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Six-tenths of a second...what difference does it make?
A lot. Read this.
On the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination I wanted to share with you something a little different.
Bob Jackson's Pulitzer Prize Winning Photograph
Jack Beer's photograph that did not win a Pulitzer Prize.
Six-tenths of a second, 2 lives forever changed
'He was a victim of timing and circumstance, and it's something he never got over'
02:25 PM CST on Tuesday, January 27, 2004
From the moment he lunged out of the shadows and pulled the trigger on his .38-caliber Colt Cobra, Jack Ruby did more than blast his way into history.
Lee Harvey Oswald, the man suspected of killing President John F. Kennedy two days earlier, suffered a single, fatal shot from Ruby's gun.
But other men standing in the basement of the Dallas police station on Sunday morning, Nov. 24, 1963, saw their own lives change, none more so than a pair of photojournalists who captured the moment in black and white.
For Robert H. "Bob" Jackson, then a 29-year-old photographer for the Dallas Times Herald, taking a picture of Oswald's murder meant winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1964.
But for Ira Jefferson "Jack" Beers Jr., who worked for The Dallas Morning News – and who took an almost equally vivid picture – the basement events left an entirely different legacy.
Those who knew him say he never recovered from missing the Pulitzer by six-tenths of a second – the time between his photograph and Mr. Jackson's.
"I know this sounds stupid, but for years, I wouldn't even talk to people about it. It hurt a lot," says Darlene Beers Williams, 50, the second of Mr. Beers' three children, whose father died of a heart attack in 1975. He was 51.
Mr. Beers was "industrious, careful, experienced, knowledgeable and dedicated," said Tom Dillard, who in 1963 was the Morning News ' chief photographer. (Mr. Dillard was interviewed shortly before his death in late May.) "But on that day, he was a victim of timing and circumstance, and it's something he never got over."
His daughter attributes the difference in the photos to an accident of timing, a twist of fate.
"It really hurt my dad when Bob won the Pulitzer Prize," says Ms. Williams, a manager at a Garland retirement home.
Her father "always said, 'I was there. I was prepared. But I didn't get it.' "
Photography a passion
Born at Parkland Hospital in 1923, Jack Beers was an only child. Raised by a single mother, he was 7 when his parents divorced, at the height of the Great Depression. His family was poor.
He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School and joined the Army Air Forces, where photography became a passion. Upon his discharge, he was hired by the Times Herald, where he worked for two years, then moved to the Morning News.
He was, his daughter says, a perfectionist, enslaved to details and committed to showing up for assignments an hour early. He often told his little girl, "Luck is a product of being prepared."
Through the years, he parlayed that luck into a showroom of memorable photographs – a woman in tears, lying on a stretcher, clutching her Bible; football great Kyle Rote, grinning en route to a game-winning touchdown; and a terrifying stream of hurricanes and tornadoes.
He loved crime stories, she says, and went on ride-alongs with the Dallas police. He also came to know a strange little man who often hung out at police headquarters, a strip-club operator named Jack Ruby.
To fatten his pocketbook, Mr. Beers even photographed some of Ruby's "girls," whose pictures are part of the family collection.
He scoffed at what colleagues called "feature" photography, believing news was where the action was. So on the day President Kennedy came to town, he was thrilled, his daughter says, having drawn the assignment of photographing the president's arrival at Love Field.
After the assassination, he spent hours at police headquarters and on Sunday drew the assignment of photographing what was supposed to be a routine transfer of Oswald from the city jail to the county jail. As always, Mr. Beers showed up early.
On-the-job training
Like Jack Beers, Bob Jackson was an only child born in Dallas. His birth was traumatic – he barely survived complications during delivery that killed his twin sister when she was 4 days old.
He grew up in University Park as the son of the secretary-treasurer of Dallas Federal Savings and Loan. He attended Southern Methodist University but left early to join the Army National Guard, which gave him on-the-job training in photography.
He left the service in 1959 and got a job with the Times Herald a year later. He developed a fascination with hard news, whose speed and action he likened to auto racing, a sport he followed with almost-slavish devotion.
He got to know racing pioneers Carroll Shelby and Jim Hall and reveled in owning a 1958 AC Ace Bristol, the forerunner to Mr. Shelby's famous Cobra. "There were six in all of Dallas," says Mr. Jackson, "and I had one of 'em."
"Bob was a rich kid who had never worked," says fellow photographer Andy Hanson. "His dad was a friend of [co-publisher and editor] Felix McKnight, who got John Mazziotta [the paper's chief photographer] to hire Bob."
Despite the circumstances under which he was hired, "He was pretty darn good," says Mr. Hanson, who remembers Mr. Jackson's talent for hard news as putting him at the forefront of the paper's assassination coverage.
On Nov. 22, 1963, he was riding in the motorcade, eight cars behind the president. His assignment was to photograph crowd scenes along the route and then hand his film to a Times Herald reporter waiting at the corner of Main and Houston.
Shots fired, shots missed
Heading west on Main, nearing Houston, Mr. Jackson hurled his film to Jim Featherston, a heavyset reporter who had trouble catching it and – comically – ended up having to chase it. They were both still chuckling over the fumbled film when Mr. Jackson's car veered sharply onto Houston. By this time, the president's car was cruising down Elm.
And then came the first shot.
Instinctively, Mr. Jackson says he looked to where the shot was coming from – and saw a rifle protruding from a window in the east end of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald fired three shots from a sniper's perch he had constructed in that window.
Mr. Jackson had two cameras, one with a wide-angle lens, the other a telephoto. Cursing his bad luck, he realized he had snapped his last picture just before turning onto Houston Street.
He had no time to reload. There would be no picture of the assassin. So, two days later, as he headed to the basement, he felt "like an idiot" for having missed the shot of the century.
On Sunday morning, photographers began arriving at the police station shortly before 9. They milled around for a while, sharing their stunned disbelief about the president's murder. Eventually, they were told to stake out positions in the basement and stay put until the suspect emerged.
"Beers liked to be up high," says Mr. Jackson, who positioned himself near an incline but not on it, as Mr. Beers had. Mr. Beers was, in fact, standing on a railing on top of the incline, giving him a height advantage of several feet.
To Mr. Jackson's right were Frank Johnston, a photographer for United Press International, and Mr. Beers. Standing in front of Mr. Beers but below his camera were television reporter Bob Huffaker, an unidentified Asian man and Dallas police Detective William J. "Blackie" Harrison.
Before Oswald appeared, a Times Herald reporter walked over to tell Mr. Jackson that the transfer was taking too long and that the city desk wanted him to leave the basement and head straight to Nellie Connally's press conference at Parkland Hospital. The wife of Texas Gov. John B. Connally was scheduled to appear in public for the first time since her husband was critically hurt in the shooting that killed the president.
"He came back and said, 'We can't miss that press conference – that's the most important thing,' " Mr. Jackson recalls the reporter saying.
But Mr. Jackson refused to leave.
Photo finish
Flanked by two detectives, Oswald entered the basement at 11:21. They appeared to be heading to an unmarked car that was still backing into place, its bumper actually touching Mr. Jackson's left knee.
Less than a minute before Oswald appeared, Ruby had entered the basement and positioned himself behind and to the left of Detective Harrison.
In a letter written to Ruby's attorney in 1967, Mr. Beers describes what happened next:
"Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw a sudden movement ... My first impression was, it was a photographer out of position or with a very short lens trying to improve his position, then the curse, 'You son of a bitch,' punctuated by the shot. The curse was in such an unnatural and excited voice, before it concluded I knew someone had gone berserk and was attacking Oswald."
The sudden movement provoked Mr. Jackson, six-tenths of a second later, to snap the shutter.
"The reason Beers shot too soon, in comparison to me," says Mr. Jackson, "is that he saw it easier and quicker than I did. Ruby was more in his vision. I had a better position because I wasn't distracted by Ruby as much. I was still looking at Oswald's face, and I knew I was going to shoot before whoever that was blocked my view."
Mr. Jackson was using a Nikon S3 with a wide-angle 35 mm lens. Mr. Beers was using a Mamiyaflex camera with a 65 mm lens.
More than anything, Mr. Jackson says, timing was paramount: 1963 technology required the use of strobe lights, which took up to five seconds to recycle each time the shutter snapped. Motor-driven cameras, which advance the frames rapidly, existed in 1963, says Mr. Jackson, but no one in the basement was using one. Amid the bedlam, Mr. Jackson had no idea what he had.
The basement events had left him sickened, adding to the horror of the president being murdered in Mr. Jackson's hometown. "But I had a job to do," he says. And so did his crosstown rival.
As soon as he could, Mr. Beers returned to the News' darkroom. Seeing the negative for the first time, Mr. Beers' supervisor was ecstatic.
"My God!" Mr. Dillard said. "You've just won us the Pulitzer Prize!"
But Mr. Jackson's darkroom discovery was even more dramatic.
Felix McKnight, co-publisher and editor of the Times Herald, says Mr. Jackson's negative was overwhelming. "I had been a Pulitzer juror three times," says Mr. McKnight, now 91. He shouted to the troops: "We've got a winner here! We're gonna win one!"
When The News began hitting porches at dawn the next day, Mr. Beers' photograph ate up most of the front page.
It was and is a great picture, showing Ruby emerging from the shadows with gun fully extended. But the look on Oswald's face – sullen, indifferent, even bored – and that of the officers leading him in handcuffs indicates none of them has even seen Ruby, much less sensed the impending chaos.
"Seeing Jack's picture made me a little sad," says Mr. McKnight, who had once worked at The News and supervised Mr. Beers. "Jack was a fine young man and a very good photographer, and I knew that would be a bitter defeat. It was like losing a horse race by a nose. I understood the pangs of his disappointment, and it was damn narrow."
But in the Times Herald newsroom, no one else felt even a twinge of sadness. News columnist Blackie Sherrod, who in 1963 was lead sports columnist and sports editor at the Times Herald, was helping out the city desk in the assassination's aftermath. It was Mr. Sherrod who made the decision to run Mr. Jackson's photograph the full eight columns.
Taken six-tenths of a second later, Mr. Jackson's is similar to Mr. Beers' but with a far more arresting image: It shows Ruby aiming the gun at Oswald, whose body has just been invaded by the bullet, as smoke rings rise from his abdomen to his eyes. As Oswald grimaces in pain, the police detectives' faces are etched in sheer terror.
Now a 61-year-old photographer for the Washington Post, Frank Johnston reflects on his own moment in the basement by trumpeting Mr. Jackson's photograph as a classic for the ages. More than any other image, he says, it captures the shock and horror of Dallas' darkest weekend.
"The facial expressions, the body language of everyone in that photograph is just incredible," says Mr. Johnston. "I looked at that photograph the first time and was startled by it, it had so much impact."
Mystery unraveled
Nearly 40 years later, the impact is still being felt, with the how and why of what happened in the basement still being examined. Why did Mr. Beers shoot first? Was Mr. Jackson responding only to Mr. Beers' flash, as Morning News rivals still insist? Videotape and news footage from six other cameras have unraveled the mystery.
By measuring the time between flashes of the strobes, Gary Mack, curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, has undertaken a frame-by-frame analysis that shows Mr. Johnston of UPI taking the first picture. In his, Oswald is being escorted by police, with Ruby not yet in the frame. Nine-tenths of a second later, Mr. Beers took his picture, followed by Mr. Jackson, six-tenths of a second after that.
"The footage shows that Bob and everyone else appear to be reacting only to Ruby's movement," says Mr. Mack. "Had he reacted to Beers' flash, [Mr. Jackson] would have taken his picture even later. At the same time, he isn't reacting to gunfire either. He's reacting only to movement, as everyone else was."
Mr. Johnston remembers that, right after the shooting, "Bob said, 'I didn't get it – I think I got blocked.' " But later that day, he called Mr. Jackson, who had just gotten out of the darkroom.
"When he told me he had it, I said, 'Bob, that's fantastic!' I was happy for him. I'm still happy for him," says Mr. Johnston. "My gosh, it's an elbow away sometimes. I felt really good for him. And don't let anyone tell you Bob wasn't a good shooter. He was a very good shooter."
Never quite the same
From that moment on, Mr. Beers "never had as much confidence in himself," says his daughter, who describes him as "feeling let down. Not by anybody in particular. More by fate, I guess. He always felt like, 'Why have I had to struggle so hard to finally get the picture and then not get it?' "
Eamon Kennedy, who worked at the Times Herald in 1963, remembers Mr. Beers as being "bitterly disappointed ... that he didn't get more recognition. But Bob's is clearly the better picture. Things like that happen in our business, and you've got to deal with them."
Mr. Jackson, he says, picked a "perfect" position, "and you have to give him credit for that."
But News rivals insist otherwise, saying Mr. Jackson's was 99 percent blessing, Mr. Beers' 99 percent curse.
"Just dumb-ass luck," says Joe Laird, a retired News photographer.
The newspaper war was so intense in those days that "if Beers' picture had come out crappy and Jackson's had hit page one, our editors would have cut their wrists in the city room," says Mr. Laird. "They wouldn't have ever survived that. Obviously, Jackson's is judged to be better by all standards, and that was a shame, because we didn't strike out."
Felix McKnight agrees. Had he been a Pulitzer juror, "I would have been tempted to give a double award," he says. "Both are once-in-a-lifetime photographs."
But Mr. Beers never felt redeemed. He died with a "depression that went untreated," says Ms. Williams, who lost her mother, Mr. Beers' widow, in late 2000.
And why was he depressed? "In my mind," she says, "it's all due to that picture."
The once-eager competitor became a man with "no drive," she says. Instead of photography being the passion it always was, it quickly became "just a job." A tendency toward heart problems grew worse by the year.
"He wanted to hunt and fish a lot more than he wanted to do his job," she says, "and it was never that way before."
Mr. Laird puts it more bluntly: "Jack somehow felt that God had cheated him."
Whatever the cause, in the years after that November, "He always had a little inferiority complex," says Mr. Laird. "He lived high. He ate the wrong things, and he chain-smoked."
Clint Grant, another former co-worker, says Mr. Beers' temper got worse. Mr. Jackson's picture was sought after by "Life, Saturday Evening Post, all the big magazines. And he made an awful lot of money."
"Poor old Jack just had to sit back and take it, never fully comprehending, I suppose, that it was merely the difference in six-tenths of a second, and there was nothing he could do about it."
Mr. Beers "deserves more credit than was ever given to him for a picture many forgot long ago," says Shelly Katz, former contributing photographer to Time magazine. "Jack Beers was this great craftsman who took his job so seriously. This was his way of life. He truly was a photojournalist."
Proof's in the Pulitzer
But Mr. Jackson's is the name on the Pulitzer, "and regardless of what anyone says about Bob being lucky, the fact of the matter is, he deserves the credit," says Mr. Katz. "He made the shot, period, and you can't take it away from him. The proof is in the picture."
For a while, Bob Jackson got to revel in his newfound celebrity. But after his picture was published, he found himself being judged by a harsher standard. Every picture he took was measured against journalism's ultimate prize.
"I try not to let it bother me," he says with a shrug.
He left the Times Herald for The Denver Post in 1968 but returned a year later. He was divorced in 1972 and soon became a full-time society photographer. He moved to Colorado in 1980 and continues to work 10 hours a week for The Gazette in Colorado Springs.
Smooth, socially graceful and looking younger than his 68 years, he lives with his second wife in a mountain hideaway in Manitou Springs, Colo., in the shadow of Pike's Peak. Snow-capped hills are as close as the window, as are the deer feasting on the lawn. His fascination with cars has continued. In addition to the Ace, he has owned three Jaguars, five Porsches and a Lotus.
In his living room, he can peer over one shoulder and see a blow-up of Oswald's murder, then go to the basement and see one more – plus a parody of his prize-winning picture, orchestrated by Times Herald staffers when he left the paper in 1974.
He estimates having made "tens of thousands of dollars" off the reprint rights, which the Times Herald gave him almost immediately. He charges publications anywhere from $250 to $2,500 to print the picture, processed from the original negative. He has a deal with the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles, which charges $1,500 for individual numbered prints. Mr. Jackson notes that No. 7 was bought by rock star Elton John.
There's even a doctored Internet version, which shows Ruby playing an electric guitar, Oswald holding a microphone and the police detective cuffed to his wrist playing a keyboard. Mr. Jackson and the graphic artist who designed it "share the profits, and that's been going on four to five years," says Mr. Jackson, $3,000 richer from that version.
He's unaware of any bad feelings that linger in the Beers family.
"I feel pretty bad if that's true," he says.
He came to Dallas in February for the opening night of a new exhibit at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
His photograph, along with 122 other Pulitzer Prize-winning images, is on display through November.
"I was looking forward to meeting the daughter at the exhibit opening," he says. "But she never showed."
Ms. Williams had been invited. In the end, she says, she had to say no.
"I saw Mr. Jackson on the news," says Ms. Williams, as the tears start to fall, "and I just lost it. All I could think about was Dad, how hard he worked ... what might have been. I wish it could have been the two of 'em side by side, sharing the glory together.
"But that's the history of a picture. And only one usually counts."
E-mail mgranberry@dallasnews.com
On the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination I wanted to share with you something a little different.
Bob Jackson's Pulitzer Prize Winning Photograph
Jack Beer's photograph that did not win a Pulitzer Prize.
Six-tenths of a second, 2 lives forever changed
'He was a victim of timing and circumstance, and it's something he never got over'
02:25 PM CST on Tuesday, January 27, 2004
From the moment he lunged out of the shadows and pulled the trigger on his .38-caliber Colt Cobra, Jack Ruby did more than blast his way into history.
Lee Harvey Oswald, the man suspected of killing President John F. Kennedy two days earlier, suffered a single, fatal shot from Ruby's gun.
But other men standing in the basement of the Dallas police station on Sunday morning, Nov. 24, 1963, saw their own lives change, none more so than a pair of photojournalists who captured the moment in black and white.
For Robert H. "Bob" Jackson, then a 29-year-old photographer for the Dallas Times Herald, taking a picture of Oswald's murder meant winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1964.
But for Ira Jefferson "Jack" Beers Jr., who worked for The Dallas Morning News – and who took an almost equally vivid picture – the basement events left an entirely different legacy.
Those who knew him say he never recovered from missing the Pulitzer by six-tenths of a second – the time between his photograph and Mr. Jackson's.
"I know this sounds stupid, but for years, I wouldn't even talk to people about it. It hurt a lot," says Darlene Beers Williams, 50, the second of Mr. Beers' three children, whose father died of a heart attack in 1975. He was 51.
Mr. Beers was "industrious, careful, experienced, knowledgeable and dedicated," said Tom Dillard, who in 1963 was the Morning News ' chief photographer. (Mr. Dillard was interviewed shortly before his death in late May.) "But on that day, he was a victim of timing and circumstance, and it's something he never got over."
His daughter attributes the difference in the photos to an accident of timing, a twist of fate.
"It really hurt my dad when Bob won the Pulitzer Prize," says Ms. Williams, a manager at a Garland retirement home.
Her father "always said, 'I was there. I was prepared. But I didn't get it.' "
Photography a passion
Born at Parkland Hospital in 1923, Jack Beers was an only child. Raised by a single mother, he was 7 when his parents divorced, at the height of the Great Depression. His family was poor.
He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School and joined the Army Air Forces, where photography became a passion. Upon his discharge, he was hired by the Times Herald, where he worked for two years, then moved to the Morning News.
He was, his daughter says, a perfectionist, enslaved to details and committed to showing up for assignments an hour early. He often told his little girl, "Luck is a product of being prepared."
Through the years, he parlayed that luck into a showroom of memorable photographs – a woman in tears, lying on a stretcher, clutching her Bible; football great Kyle Rote, grinning en route to a game-winning touchdown; and a terrifying stream of hurricanes and tornadoes.
He loved crime stories, she says, and went on ride-alongs with the Dallas police. He also came to know a strange little man who often hung out at police headquarters, a strip-club operator named Jack Ruby.
To fatten his pocketbook, Mr. Beers even photographed some of Ruby's "girls," whose pictures are part of the family collection.
He scoffed at what colleagues called "feature" photography, believing news was where the action was. So on the day President Kennedy came to town, he was thrilled, his daughter says, having drawn the assignment of photographing the president's arrival at Love Field.
After the assassination, he spent hours at police headquarters and on Sunday drew the assignment of photographing what was supposed to be a routine transfer of Oswald from the city jail to the county jail. As always, Mr. Beers showed up early.
On-the-job training
Like Jack Beers, Bob Jackson was an only child born in Dallas. His birth was traumatic – he barely survived complications during delivery that killed his twin sister when she was 4 days old.
He grew up in University Park as the son of the secretary-treasurer of Dallas Federal Savings and Loan. He attended Southern Methodist University but left early to join the Army National Guard, which gave him on-the-job training in photography.
He left the service in 1959 and got a job with the Times Herald a year later. He developed a fascination with hard news, whose speed and action he likened to auto racing, a sport he followed with almost-slavish devotion.
He got to know racing pioneers Carroll Shelby and Jim Hall and reveled in owning a 1958 AC Ace Bristol, the forerunner to Mr. Shelby's famous Cobra. "There were six in all of Dallas," says Mr. Jackson, "and I had one of 'em."
"Bob was a rich kid who had never worked," says fellow photographer Andy Hanson. "His dad was a friend of [co-publisher and editor] Felix McKnight, who got John Mazziotta [the paper's chief photographer] to hire Bob."
Despite the circumstances under which he was hired, "He was pretty darn good," says Mr. Hanson, who remembers Mr. Jackson's talent for hard news as putting him at the forefront of the paper's assassination coverage.
On Nov. 22, 1963, he was riding in the motorcade, eight cars behind the president. His assignment was to photograph crowd scenes along the route and then hand his film to a Times Herald reporter waiting at the corner of Main and Houston.
Shots fired, shots missed
Heading west on Main, nearing Houston, Mr. Jackson hurled his film to Jim Featherston, a heavyset reporter who had trouble catching it and – comically – ended up having to chase it. They were both still chuckling over the fumbled film when Mr. Jackson's car veered sharply onto Houston. By this time, the president's car was cruising down Elm.
And then came the first shot.
Instinctively, Mr. Jackson says he looked to where the shot was coming from – and saw a rifle protruding from a window in the east end of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. The Warren Commission concluded that Oswald fired three shots from a sniper's perch he had constructed in that window.
Mr. Jackson had two cameras, one with a wide-angle lens, the other a telephoto. Cursing his bad luck, he realized he had snapped his last picture just before turning onto Houston Street.
He had no time to reload. There would be no picture of the assassin. So, two days later, as he headed to the basement, he felt "like an idiot" for having missed the shot of the century.
On Sunday morning, photographers began arriving at the police station shortly before 9. They milled around for a while, sharing their stunned disbelief about the president's murder. Eventually, they were told to stake out positions in the basement and stay put until the suspect emerged.
"Beers liked to be up high," says Mr. Jackson, who positioned himself near an incline but not on it, as Mr. Beers had. Mr. Beers was, in fact, standing on a railing on top of the incline, giving him a height advantage of several feet.
To Mr. Jackson's right were Frank Johnston, a photographer for United Press International, and Mr. Beers. Standing in front of Mr. Beers but below his camera were television reporter Bob Huffaker, an unidentified Asian man and Dallas police Detective William J. "Blackie" Harrison.
Before Oswald appeared, a Times Herald reporter walked over to tell Mr. Jackson that the transfer was taking too long and that the city desk wanted him to leave the basement and head straight to Nellie Connally's press conference at Parkland Hospital. The wife of Texas Gov. John B. Connally was scheduled to appear in public for the first time since her husband was critically hurt in the shooting that killed the president.
"He came back and said, 'We can't miss that press conference – that's the most important thing,' " Mr. Jackson recalls the reporter saying.
But Mr. Jackson refused to leave.
Photo finish
Flanked by two detectives, Oswald entered the basement at 11:21. They appeared to be heading to an unmarked car that was still backing into place, its bumper actually touching Mr. Jackson's left knee.
Less than a minute before Oswald appeared, Ruby had entered the basement and positioned himself behind and to the left of Detective Harrison.
In a letter written to Ruby's attorney in 1967, Mr. Beers describes what happened next:
"Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw a sudden movement ... My first impression was, it was a photographer out of position or with a very short lens trying to improve his position, then the curse, 'You son of a bitch,' punctuated by the shot. The curse was in such an unnatural and excited voice, before it concluded I knew someone had gone berserk and was attacking Oswald."
The sudden movement provoked Mr. Jackson, six-tenths of a second later, to snap the shutter.
"The reason Beers shot too soon, in comparison to me," says Mr. Jackson, "is that he saw it easier and quicker than I did. Ruby was more in his vision. I had a better position because I wasn't distracted by Ruby as much. I was still looking at Oswald's face, and I knew I was going to shoot before whoever that was blocked my view."
Mr. Jackson was using a Nikon S3 with a wide-angle 35 mm lens. Mr. Beers was using a Mamiyaflex camera with a 65 mm lens.
More than anything, Mr. Jackson says, timing was paramount: 1963 technology required the use of strobe lights, which took up to five seconds to recycle each time the shutter snapped. Motor-driven cameras, which advance the frames rapidly, existed in 1963, says Mr. Jackson, but no one in the basement was using one. Amid the bedlam, Mr. Jackson had no idea what he had.
The basement events had left him sickened, adding to the horror of the president being murdered in Mr. Jackson's hometown. "But I had a job to do," he says. And so did his crosstown rival.
As soon as he could, Mr. Beers returned to the News' darkroom. Seeing the negative for the first time, Mr. Beers' supervisor was ecstatic.
"My God!" Mr. Dillard said. "You've just won us the Pulitzer Prize!"
But Mr. Jackson's darkroom discovery was even more dramatic.
Felix McKnight, co-publisher and editor of the Times Herald, says Mr. Jackson's negative was overwhelming. "I had been a Pulitzer juror three times," says Mr. McKnight, now 91. He shouted to the troops: "We've got a winner here! We're gonna win one!"
When The News began hitting porches at dawn the next day, Mr. Beers' photograph ate up most of the front page.
It was and is a great picture, showing Ruby emerging from the shadows with gun fully extended. But the look on Oswald's face – sullen, indifferent, even bored – and that of the officers leading him in handcuffs indicates none of them has even seen Ruby, much less sensed the impending chaos.
"Seeing Jack's picture made me a little sad," says Mr. McKnight, who had once worked at The News and supervised Mr. Beers. "Jack was a fine young man and a very good photographer, and I knew that would be a bitter defeat. It was like losing a horse race by a nose. I understood the pangs of his disappointment, and it was damn narrow."
But in the Times Herald newsroom, no one else felt even a twinge of sadness. News columnist Blackie Sherrod, who in 1963 was lead sports columnist and sports editor at the Times Herald, was helping out the city desk in the assassination's aftermath. It was Mr. Sherrod who made the decision to run Mr. Jackson's photograph the full eight columns.
Taken six-tenths of a second later, Mr. Jackson's is similar to Mr. Beers' but with a far more arresting image: It shows Ruby aiming the gun at Oswald, whose body has just been invaded by the bullet, as smoke rings rise from his abdomen to his eyes. As Oswald grimaces in pain, the police detectives' faces are etched in sheer terror.
Now a 61-year-old photographer for the Washington Post, Frank Johnston reflects on his own moment in the basement by trumpeting Mr. Jackson's photograph as a classic for the ages. More than any other image, he says, it captures the shock and horror of Dallas' darkest weekend.
"The facial expressions, the body language of everyone in that photograph is just incredible," says Mr. Johnston. "I looked at that photograph the first time and was startled by it, it had so much impact."
Mystery unraveled
Nearly 40 years later, the impact is still being felt, with the how and why of what happened in the basement still being examined. Why did Mr. Beers shoot first? Was Mr. Jackson responding only to Mr. Beers' flash, as Morning News rivals still insist? Videotape and news footage from six other cameras have unraveled the mystery.
By measuring the time between flashes of the strobes, Gary Mack, curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, has undertaken a frame-by-frame analysis that shows Mr. Johnston of UPI taking the first picture. In his, Oswald is being escorted by police, with Ruby not yet in the frame. Nine-tenths of a second later, Mr. Beers took his picture, followed by Mr. Jackson, six-tenths of a second after that.
"The footage shows that Bob and everyone else appear to be reacting only to Ruby's movement," says Mr. Mack. "Had he reacted to Beers' flash, [Mr. Jackson] would have taken his picture even later. At the same time, he isn't reacting to gunfire either. He's reacting only to movement, as everyone else was."
Mr. Johnston remembers that, right after the shooting, "Bob said, 'I didn't get it – I think I got blocked.' " But later that day, he called Mr. Jackson, who had just gotten out of the darkroom.
"When he told me he had it, I said, 'Bob, that's fantastic!' I was happy for him. I'm still happy for him," says Mr. Johnston. "My gosh, it's an elbow away sometimes. I felt really good for him. And don't let anyone tell you Bob wasn't a good shooter. He was a very good shooter."
Never quite the same
From that moment on, Mr. Beers "never had as much confidence in himself," says his daughter, who describes him as "feeling let down. Not by anybody in particular. More by fate, I guess. He always felt like, 'Why have I had to struggle so hard to finally get the picture and then not get it?' "
Eamon Kennedy, who worked at the Times Herald in 1963, remembers Mr. Beers as being "bitterly disappointed ... that he didn't get more recognition. But Bob's is clearly the better picture. Things like that happen in our business, and you've got to deal with them."
Mr. Jackson, he says, picked a "perfect" position, "and you have to give him credit for that."
But News rivals insist otherwise, saying Mr. Jackson's was 99 percent blessing, Mr. Beers' 99 percent curse.
"Just dumb-ass luck," says Joe Laird, a retired News photographer.
The newspaper war was so intense in those days that "if Beers' picture had come out crappy and Jackson's had hit page one, our editors would have cut their wrists in the city room," says Mr. Laird. "They wouldn't have ever survived that. Obviously, Jackson's is judged to be better by all standards, and that was a shame, because we didn't strike out."
Felix McKnight agrees. Had he been a Pulitzer juror, "I would have been tempted to give a double award," he says. "Both are once-in-a-lifetime photographs."
But Mr. Beers never felt redeemed. He died with a "depression that went untreated," says Ms. Williams, who lost her mother, Mr. Beers' widow, in late 2000.
And why was he depressed? "In my mind," she says, "it's all due to that picture."
The once-eager competitor became a man with "no drive," she says. Instead of photography being the passion it always was, it quickly became "just a job." A tendency toward heart problems grew worse by the year.
"He wanted to hunt and fish a lot more than he wanted to do his job," she says, "and it was never that way before."
Mr. Laird puts it more bluntly: "Jack somehow felt that God had cheated him."
Whatever the cause, in the years after that November, "He always had a little inferiority complex," says Mr. Laird. "He lived high. He ate the wrong things, and he chain-smoked."
Clint Grant, another former co-worker, says Mr. Beers' temper got worse. Mr. Jackson's picture was sought after by "Life, Saturday Evening Post, all the big magazines. And he made an awful lot of money."
"Poor old Jack just had to sit back and take it, never fully comprehending, I suppose, that it was merely the difference in six-tenths of a second, and there was nothing he could do about it."
Mr. Beers "deserves more credit than was ever given to him for a picture many forgot long ago," says Shelly Katz, former contributing photographer to Time magazine. "Jack Beers was this great craftsman who took his job so seriously. This was his way of life. He truly was a photojournalist."
Proof's in the Pulitzer
But Mr. Jackson's is the name on the Pulitzer, "and regardless of what anyone says about Bob being lucky, the fact of the matter is, he deserves the credit," says Mr. Katz. "He made the shot, period, and you can't take it away from him. The proof is in the picture."
For a while, Bob Jackson got to revel in his newfound celebrity. But after his picture was published, he found himself being judged by a harsher standard. Every picture he took was measured against journalism's ultimate prize.
"I try not to let it bother me," he says with a shrug.
He left the Times Herald for The Denver Post in 1968 but returned a year later. He was divorced in 1972 and soon became a full-time society photographer. He moved to Colorado in 1980 and continues to work 10 hours a week for The Gazette in Colorado Springs.
Smooth, socially graceful and looking younger than his 68 years, he lives with his second wife in a mountain hideaway in Manitou Springs, Colo., in the shadow of Pike's Peak. Snow-capped hills are as close as the window, as are the deer feasting on the lawn. His fascination with cars has continued. In addition to the Ace, he has owned three Jaguars, five Porsches and a Lotus.
In his living room, he can peer over one shoulder and see a blow-up of Oswald's murder, then go to the basement and see one more – plus a parody of his prize-winning picture, orchestrated by Times Herald staffers when he left the paper in 1974.
He estimates having made "tens of thousands of dollars" off the reprint rights, which the Times Herald gave him almost immediately. He charges publications anywhere from $250 to $2,500 to print the picture, processed from the original negative. He has a deal with the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles, which charges $1,500 for individual numbered prints. Mr. Jackson notes that No. 7 was bought by rock star Elton John.
There's even a doctored Internet version, which shows Ruby playing an electric guitar, Oswald holding a microphone and the police detective cuffed to his wrist playing a keyboard. Mr. Jackson and the graphic artist who designed it "share the profits, and that's been going on four to five years," says Mr. Jackson, $3,000 richer from that version.
He's unaware of any bad feelings that linger in the Beers family.
"I feel pretty bad if that's true," he says.
He came to Dallas in February for the opening night of a new exhibit at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
His photograph, along with 122 other Pulitzer Prize-winning images, is on display through November.
"I was looking forward to meeting the daughter at the exhibit opening," he says. "But she never showed."
Ms. Williams had been invited. In the end, she says, she had to say no.
"I saw Mr. Jackson on the news," says Ms. Williams, as the tears start to fall, "and I just lost it. All I could think about was Dad, how hard he worked ... what might have been. I wish it could have been the two of 'em side by side, sharing the glory together.
"But that's the history of a picture. And only one usually counts."
E-mail mgranberry@dallasnews.com
Friday, November 15, 2013
Panoramas
Just so everyone is aware...
I want you to shoot 4 panoramas total. 2 vertical and 2 horizontal. Yes...they can be *similar*...that is if you are too dang lazy to go out and find photographs.
Sorry I didn't post this to the blog. My mistake.
These are due on Tuesday night BTW...
:)
I want you to shoot 4 panoramas total. 2 vertical and 2 horizontal. Yes...they can be *similar*...that is if you are too dang lazy to go out and find photographs.
Sorry I didn't post this to the blog. My mistake.
These are due on Tuesday night BTW...
:)
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Friday, November 8, 2013
Friday, November 1, 2013
Calendar For The Rest Of The Semester...
Yes, I know, it's gonna end quick. :(
If you're too lazy to click on the image and make it larger, here is a transcription:
10/29 Today
10/31 Halloween No Class (Angry Pumpkin Sketch)
11/5 B&W Portraits Due (oh shoot...did I forget to put that assignment on the blog???)
11/9 Lecture On Projects, LR Demo, Color Management/Printing
11/12 Lecture On Projects, Cameras and Prints (I'm gonna show off a little...)
11/14 Work on Panoramas
11/19 Panoramas Due
11/21 Work Day In Lab
11/26 Thanksgiving Break
11/28 Thanksgiving Break
12/3 Optional Attendance, WORK ON YOUR FINAL ESSAY, 1 on 1 critique/help/advice/cry...
12/5 Optional Attendance, WORK ON YOUR FINAL ESSAY, 1 on 1 critique/help/advice/cry...
12/10 FINAL CRITIQUES (Pot Luck)
12/12 FINAL CRITIQUES (if needed..)
If you're too lazy to click on the image and make it larger, here is a transcription:
10/29 Today
10/31 Halloween No Class (Angry Pumpkin Sketch)
11/5 B&W Portraits Due (oh shoot...did I forget to put that assignment on the blog???)
11/9 Lecture On Projects, LR Demo, Color Management/Printing
11/12 Lecture On Projects, Cameras and Prints (I'm gonna show off a little...)
11/14 Work on Panoramas
11/19 Panoramas Due
11/21 Work Day In Lab
11/26 Thanksgiving Break
11/28 Thanksgiving Break
12/3 Optional Attendance, WORK ON YOUR FINAL ESSAY, 1 on 1 critique/help/advice/cry...
12/5 Optional Attendance, WORK ON YOUR FINAL ESSAY, 1 on 1 critique/help/advice/cry...
12/10 FINAL CRITIQUES (Pot Luck)
12/12 FINAL CRITIQUES (if needed..)
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
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Thursday, October 24, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Time Lapse Photography In A Single Frame
This is an interesting project dealing with compositing and serendipity.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Real World Instagram Filters
This is pretty cool. They figured out the camera/film combos required to get the most popular Instagram filters in real life.
LINK HERE
LINK HERE
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Forced Perspective
This is a cool project. Models, shooting on location, depth of focus, photographic trickery...it's all there.
LINK HERE
LINK HERE
Friday, October 18, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Assignment #5 - Portraits
From Wikipedia (yeah, a terrible source, but I liked the definition...)
Portrait:
"A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer."
Three rules to this assignment...no, wait...SEVEN rules to this assignment.
Rule #1: NO MYSPACE PHOTOS - I think you all know what this means. You've seen 'em, you've taken 'em, I don't want 'em. If you need a reminder about what I'm talkin' 'bout, watch this video.
Rule #2: You need to shoot at least three different people.
Rule #3: No pets.
Rule #4: One of the people you photograph must be someone you do NOT know.
Rule #5: One of those three people MUST be yourself...but, you can't BE yourself...
Rule #6 No groups.
Rule #7 Present them in color (black and white portraits will be next)
Here is Cindy Sherman doing her version of Lucille Ball.
Regardless of which criteria you choose, you will turn in two prints, one print from each of the rolls that you shoot.
Prints due on Wednesday, October 16th.
Here is Cindy Sherman doing her version of Lucille Ball.
Here is a link to the National Portrait Gallery. You will get a lot of good ideas here from paintings, sculpture and photography.
National Portrait Gallery
Here is one of my favorite portrait photographers...Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon Portrait Gallery
Hiroshi Watanabe's gallery has a few sections of portraits that are interesting.
August Sander was a German photographer who made portraits of farmers and working class people near Cologne prior to World War II. After the Nazi's gained power, Sander continued to shoot the people in his city, many of them shown in Nazi military uniforms. Sander's portraits provide possibly the widest cross-section of Germans during that time.
Here is a self-portrait of me as Abraham Lincoln.
Due Tuesday, October 22nd.
One of each portrait due. I might have only told you to turn in two, but I want you to turn in one of each.
Here is our friend Steve McCurry talking about what you should do BEFORE YOU START PHOTOGRAPHING SOMEONE'S PORTRAIT.
Portrait:
"A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. A portrait often shows a person looking directly at the painter or photographer, in order to most successfully engage the subject with the viewer."
Three rules to this assignment...no, wait...SEVEN rules to this assignment.
Rule #1: NO MYSPACE PHOTOS - I think you all know what this means. You've seen 'em, you've taken 'em, I don't want 'em. If you need a reminder about what I'm talkin' 'bout, watch this video.
Rule #2: You need to shoot at least three different people.
Rule #3: No pets.
Rule #4: One of the people you photograph must be someone you do NOT know.
Rule #5: One of those three people MUST be yourself...but, you can't BE yourself...
Rule #6 No groups.
Rule #7 Present them in color (black and white portraits will be next)
Here is Cindy Sherman doing her version of Lucille Ball.
Regardless of which criteria you choose, you will turn in two prints, one print from each of the rolls that you shoot.
Prints due on Wednesday, October 16th.
Here is Cindy Sherman doing her version of Lucille Ball.
Here is a link to the National Portrait Gallery. You will get a lot of good ideas here from paintings, sculpture and photography.
National Portrait Gallery
Here is one of my favorite portrait photographers...Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon Portrait Gallery
Hiroshi Watanabe's gallery has a few sections of portraits that are interesting.
August Sander was a German photographer who made portraits of farmers and working class people near Cologne prior to World War II. After the Nazi's gained power, Sander continued to shoot the people in his city, many of them shown in Nazi military uniforms. Sander's portraits provide possibly the widest cross-section of Germans during that time.
Here is a self-portrait of me as Abraham Lincoln.
Due Tuesday, October 22nd.
One of each portrait due. I might have only told you to turn in two, but I want you to turn in one of each.
Here is our friend Steve McCurry talking about what you should do BEFORE YOU START PHOTOGRAPHING SOMEONE'S PORTRAIT.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Friday, October 4, 2013
Civil War 150 Project
Please take some time...maybe even set aside a somewhat significant amount of time...and explore the site that contains Michael Falco's 'Civil War 150 Pinhole Project'.
It is very immense in it's scope, amazingly thorough in it's research, and the photography...well...the visuals he is capturing bring the Civil War to life the way Brady and O'Sullivan were not able to.
PLEASE don't gloss through this. Read the text. Look at the images. Give it the time that it deserves.
Use his project as a template for what I am going to be asking you to do for your final projects. Study it well. There is a LOT to learn here.
LINK HERE
It is very immense in it's scope, amazingly thorough in it's research, and the photography...well...the visuals he is capturing bring the Civil War to life the way Brady and O'Sullivan were not able to.
PLEASE don't gloss through this. Read the text. Look at the images. Give it the time that it deserves.
Use his project as a template for what I am going to be asking you to do for your final projects. Study it well. There is a LOT to learn here.
LINK HERE
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
This Thursday, October 3rd is Library Day
Well what the heck does that mean? It means that we will NOT MEET in the classroom in the GT building at all that night.
Instead we will meet at the Starbucks in the UVU Library at 5:30. We'll go upstairs to where the photo books are at and each of you will get 15 minutes to find two books. One of the books you should really like a lot, one of the books you should really not like a lot. We will learn something from each of these photographers.
I don't care if you are familiar with them before you get to the library, but each of you will need to prepare something to discuss about each of your books. Remember, I'm giving you 15 minutes so you need to hustle and choose your books with enough time to look at them a bit and figure out what you like about them and what you DON'T like about them.
If you get lost or have to come late, please send me a text. 801-803-4818
See you on Thursday! You can wear your PJ's if you want. I'm going to wear a prom dress.
Instead we will meet at the Starbucks in the UVU Library at 5:30. We'll go upstairs to where the photo books are at and each of you will get 15 minutes to find two books. One of the books you should really like a lot, one of the books you should really not like a lot. We will learn something from each of these photographers.
I don't care if you are familiar with them before you get to the library, but each of you will need to prepare something to discuss about each of your books. Remember, I'm giving you 15 minutes so you need to hustle and choose your books with enough time to look at them a bit and figure out what you like about them and what you DON'T like about them.
If you get lost or have to come late, please send me a text. 801-803-4818
See you on Thursday! You can wear your PJ's if you want. I'm going to wear a prom dress.
Assignment #4 - Color Theory
We will be jumping into Color Theory a lot for this assignment. Ready? Here we go!
Here's the color wheel. Study it. You will need to learn how the color wheel works and how you can apply that knowledge to these assignments. It's easier than you think.
For this assignment you will concentrate on a few different theories of color. That of complementary color and that of analogous and of monochromatic color.
Let's start with complimentary color. It is the easiest. Here is a chart. If I were you I'd print this out and take it home with you so that you have it to use as a reference.
Click on the image to make it larger and easier to read. Right click on this and save it to your folder and you can print it out later.
One of my students has figured out that if you think of sports teams, i.e. the Denver Broncos, the L.A. Lakers, etc...you will have a very good idea of what complimentary colors are.
Frankly I think if you remember the colors of Christmas you will be well on your way. What are the colors of Christmas? Red and green.
I want you to find OR CREATE a scene which you have two complimentary colors. I want you to take your time and find some good light, make an interesting composition, check and set your white balance (this is getting crucial right?!?!), and most importantly I want you to make a bunch of different exposures. BRACKET! Change your composition with the camera, change your composition of the objects. Get an interesting photograph! I want you to do at least one of these complimentary colors, do two if you are feeling ambitious. If you only do one you'd better work it and make sure that you have good exposures, good focus and good composition. Shoot a LOT of frames on this assignment.
Now let's talk about ANALOGOUS color. What's analogous color? Analogous color is similar to monochromatic color, but it gets to be quite a bit richer. Analogous colors are those colors that are adjacent on the color wheel. Let's look at this diagram:
Click on the image to make it larger and easier to read. Right click on this and save it to your folder and you can print it out later.
Monochromatic color got it's richness by the variations of light striking the object. Darker areas became a slightly different shade of that color, lighter areas where more light hit the object became a lighter shade of that one color.
Analogous color is *kind of* similar, except that I want you to find various colored objects that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel. Remember, to KEEP IT SIMPLE and you get to decide just how hard you make it on yourself. Don't try to choose too many colors. Stick with three...four at the most. This is something that you may want to create on your own. Men, ask your wives/girlfriends if they can help you find analogous color. They will love to show you how it works.
Here's a quick chart:
Here are some examples:
This seems like a big assignment. It kind of is. I want you to repeat for analogous color what you did for complimentary color. Shoot a LOT.
It'll be fun. Trust me!
Due date:10/15/2013
3 images on the blog and a few words about what you did. Post at least one example of complimentary, analogous and monochromatic for this assignment.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Assignment #3 - HighKey/LowKey
This assignment is basically two assignments in one. Treat it as such and it will be easier to break down.
Have I taught you the bracketing procedure yet? No? Ok, don't freak out and see if you can figure out what I'm asking here. If you can't figure it out, don't freak out and plan on learning a LOT next week in class.
Enjoy your weekend.
You will shoot high-key and low-key images. What is high-key? The majority of the image (95%+) will be tones of light gray to white. It will help you to think of shooting white objects placed on a white background. So, then the opposite of high-key is low-key right? Think of low key as dark gray-ish to black objects. Shoot your dark objects placed on a dark background. You might need a tripod/beanbag for these shots.
For both of your shots you will want to pay close attention to the background. Don't let stray light/objects ruin your clean shot. Also it helps to isolate the objects by getting close. Take a look at the examples below.
You will want to shoot both of your high-key and low-key shots using the bracketing technique that we learned. Go from very very VERY underexposed all the way to very very VERY overexposed for each of the shots...both high-key *and* low-key.
Using the extreme bracketing you will find that buried somewhere in those images is a nearly perfect exposure. That will be your starting point. We will take those good exposures into post-production in the studio.
Here are some examples:
Yes, this is an assignment that I even give to my basic black and white high school film class. Here's the proof...
Things you will definitely want to be paying attention to:
Focus - make 'em sharp!
Light - will make or break the entire assignment. Move the light around the objects if you are shooting indoors...move the objects around into different light if you are shooting outdoors.
We will lecture and show examples of this in class. This WILL BE an assignment you will want to go back and re-shoot a few times. Don't consider doing it wrong the first time a failure...consider it good practice.
Requirements:
Shoot in RAW
Shoot in Color
Shoot using Manual Mode
Bracket the living heck out of these shots
Shoot using Manual Focus
Shoot images that are interesting to look at
Blog: One post containing two high-key and two low-key images, also put some examples of the exposures that your camera told you were 'correct'.
Write a little about what you learned.
Due Date: Tuesday, September 24th.
Have I taught you the bracketing procedure yet? No? Ok, don't freak out and see if you can figure out what I'm asking here. If you can't figure it out, don't freak out and plan on learning a LOT next week in class.
Enjoy your weekend.
You will shoot high-key and low-key images. What is high-key? The majority of the image (95%+) will be tones of light gray to white. It will help you to think of shooting white objects placed on a white background. So, then the opposite of high-key is low-key right? Think of low key as dark gray-ish to black objects. Shoot your dark objects placed on a dark background. You might need a tripod/beanbag for these shots.
For both of your shots you will want to pay close attention to the background. Don't let stray light/objects ruin your clean shot. Also it helps to isolate the objects by getting close. Take a look at the examples below.
You will want to shoot both of your high-key and low-key shots using the bracketing technique that we learned. Go from very very VERY underexposed all the way to very very VERY overexposed for each of the shots...both high-key *and* low-key.
Using the extreme bracketing you will find that buried somewhere in those images is a nearly perfect exposure. That will be your starting point. We will take those good exposures into post-production in the studio.
Here are some examples:
Yes, this is an assignment that I even give to my basic black and white high school film class. Here's the proof...
Things you will definitely want to be paying attention to:
Focus - make 'em sharp!
Light - will make or break the entire assignment. Move the light around the objects if you are shooting indoors...move the objects around into different light if you are shooting outdoors.
We will lecture and show examples of this in class. This WILL BE an assignment you will want to go back and re-shoot a few times. Don't consider doing it wrong the first time a failure...consider it good practice.
Requirements:
Shoot in RAW
Shoot in Color
Shoot using Manual Mode
Bracket the living heck out of these shots
Shoot using Manual Focus
Shoot images that are interesting to look at
Blog: One post containing two high-key and two low-key images, also put some examples of the exposures that your camera told you were 'correct'.
Write a little about what you learned.
Due Date: Tuesday, September 24th.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Sunday, September 15, 2013
13 Years Later
I made these four negatives in October of 2000. I was in New York City on business and had some time to kill. I had been photographing the city as much as I could and decided I wanted to go across the bridge into Brooklyn and make this panorama.
There are clearly some serious development issues, but looking back at them I am actually glad that they are there. For me it adds to the sentimentality of the image and I genuinely like them.
Please never throw anything away. I may have thrown these in the trash after I saw how badly they were developed (by myself BTW...). Keep it all. You never, ever know.
There are clearly some serious development issues, but looking back at them I am actually glad that they are there. For me it adds to the sentimentality of the image and I genuinely like them.
Please never throw anything away. I may have thrown these in the trash after I saw how badly they were developed (by myself BTW...). Keep it all. You never, ever know.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Assignment #2 - Numbers
Assignment number two. It's really your first real REAL assignment. Kick some tail.
Here are the requirements:
You will make 100 images. No more...no less.
You will make your first frame contain the number zero (0).
Your second frame will contain the number one (1).
Your third frame will contain the number two (2).
Can you guess what your fourth frame will contain? Yep, a number three (3).
Rinse and repeat.
You will end up with 100 images, starting with number 0, ending with 99.
THESE MUST BE SHOT SEQUENTIALLY...NO CHEATING!
Remember, no deleting, no re-shooting numbers, if you make a mistake on the exposure, go on to your next number. Fix your exposure for the next number before shooting (duh).
I want you to start setting your white balance correctly in the camera. You have not been taught this yet but we will go over it in class. Also this assignment must...repeat...MUST be shot on Manual (M). We will have several lectures about exposure to teach you just what and how your camera is doing what it needs to do.
DO NOT TAKE THIS ASSIGNMENT LITERALLY. Be creative in how you represent the numbers you will shoot. Bonus points if you photograph them in braille. Extra bonus points if you can photograph 99 Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) for the final exposure. DO NOT drive you all over town. DO NOT go walking up and down the street looking for addresses that work. You can shoot this assignment within the comfort of your own home. There are easily 100 sequential numbers in your house.
Due on your blog on Tuesday, September 18th.
I will NOT allow you do to ANY POST-PROCESSING FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT. Post the SEVEN most unique images.
Quote for the day:
"Photoshop is a crutch for those who are too lazy to get it right in the camera."
I said this, it is my quote. If you quote me, attribute me. If you don't quote me I will be sad.
Good luck!
Some examples...
Here are the requirements:
You will make 100 images. No more...no less.
You will make your first frame contain the number zero (0).
Your second frame will contain the number one (1).
Your third frame will contain the number two (2).
Can you guess what your fourth frame will contain? Yep, a number three (3).
Rinse and repeat.
You will end up with 100 images, starting with number 0, ending with 99.
THESE MUST BE SHOT SEQUENTIALLY...NO CHEATING!
Remember, no deleting, no re-shooting numbers, if you make a mistake on the exposure, go on to your next number. Fix your exposure for the next number before shooting (duh).
I want you to start setting your white balance correctly in the camera. You have not been taught this yet but we will go over it in class. Also this assignment must...repeat...MUST be shot on Manual (M). We will have several lectures about exposure to teach you just what and how your camera is doing what it needs to do.
DO NOT TAKE THIS ASSIGNMENT LITERALLY. Be creative in how you represent the numbers you will shoot. Bonus points if you photograph them in braille. Extra bonus points if you can photograph 99 Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) for the final exposure. DO NOT drive you all over town. DO NOT go walking up and down the street looking for addresses that work. You can shoot this assignment within the comfort of your own home. There are easily 100 sequential numbers in your house.
Due on your blog on Tuesday, September 18th.
I will NOT allow you do to ANY POST-PROCESSING FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT. Post the SEVEN most unique images.
Quote for the day:
"Photoshop is a crutch for those who are too lazy to get it right in the camera."
I said this, it is my quote. If you quote me, attribute me. If you don't quote me I will be sad.
Good luck!
Some examples...
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