Monday, February 28, 2011

One Day Story: The Swan Dive


“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Kalya Klemme giggles to her older brother Jason as they get into their costumes for the Polar Bear Plunge. Kayla plays on several different teams in the Special Olympics organization and her brother is a coach too. For the past three years, Kayla has watched her older brother participate in the plunge.

 Now, as the beautiful swan with her ugly ducklings, Kayla attempts the polar plunge. 

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Kayla Klemme adjusts her swan hat before the 
Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge on Feb. 19, 2011.
 Kayla is a Special Olympics athletic participant and this was her first Polar Bear Plunge.



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Kayla stands among her plunge team as they wait team members to register.
 Kayla’s costume was a part of her teams theme of
 the “Beautiful Swan and the Ugly Ducklings”
 The team ended up raising the most money for the event.



03


Kayla embraces her older brother Jason Klemme 
while the team waits for the costume parade.
 Much of the team was made up of Jason’s friends who had participated before. 



04


Jason assists Kayla in the water in Stephens Lake during the Polar Bear Plunge. 
During the event teams quickly ran in and out of the  cold water in costumes. 



02


Kayla wraps her arm around herself to keep warm after her team’s turn at the plunge.
 Kayla quickly made her way to the bathroom with her mom
 to change out of her wet costume. 

Friday, February 25, 2011

POYI Reaction

I was utterly impressed with much of the POYI judging this year. Some of it was hard to watch, for example, in the world understanding category, when the judges were dismayed by having to award any of the projects. However, most of it was a joy to be able to experience, some of the most innovative pieces I saw this year were rightfully awarded. 

It was also interesting to see the same stories awarded in different categories. One of my favorite pieces by the Virginia Pilot was, "The Chosen Ones". This story receieved awards in feature picture story, newspaper editing, single image categories and multimedia. What I love about this story is how each of the 5 sense of string components are so strong, the story would be lacking without one of them. I also appreciate the sensativity towards the subjects that is apparent in the photographs.

I also like Damon Winter's "A Grunts Life". I thought it was interesting how so many people got caught up in how he took the images, they forgot to really look at the photos themselves. Many of the images are strong, catching moments of intimacy between soliders, solid framing and light usage too. I also respected Winter's graceful decision to bow out from the blog debates and wait until the dust had settled to make any comment on the award for his photograph. His points about making the toning decisions before he shot the photographs was an important one, and made other photographers consider their useage of settings in camera.

Of all the CPOYs and POYIs never have I seen judges voice so much disappointment over a category like they did for the Global Vision Award. The judges were frusterated with the lack of editing down weak images, which only brought down the strong ones. The judges were also frusterated with the lack of time and effort that seemed to be put into many of the stories. I learned a lot about editing from sitting in on that judging session, never do I want someone to groan when they see my portfolio like these judges did.

I also enjoyed sitting in on the freelance feature picture story category. The judges, to Rick Shaw's dismay, actually approached a few of us after judging and asked what we thought of their decisions. With Rick's permission, we engaged in an interesting conversation about the mood of a lot of the stories and the overall feeling for the entries. This conversation was a treat. One of the most interesting conversations that took place during this category was the validity of how one of the people was holding a gun in a photograph. One of the judges commented, "I know people who shoot guns, and they have showed me how they do it. That's not how you hold a gun."

I also apprecaited the different feeling a lot of the winners had in this category. Often POYI and other competitions are pigeon holed into this stereotype of only awarding sad, depressing stories. The Black Label Bike Club is a great example of breaking this mold, it's an excellent quirky story about a subculture. It doesn't make you cry, but it grabs you the way a good picture story should. 

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Picture Story #5-Jay & Hurn Reading

Finding a subject is always an interesting process. Sometimes things easily fall into your lap and other times it feels like you're running a marathon that simply will not end. One of the points I agree with from the reading is always hvaing a notebook with you, because they are absolutely correct in saying that during the quiet moments, great ideas will come to you. In Denmark, I always carried a moleskin with me and during my bus rides to class, I came up with some of my strongest ideas.

Another important point that was brought up in the reading was how visual a subject could be. Sometimes, I come up with a great idea and try to push for its quality as a story. But in the end, the story is better in words and lacks visual variety and content to be a strong photo story. It's important as a photojournalists to always look for the visual potential in a story before getting in so deep, that you are grasping for photos that simply aren't there.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Picture Story #3-Editing Practice.



     For my Picture Story Capstone class, we were given another photographers, Caitlyn Emmett, raw take and told to create a photo story. After choosing 35 selects, I worked with my classmate/bestfriend/ Taylor to narrow down the photos to 7 and put it into a layout. 
I forgot how much I loved working on layouts and design. 


Saturday, February 5, 2011

Blizzard Baby.

I took an assignment during the end of the blizzard at the Missourian about babies born during the storm. Meet Oliver. 

Here is the story on the Missourian Website

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Friday, February 4, 2011

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

A little info.

My photo
I am recent graduate of the University of Missouri, majoring in photojournalism. Right now, I am a photo intern at The Dallas Morning News. Last year, I attended the Danish School of Media and Journalism in the International Photojournalism program. I love the journey of working on a photo story, the destination is never what was predicted.

ALL PHOTOS ARE THE PROPERTY OF EVE EDELHEIT, The Dallas Morning News, The Peoria Journal Star, The Chautauquan Daily. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © 2008-2012 EVE EDELHEIT, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, THE PEORIA JOURNAL STAR, THE CHAUTAUQUAN DAILY.