2014: Year In Review

The past year has been a long and winding road that had me looking at moving to South Korea to teach English or Ohio to further my education, but settling on staying in Missouri to begin the pursuit of my Masters in Photojournalism.

In August I left my job of two years at the Columbia Daily Tribune and threw myself back into school. It's been a long but fruitful first semester and I look forward to continuing to see myself grow throughout the rest of my time here.

Recently, I started a part-time job as a photojournalist in Jefferson City. This has been a great experience and one I hope to continue to milk for all the knowledge I can.

Here's my year in mostly chronological order. Forgive the overflow of images, but I wanted the full feel of my year and I didn't feel I could do that without including all these shoots. I also chose to leave out my video work. Why? I haven't posted all of it to my own Vimeo and am too worn out to get to that right now. 

Enjoy.

Happy New Years

The fun post

 Color balance be damned. I had these photos rotting away on my computer from a party early on in the semester. There have been calls for their posting, and I hate to rob people of some fun photos of themselves.

Enjoy.

BTS Chapter 2: Delving into Multimedia

One of the biggest reasons I returned to school was to improve my video skills. I've always had a love for producing video and at one time was double majoring in film and photography. Long story short, that didn't happen and I've been frustrated by my inability to create video work.

This first semester, I accidentally stumbled into a video producing class. While I'd done some minor dabbling in video on my own during my two years out of school, I hadn't actually assembled anything.

As the end of my first semester of graduate school nears, I've produced four pieces already, soon to be five. It's been a great time of growth for me in that area, as well as others. While I'm in no way amazing, I've learned a lot and continue to do so. I already see myself falling into a little habit that I need to cut out (I won't tell you for the hope of you not noticing), but other than that, I'm fairly happy with where I'm at.

Here's the work in chronological order:


 

 


I still have at least one more piece I'll be producing this semester, though it won't run until January of this next year. I've enjoyed diving into this new work and learning how to work in another medium. I look forward to improving on these early attempts.

Thanks for watching... and reading.

John Happel: The classmate project

My first photo project in grad school - the intro experience in my intro class to doing a story. It turned out alright.

John Happel is working on finding his place in his new life at graduate school, separated from his fiancé, the ocean and the all other comforts he had back home in Scituate, MA. The social and mental stresses surrounding school are the biggest hurdles he faces as he pursues his master’s at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo.

John waits for a beer at Quinton's while meeting up with fellow graduate students for their weekly get together on Thursdays when they indulge in discounted drinks and food.

The living room in John's apartment is bare. He bought a couch off Craigslist when he first arrived, but ended up returning it after the listing proved a little misleading - the couch smelled of cat urine. Another attempt was made to find a couch during a week when his fiancé visited him, but was also unsuccessful.

John shares a laugh over the phone with his fiancé, whom he talks to daily. The whiteboard on the wall shows traces of Tricia's last visit. Being separated has been hard for the couple, as they haven't spent more than a week apart since they started dating in 2010. Tricia grew up just half a mile down the road from John and "always thought he was cute," though they didn't start dating until after college.

"How did Trish do this?" John beats some frozen chicken in an attempt to speed up the defrosting progress. He was trying to replicate a meal his fiancé had made for him earlier this year. Tricia says John misses her cooking.

John manages a hangover, one from his weekly meetups with his graduate school friends, at Stephen's Lake Park while working on class readings. "Two day hangovers are a real thing."

John holds two of his many handmade flies. Boxes of feathers and other fly tying items fill a plastic shelf unit on the edge of his kitchen. Tying flies relaxes him and John often finds himself lost in the process.

After writing a couple different papers for classes, John went fly fishing at Eagle's Bluff with a friend for some fun on his 32nd birthday. Besides surfing, fishing is one of John's favorite activities, especially when trying to de-stress from school.

John's nightly routine ends with him turning on his T.V. and putting on its sleep timer. Having the T.V. on helps him fall asleep. This night he was watching news of the United States beginning to bomb ISIL in Syria.