Photo Story - CSC Youth House

  Vincent Drew (right) standing in the CSC booth at the Corvallis Farmers Market 

while passersby try samples of some of the jams and jellies.

It's 6:30 am on Saturday June 2nd, 2018, at a time where most people are still cozied up in bed, Vincent Drew and his youth crew are setting up (the Community Service Consortium Youth Garden booth) for another day at the Corvallis Farmers Market. The market runs Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9 am until 1 pm beginning in mid April and goes until mid November. During this time, Drew and his crew are busy engaging with eager passersby who stop to try the samples of the jams, jellies, and salsas that are made in house out of the fruits and vegetables grown in the flower beds right outside of the CSC Youth House, located on 2nd and Western Blvd in downtown Corvallis.

  Jeremiah W. processing the peppers to be added to the "Sassy Salsa." 

Back at the Youth House a few days later, Vincent has brought together Felix, Jeremiah, Bailey, and Eric, a group of youth enrolled in the federal workforce program that is provided by CSC as a way to "encourage learning, entrepreneurship and work readiness in Benton County youth," to make a batch of one of the homemade salsas, the Sassy Salsa. 

Felix P., Jeremiah W., Bailey B., and Eric B ( Left to right) portion out a batch of 

the recently made salsa to be canned and sold at the Corvallis Farmers Market.

From 9 am until a little after noon, the Youth House members are busy processing tomatoes into a paste and peppers and onions into slivers to be cooked together with vinegar and cayenne powder to create the perfect blend of flavors fit for your next bowl of chips. The ingredients are then tossed together over the stove in the slow process of boiling the concoction to reduce the amount of water in order to reach a reasonable consistency, filling the house with a sweet and spicy aroma in no time. 

  Felix P. and Jeremiah  W. (left to right) scooping out salsa into mason jars 

that Eric B.(right) places into a basket to be pressure sealed. 

After the tomato "stew" has reached an adequate consistency, it is hauled off to be ladled and portioned off into separate mason jars. Passing through a a 15 minute bath in boiling water, the jars are removed and allowed to cool down, resulting in a vacuum seal that leaves them ready to be sold at the next farmers market in the following weeks.

  Vincent Drew carefully removing the very hot salsa jars from the 

boiling water to let them cool down and seal.

Yet even with all the time and effort that goes into the process of making these added value products the end goal is not necessarily that of making money, but as more of a way for these youth to be able to learn skills such as raising and cultivating produce through the garden, handling money through the farmers market booth, and learning work readiness skills in order to prepare themselves to enter the ever competitive job market. 

Besides the work that is done through the garden and farmers market, the CSC Youth House also provide youth with the opportunity and guidance to be able to do things such as completing a high school or GED degree and identifying their unique strengths in an environment made to support them in their journey forward. To find out more information, please head to http://communityservices.us/education/. 

 

Week 8 Forum

After reading through the second half of Lynsey Addario's book, It's What I Do, I found myself very moved by two particular chapters, that being chapter 9 and chapter 12. The reason that I found these chapters to be so compelling was because in chapter 9, we get to see a first hand account of what it was like to be in one of the most dangerous places in the Afghanistan war and in chapter 12, we get a harsh reality check when Addario brings up receiving emails that two of her colleagues have died. Between theses two, though, I would have to say that chapter 12 would have to be the one that really stuck with me overall. The reason I chose this chapter was because of the fact that for a good portion of the book we see a lot of the "heroic" sides of photojournalism and are sort of looking at things with rose colored glasses, but then chapter 12 comes along and forces you to really think about the risks that these men and women put themselves through for the sake of getting the story. The quote that really stuck with me from this chapter was "Instead of walking down the aisle with his beautiful Christina, he was carried down the aisle in a casket, his mother and his bride-to-be walking a few steps behind." This quote stuck with me because it shows you how much photojournalists risk in their line of work and how it affects those around them. Unfortunately this chapter didn't have a photo to choose from, but in the next chapter I think that the image of her son, Lukas, was my favorite photo because of what Lukas represented in her life at the time; being that voice in the back of her head changing the way that she would choose her assignments. Overall, I felt that this chapters change in tonality greatly allowed me to better appreciate the work that these men and women do for the purpose of educating the world.

Week 10 Forum

For this term, my favorite photo that I took so far would have to be of Leonel Alcantar and Daniel Castillo at the Diversity Day event at the LBCC Courtyard.

The reason that I liked this photo so much was because of the great composition of the two guys performing and having a clean background that didn't distract from the subjects. I feel that this image really shows how photojournalism has been able to change the way that I think about my subjects and composition to get a great shot.

Throughout this term I feel that I have been able to push myself out of my comfort zone in order to get close to my subjects to be able to capture the image that I know will help me tell the story I want to tell. I think a good example of that would be primarily the photos I took for Diversity Day being able to really capture the moment.

Week 1 Goals for Photojournalism this term:

• To get a better understanding of what it takes to be a photojournalist 
• To understand how to compose an image to tell a story
• To further develop my photography taking skills.

Taking a look back at my forum response from Week 1 and looking back on my personal goals for the term I actually feel like I did pretty well at following through with them. At the beginning, I knew very little of what photojournalism was and what it took to become a photojournalist, but after reading through Lynsey Addario's book It's What I Do and having my own personal experience with going out and getting the story, I began to get a clear picture of how goes into being a photojournalist. Another one of my goals was to understand how to compose and image to tell a story. After weeks of photo assignments I think I was finally able to begin to focus my eye to find the best way to position myself in order to get the right composition. Lastly I wanted to develop my photography skills, and I think that through weeks of practice and learning to look at subjects differently, my photography taking skills have been able to improve.

Photographer of the Week - Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks

Parks was an African American man, born in 1912 in Kansas into poverty and was inspired from a young age to begin taking photographs after seeing pictures of migrant workers in a magazine. From the time he picked up a camera, Parks began to use his photographs to cover the social and economic impact that racism had on the time period. Parks would later join the Farm Security Administration, put in place to combat rural poverty, so that he could use his talents as a photographer to document the nation in the social and political climate of the time. As an African American, Parks had the edge over his contemporaries of the time; being able to gain amazingly personal photographs of members of the African American population around the country and using his disadvantage to his advantage.

Parks was particularly interested in the issues of civil rights and poverty, which is quite evident throughout his work. One of the works of his that most stood out to me was that of his photo series with Ella Watson, government chairwoman in Washington D.C. In the photo series, we take a look into the life of Ms. Watson, her children and grandchildren, and the living accommodations that they stay in. Yet arguably the most impactful image of the series is that of Ms. Watson posed in front of the American flag holding a sweep as to mimic the iconic painting, American Gothic. 

Parks style of being able to capture the raw expressions of the African American community, such as in his 1967 photograph of a family at a welfare office. For the remainder of his career, Parks would continue to capture haunting and compelling images filling every inch of the frame.

Week 7 Forum

TOPIC 2: ACTION/SPORTS PHOTOS -- Now that you've got some tips on how to shoot action ...

1. WHAT is your Sports/Action subject?
2. WHEN and WHERE are you going to shoot it?
3. Karl/Scobel talked about their approach to shooting sports/action. Your approach must include an "overall,” "medium” and a "closeup/detail” shot. While one of these can be a “sideline” shot, you must have at least one good ACTION PHOTO. List your ideas for:
1. OVERALL --
2. MEDIUM --
3. CLOSEUP/DETAIL --

After listening from Scobel Wiggins and Karl Massdam on how to shoot action and sports events, the two main tips that really stuck with me were that of shooting in aperture priority and looking for the moment shots. For shooting in aperture priority, I think that this is a really important idea for shooting since the idea of blurring out the background in order to focus the image on the subjects in the foreground. Also, looking for the "moment" shots I think is also a really important idea to always keep in the back of your mind. Getting shots of people at a baseball game eating a hot dog is a great example of one of those moment shots that doesn't necessarily have to be of the main event but that is able to bring out the emotion of the event.

For my Sports/Action photos, the subject that I am looking to photograph is Corvallis Ultimate Frisbee held at the Crystal Lake Sports Field on Wednesday's starting at 6pm. My idea for trying to get the overall shot of this event is to try to get a shot of the crowd in the background of the photo and have a few of the players, hopefully in action, in the foreground. I think I'd like to play with the way that either blurring out the players and keeping the crowd in focus or blurring out the crowd and keeping the players in focus would look. For the medium shot I'd like to get either a photo of some people in the crowd or some of the players running around. For the close up though, I'd like to try to get a shot of two players two are both trying to challenge for the frisbee at the same time, freezing the action in time.

Week 6 Forum

For the "My Neighborhood/My Hometown" photo assignment for next week, the city that I'm planning on shooting is downtown Corvallis. I do not live downtown area of Corvallis, but I spend most my time there either in transit or going around doing errands. As for the ideas for photos that I can take around town, I was thinking of going over to the Corvallis Courthouse because it is such a recognizable building that often when you think of Corvallis your mind goes to the courthouse with its contrasting white and red color scheme and classic "Big Ben-esk" clock. Another idea for a photo that I had in mind was that of taking a photo of one of the employees at the Browser's Bookstore which is located right across from the courthouse. The reason I had this location in mind was because I spend a good amount of time looking through their seemingly endless book supply. My last photo idea is to head over to the Corvallis Farmers Market to capture a photo of people going around the different booths. I think that the photo that I will have the most difficulty with is actually the one of the courthouse. The reason for this is because of the fact that the courthouse has been photographed hundreds of times, so trying to find a way to capture it in a way that is in its own way unique, will be difficult. 

For the photo story assignment I have two photo stories in mind. Currently I am thinking about either doing a story on the Heartland Humane Society or homeless in Corvallis. For the Heartland Human Society I was thinking about trying to get a behind the scenes look at how they run their operations at the center and take a look into the lives behind some of the people who work there. For the homeless in Corvallis, I was thinking of trying to see if I could interview some of the homeless people around Corvallis and take a look into their lives, what they do, and how they might have gotten to where they are. I was also thinking of going to the Corvallis Daytime Drop-in Center to see if I could go talk to the people over there and get some more information from them as well.

To go about getting these photographs, I would try to make contact with an outreach coordinator at the Heartland Humane Society and ask them to see if they would allow me to get some more personal access to the center than that of just simply walking around. For the idea on the homeless in Corvallis I think the best way for me to go about getting in contact with the people would be through the "middle man" so to speak, which is the Corvallis Daytime Drop-in Center since I think that that would be the best way for me to approach the people.

My Hometown/My Neighborhood

At the heart of downtown Corvallis stands the Corvallis Courthouse. Since opening its doors in 1889, the Corvallis Courthouse remains one of the last courthouses to continue to serve its original purpose. Renovated in the1970's, the courthouse now looks as much as it would have over 100 years ago.

  

Janett Brinkley works to shelve books at the Browser's Book Store in Corvallis, OR right across from the Corvallis Courthouse. Inside of the bookstore, you can find books from floor all the way up to the ceiling ranging from Fiction to Children's books to an entire corner of the bookstore dedicated to Science Fiction. If you can think of it, Browser's will more than likely have it.

Event goers mill around at the Corvallis Farmers' Market on Saturday 19th, 2018. Nestled in between 1st street and the Willamette River every Wednesday and Saturday from April until November, the Corvallis Farmers' Market is prime and ready, set up with all the fruits, vegetables, and homemade goodies ripe from the harvest.