Fresh Angles

Replenishment at sea. Photo by MCSN Derek Harkins. RELEASED. (Check out the comments.)

Recently the Nimitz returned from a deployment that was extended by the troubles in Syria.  I get asked a lot about what life on a ship is like as an MC.  I wasn't there, but I bet life became a grind on that extended deployment.  A big part of the workload looked like this:

If you weren't assigned to a specific task, you roamed the ship looking for cool photos to release.

THIS IS NOT EASY.

1.  It's hard to catch Sailors showing emotion.  Everyone's kind of....neutral most of the time.
2.  You can only walk around the ship for so many months before your creative mind goes numb.
3.  Any photo you can think of has probably already been taken by someone before you.

Our chain of command always said "look for fresh angles."  With practice, a good photographer can somehow see an event, even mail sorting, and capture it from a new angle.

CHECK THIS OUT - USS Nimitz: Where they were

The Herald of Everett posted 50 photographs taken by Nimitz MC's during the deployment.

Look at the photos and think about what makes the good ones stand out.  This is your life MC!

Student photo story: Race Day

Runners begin their journey at the starting line of the 5th Annual Suntrust National Marathon.

Photos & Story by Seaman Martin L. Carey

More than 12,000 participants lined up to race at the Sun Trust National Marathon in Washington D.C. March 20, 2010. Runners were able to participate in the team relay, half marathon or the full marathon, 26.2 miles. The United States Naval Academy Marathon Team were the official pace setters for runners looking to complete the marathon at a specific time. The marathon was filled with many new and experienced runners.

Military servicemembers were a large spotlight for this marathon including Marines, Navy, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard. A U.S. Navy petty officer sang the national anthem prior to the race beginning.

A runner cools off by pouring water on his head.

A group arrives at the mile 17 aid station for a quick drink on the go.

Forget winning, just finishing a marathon is an accomplishment.

An exhausted runner rests after completing the 5th Annual Suntrust 5 National Marathon in Washington, D.C. March 20, 2010.

You never know when you'll need em...

Among the skills we learn here at DINFOS are group shots. We're taught to take control and position our subjects to get the best photograph. "If everyone can see camera, the camera can see you!" Grimnes got a crash course in crowd control when I asked her to coordinate our class photo.

Getting 20 people into position isn't easy. The idea is to get a quality photo as fast as possible. One day, there could be an admiral in the bunch.

And they don't have all day.

Our class put on the dress blues and formed up in front of the school. We took one playful photo and one serious one.

Here Bell wonders what the problem is.

No worries, man. It's all good.

Hooyah DINFOS Trained Killers!

A picture is worth...classes, Intermediate Photo, photo story, photography,

Here's my final graded photo layout for Intermediate Photo. I went sledding with a few Sailors after the big snow last week. This was shot with a Nikon D200 and edited with Photoshop CS3.
(Click on the layouts to enlarge. Hit your browser's back button to return to the blog.)

Many thanks to Gonzalvo, Wade, and Young!

A practice layout, Faces Of D.C.

Another practice layout. It's me!

Macro photography - Leaving CSI in the dust

Part of our job is to take photos of damaged equipment and crime scenes. Training in close-up, or macro, photography is facilitated with some really cool gear.

Seaman Recruit Jandik lends Seaman Cheek a hand as she practices shooting with the ring light attachment.











<--------- The lighter next to the circuit board gives size perspective. It's tough to focus on that stuff!




The incense sticks from a foot... and from a couple of inches.

(click photos to see the detail)

Seaman Wray doesn't really smoke. He held very still for me to get this shot.

Lock down and a Colts loss?

First off, how did the Colts lose that game?  Unbelievable.  It's hard not to feel good for New Orleans, though. A couple years ago they're talking about that town possibly fading out of existence and now....WHO DAT???!!

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The weather people were right.  We got BLASTED.  Just outside my window sits 2 1/2 feet of snow.  School, along with the entire base, closed at 1pm Friday.  An hour after, the first flakes starting dropping.  It didn't stop until Saturday afternoon.

About the same time this was going on I got sick.  I'd been feeling rough on Friday but wasn't too worried about it.  I was hit pretty hard with a mid-grade fever (a guess since I don't have a thermometer) and only got out of bed to use the bathroom and eat. (thanks Perreault for heating up my leftovers!)

This place isn't as bad as boot camp to be sick.  Here, if you're sick or injured, you report to sick call before classes start.  They'll give either LLD (light-limited duty) or SIQ (sick in quarters).  LLD means you can go to class, SIQ means keep your butt quarantined.  In my case, there was an insane blizzard outside so I didn't bother trying to get to medical.

And currently, no classes today or tomorrow.  The base is pretty much shut down.  More snow is expected tomorrow...10-20 inches worth.  Again, my class is in trouble as far as photo stories go.  No one that I know of has been able to get off base to shoot anything.  They are due this Thursday.  I have faith our instructors will figure out something.

Even though as the student leader, I no longer have to be on duty, I want to point out:

Being on duty during snow SUCKS. 

I watched this weekend's duty section dig in the snow for hours trying to keep the path to the building clear.

Good job guys!

Snow Days

The weather predictors are calling for a weather "event".  That's right, not just a storm but an "event."  Wow.  It's supposed to start snowing tomorrow afternoon and continue through Saturday, with accumulation of 12-20".

This is bad news for my class.  Many of us had photo stories to shoot this weekend, and may not be able to now.  Photo stories are assigned during Intermediate Photo.  The student finds someone (a D.C. food vendor) or something (Ft. Meade fire department) and shoots a bunch of photos that tell a story without words.

I'm doing mine on the piano players at Howl at the Moon and the U.S.S. Constellation, both in Baltimore.  I'll have to try for Sunday...

The good news is this weekend's CDO (Command Duty Officer-they babysit us at night) is MC1 Farr, and she's cool  Word has it she's bought a couple of inner tubes for us to sled on. 

Last thing, I passed Intermediate Photo's only written exam with an 86%.  I'll take it.  I got an 80% on the Awards & Presentations assignment.  That sucks.  Skin color too pink on one, little blurry on another, and captions had a couple of issues.

A few students failed either the test or shooting assignment.  They signed "counciling sheets" and will be able to retest.  If they fail that, they automatically get either recycled to a freshman class or sent to another rate altogether.  Ouch.

Hang in there guys!

Out Into the World!

TIRED.  I'm currently in the Intermediate Photo class.  Today we went on a field trip to Washington, D.C. to take photos of as many people as we could.  The idea is to get us used to approaching strangers, explaining who we are, getting a good shot, and then obtaining some basic info from them to write a caption.  WHEW.

Armed with the Nikon D200, I partnered up with Grimnes and Snow, two female sailors.  You always look less threatening in a mixed gender group... /grin  I just finished touching up and emailing some of the subjects' photos to them as promised.

Tomorrow we'll caption everything in Adobe Bridge or Adobe Photoshop CS3 and take turns showing our photos to the class on a big projector screen.  I'm sure it's tough for some to get up there and have us analyze their work. 

We're also learning to use massive print machines.  (like the ones at one hour photo places)

Gonna play some Warcraft III with the boys (I'm second best!) and go to bed by 11pm.  No PT tomorrow but still up at 0600.