys always do.
After a brief internal debate on whether or not to give this group any more attention, I decided it was better to be shooting than staying home, and made tracks to the university. I found a place to camped down on the eighth floor of the library overlooking the two most likely protest spots on campus and kept all my social media open in case they showed anywhere else. I didn’t have much faith that they would show though. See, when an organization as hungry for attention as Westboro didn’t bother to put a date, time, or location on the press release, it made my journalism spidey-sense go all tingly that something isn’t right. And, my hunch was correct, the WBC never showed. Dejected counter protesters sulked away with their signs and rainbow flags like Linus missing the Great Pumpkin.
But then I got home and my buddy Phil sent me this:
At first, I was worried that I had gone home early, but then I actually saw the thing full screen. I don’t know what bothers me more, the fact that they didn’t show, that they then Photoshopped one of their protestors into an old photo and then claimed they were there, or that it s just such a bad Photoshop. But it didn’t stop there. Oh no. This went on for most of the night. It only became a more inexplicable decent into madness.
Now you, like me, are probably thinking that this has to be a joke, probably a fake account trying to mess with the WBC. But no, I can confirm after extensively reviewing this page and where it connects to, this is 100% the official Westboro Baptist account. I just don’t know what to say. There is a bus. That is a goddmaned hot air balloon! Do they expect anyone to believe this? Are they that far off in their own little world? Was the whole thing a joke to them? Did plan to get the entire campus into an anti-protest and news frenzy, only to pull the rug out from under us, and then pour salt into the wound with bad Photoshop? I’m just too baffled to know at this point. In the end, I decided that the only way to fight crazy is with more crazy, and responded with in the best way I could.
For, what better way to fight bigotry than a Godzilla firing fabulous, rainbow lasers? Or, perhaps, you know a better way. I strongly encourage everyone reading this to save the screen-caps and shopping them again in the most awesome way you can. Link them back here by next Sunday (3/2/14), I’ll post them, and we’ll have a contest to see which one reigns supreme.
The Year In Review
A full year. Since I graduated. Since I proposed. Since I started freelancing. Since I started the site to keep myself in practice. I suppose that I should take a hard look back at 2013.
Let’s start by looking at things from a purely objective standpoint and take a look at the numbers.
- Numbers Total Hits: 9,709
- Overall Average Hits Per Day: 27
- Most Hits In A Single Day: 283
- Total Number of Followers: 110
- Total Number Of Posts: 205
- 205 posts/ 365 Days= 56.1% of Daily Goal
- Then again, I was working 60-80 hours a week the last two months of the year, so taking off November and December, we get 196 Posts /304 Days= 64.5%
What do these numbers tell us? Well, they tell me that I need to do better. I While I have started writing, editing video, and dabbling more with graphic design, I haven’t come as far with branching my skills as I would have liked. And yes, I have been shooting daily, it hasn’t necessarily been what I want to be working on.
It might be fair to say that I’ve been… disconnected. After I graduated, I lost all of the resources available to me through the university. That doesn’t just include the photo gear and technology, but the connections though fellow students and teachers. Add all that to the fact that my car died early this year, and funds have been relatively low. So, with no money, no car, and no connections, it honestly felt like a year adrift.
But, those are just the numbers and the setup. What did this year in photos actually look like? (Be sure to click to open in theater mode. There’s a cut line for each one of these. )
A cat from One Of A Kind Pets plays with my friends during a visit to the animal shelter.
I lost track of how far I walked on the day I shot this. Totally worth it for some of the photos I got that
When stuck at my terrible call center job, I wrote haiku to keep my mind occupied.
This year, I got to discover that I a man I knew through school was actually a pillar of the local art community. It turns out, I was the only one in the whole city with photos of the guy.
Not all of the apples made it into the cider. Part of a quick story package I put together on my phone complete with video.
Jordan shows up in a lot of my favorite shots of the year. She’s a fantastic model, great to work with, and I am so bummed that she moved so far away.
This is probably my favorite trace design conversion that I’ve done all year.
I finally took the time to try HDR on one of my photos. It was actually easier than I thought.
Another shot that I didn’t think much of, but got plenty of attention.
A pilot at the Kent Air Show. This photo became a part of the Lost in Oscar Hotel project.
I went with my friend Alyssa to the cherry blossom festival. Going to DC and back within 24 hours was a bit of a challenge, but the road trip was worth it. DC is one of my favorite cities to visit.
The quality of what I can do with my cell phone camera continues to surprise me. It’s fantastic to have when I can’t carry my full DSLR.
I didn’t think much of this when I shot it, but it’s been an absolute favorite of my friends and family.
A black bear photo I shot while accompanying Karen to the zoo with the children she babysits.
I took this as a nature shot, and ran it through an InDesign filter. I wound up using it on a business card design.
Proof that I should not be allowed to near Photoshop.
I took my friend Kyle along with me to this rock gig I was shooting. When he saw the photos, he asked if these were from the same concert, since they looked better than the event while it was live.
Jordan and I got to take over a local Harley Dealership for about an hour.
A couple braves the first heavy snowfall of the winter to go grocery shopping.
shot these geese as part of my first solo wedding shoot.
I was inspired while I was juicing to take a stab at some more comedic still-life stuff.
As I practiced more, I got better with this InDesign trick.
Putting the GoPro on its ‘Time Lapse’ setting and attaching it to my monopod quickly became one of my favorite tricks. This man doing Tai Chi was actually someone I had already met when I was doing a story on a local retirement community being convicted by their new management. I shot this when I was out on a photo walk with some new students when I was helping to run a workshop at the university.
My friend paisley shows off one of her corsets.
The book fort that I built with my friend Alyssa early last year was probably the most effort I put into the setup for a shoot.
I got more into nature photography over this last year. I feel like there’s only so much I can do with my low-end telephoto though.
For someone who deemed herself “the most awkward model ever,” she didn’t do too bad here.
I wasn’t allowed to take my DSLR into the Lindsey Sterling concert, so I shot what I could on my camera phone and edited it on the way home.
A model helped me with my grey cards as I shot one of the shows put on by the Kent Fashion School.
Maxine wielding her cardboard roll of death.
A trick of perspective and a silhouette I sagged on my camera phone while on my break at work.
I shot a lot of photos to help out a music promotions class over at Kent State. The Electronic show was a great place to shoot shutter drag shots.
By a stroke of pure, dumb luck, I ran across a fawn while second shooting a wedding.
I got some work as a freelancer shooting sports.
This photo is what I used to accompany my piece ‘Mrs. Gilley’s Garden,’ an editorial on the using photographs to connect with a woman suffering from dementia. The piece was run in multiple local papers, and I still receive compliments on it. I certainly have mixed feelings about the piece. What is happening to Mrs. Gilley breaks my heart, and I feel no shortage of guilt for the recognition I’ve been receiving for what I wrote. But, if it makes even a small difference in someone’s life, helps them better communicate and understand a friend or family member going through the same thing, then I’ve at least done a little good.
I tried my hand at typography. I think that the Arabic went well with the design.
Shot my first Rap/R&B show this year.
My friend Lucy and I took some time to do a quick shoot down by the river in Kent.
As a general rule, I hate my self portraits. This kind of works for me though.
I wasn’t allowed to take my DSLR into the Lindsey Sterling concert, so I shot what I could on my camera phone and edited it on the way home.
A quick macro shot at the local orchard.
Where does that leave me? I wouldn’t call the year empty, and I can’t say there was nothing fulfilling. I wouldn’t say that I didn’t grow, but I still feel like I could have been more. I feel like I’m falling behind my peers. All I can do is try to keep at getting myself off the ground this year.
I photographed this collision with my cell phone on my lunch break. Thankfully, there were no fatalities. The photograph was picked up by one of the local papers.
Still, with everything I shot this year, one photo stands out more than anything I did. It was the photograph I took on my lunch break with cell phone of the car crash. It reminded me how much I can care; not just about news, but about people. I had just finished Dave LaBelle’s Lessons in Life and Death, and learned just how much photographs of tragedy can help those involved cope and come to terms with those events. I felt like I had a responsibility. It reminded me that no matter where I am, or what I’m doing with my life, that drive for journalism, and news is always there. I’m never going to give up.
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