Thought Piece #2

            Some of the stories LaBelle gave us about things that he had done as a curious child were kind of disgusting. I almost don’t believe it. I definitely believe the story about him licking a frog because I have had a kid at work do that before but I’m not sure that I believe that he swallowed a living anchovy. Just the thought of it makes me gag a little. But I think it was nice that he added in these stories to help explain a healthy curiosity.

            I thought it was really interesting how he kept comparing finding good feature stories to hunting. Granted, I have never gone hunting, but it was kind of a helpful comparison and brought my mind back to the first reading that I did for this book. I thought back on the part of the journalist barging into the funeral and making themselves front and center. When the other photographers were in the back being respectful and waiting for the right moment. It seems like for photography, there is a lot of waiting for the right moment, which I definitely learned this summer through photographing weddings.

            There was a quote in this section that really stood out to me, “some of the best pictures are made by those who see hurdles, not obstacles.” (LaBelle). This quote stood out to me because, thinking about it, I feel like there are quite a few things that I have given up on because I thought they were obstacles making it impossible and not considered that it may just be a hurdle that I had to get over. I think a big thing that I have struggled with in the past has been the hurdle of being a little shy, which I definitely got over after this summer with my internship. I am much more open to talking with random people now and feel like that will help me with this class a LOT.

            The way that LaBelle explained how different people see things differently was kind of interesting to me and made me think that I am not nearly as creative as I thought that I was. When he said that, looking at a garbage can, someone would see an “artistic cascade of colors, shapes, and potential, I thought for a moment that I was crazy for seeing a garbage can overflowing as trash and gross. Which I obviously know that I’m not, but it had me thinking differently about how creative I thought that I was.

            A big theme that I was getting during this reading was to keep going back. My understanding was that, to find a good feature story, better yet, a great feature story, you need to keep going back and not just continuously shoot. I know that it is a photo class and that I will want to get a lot of photos but after reading this I am thinking again about how I need to just wait for the right moments and not just shoot continuously and randomly. This is something that I learned during my internship as well, especially with weddings, because if you don’t shoot strategically and make sure you’re more focused on getting what matters rather than just meeting a number, then you might not get the best shots you can. I know that at the first wedding I did, I was just shooting away and filling up my card because I wasn’t entirely sure what I was even supposed to be getting, but I thankfully learned over the summer.