Generations

The story that I ended up with wasn’t the story that I pitched. The original story about the Armenian herpetologist fell through after he failed to respond in time. As I was leaving to photograph the assignment that I am submitting, he answered back saying that he wouldn’t be able to participate. It’s a good thing I was already on the road to another assignment.

The story that I photographed is about Jake Gleason and working on his family farm. I didn’t have much time to work with since it was my backup option. I left on a Thursday and they were having their biggest livestock sale of the year the next day. It worked out because the sale is a big deal on their calendar. What didn’t work was that they had already finished all of the work to prepare for the sale, so there wasn’t much for them to do the few days I was there. I wanted to avoid shooting the sale as an event coverage assignment, but it ended up turning into that. I was able to focus on Jake and I think it worked out well with the shots I got from the sale. I was also able to get a few shots of him working with the pigs that his family raises.

It’s funny how things workout. I went to school with Gleason, and competed against him 4-H. I never thought about doing an assignment like this before I came to Mizzou. It’s as if you have to get away to see where you were standing. I am glad that I was able to photograph this assignment. It was challenging because of the changing conditions from going inside to out. And the editing was also a challenge because of the different times of day and changing locations. That was my biggest problem. I was having difficulties transitioning from one place to another. I shot in three different buildings, three different locations, and three different times of day. It was a challenge, but I think I was successful with what I came away with.

Another issue that I had was that I didn’t read the instructions on the assignment sheet. I was basing my work off of what was discussed in class. I ended up with a video containing 36 photos. It was only after I spoke with Halee Rock that I discovered that I had enough for two assignments. Maybe two chapters? Maybe not. I cut the video down to 20 photos and could potentially remove one or two more, but I think it works great the way it is.

I am not sure what I would change if I could shoot this again. I would have defiantly liked to have been there the weekend before and shot them getting everything ready. If that had happened I would have definitely submitted this as my 30-day idea. It is a little far, but the spring is when most farms explode with activity. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to do a story that far away for that amount of time. I am happy with what I came up with. It was challenging, but just like farming, the challenge is part of the reward.

For some reason Blogger won't let a Vimeo link to be embedded. This is the link

https://vimeo.com/160046441