First week in St. Louis, MO

Last Monday I started my internship at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I have shot a few assignments- having used a lot of my time here learning the system of the PD and getting around the my new city. In my first week here in St. Louis I have been able to shoot a large range of assignments. One of my first jobs was to shoot a portrait of a local business woman.

Susan Elliott was one of the first women hired by IBM as a programmer. As always, I tried to shoot more than one portrait with her. One themed and one not so themed. I do this incase some miscommunication between myself and the writer causes my themed portrait to be inappropriate for the story.

I arrived at Mrs. Elliott’s office building about half an hour early so I could grab a sandwich and walk around scouting for locations. The assignment sheet even suggested some nice red brick buildings in the area. I found a nice shady spot underneath a tree with a red brick wall has a backdrop. This would be my “unthemed” portrait because it could pretty much go along with any story about the individual. “Local business woman starts new internet company,” or “Local business woman save cat from tree.” That kind of stuff.

I had borrowed lights from another photographer and planned on lighting the shot. But of course I forgot that the lights were not battery operated. My lights from both previous internships ran off batteries. I felt bad having made this lady walk all the way out to this tree, so I shot it anyway so not to make her feel like it was all for nothing.


Canon EOS-1D with 70-200mm f2.8, 100 ISO, f2.8 at 1/500 of a sec

For my themed portrait I asked if she could show me around the office of her company. She showed me the cubicles and private offices. Nothing interested me. Then Mrs. Elliott mentioned their newly redesigned server room in the basement. Perfect!


Canon EOS-1D Mark 2 with 17-35mm f2.8

I really wish I had a third light to illuminate the area behind her head so that her hair didn’t blend with the background, but I worked with what I had.

Later that week I shot high school football. Oh high school football, how I have missed you. Your nasty lighting, and terrible smell are so unique. The great thing about high school football is that you can pretty much go anywhere you want (minus the actually playing area of the field). This was the first week of the games so I tried to shoot off the field as well.


Canon EOS-1D Mark 2 with 17-35mm f2.8


Canon EOS-1D Mark 2 with 300mm f2.8


Canon EOS-1D Mark 2 with 300mm f2.8