Wandering through the green, getting lost in light.

The feeling of going and moving, working all the time, shooting for newspapers and other clients, trying to make time for my own work - all of it is hard. The past few weeks have been non-stop, along with work, I ran into some car situations that drained my bank account and just put me in a shitty mood. 

Local Politics

Ok so we have all seen the insanity of the national political scene billowing out of newspapers and radio/TV stations. In Texas, I’ve been covering the more local variety, often just as crazy, political elections. The race for Texas House Seat 54 has just been nutty.  The mailers the two republican candidates, Scott Cosper and Austin Ruiz, sent out following the primary in March and during the runoff were simply beyond any measure of normal mudslinging in this photog’s humble opinion. One event included “an open letter” to Ruiz, wherein Cosper implied that the eye doctor hired a private investigator to comb through the medical records of one of his children. Ruiz went with a modern style and took to social media to attack on Cosper.

Where I'm at...

My blog hiatus is officially over -  like I was ever a regular blogger. "I'm going to do my very best to change that now." I say as the running monologue in my head says, "Ha! Don't fool yourself, Mr. Bachman." Anyway, back to the point. 

The Rain and Mud...

San Antonio Southside's Israel Orihuela along with a pack of tired 5A runners walk, catching their breath, after crossing the finish line covered in mud at the UIL State Championship Saturday. With rain falling all morning, the route at Old Settlers Park was turned into a mud track, some runners slipped and fell, others lost shoes during the meet.

Recent Work

Here is some recent work from the last couple months.

The first few images are from my three days of shooting for the I love Texas Photography Instagram.

Ron Bruno, sits and takes a break from driving at a rest stop off of Hwy 290 near Fredericksburg. Bruno was sending out a daily inspirational message to a group of friends and family about taking on giants, or as he put it, those things that keep you from accomplishing your goals in life. Bruno Makes a drive from Austin to Fredericksburg twice a week to work on building a distillery in Fredericksburg. which is a brand new venture fro him, but he is more than excited trying to figure out how to succeed in this business.

Masters Project Update...

Since finishing my coursework at MU, I started working on my master's project. It is moving a little slower than I originally anticipated (I'm sure to the chagrin of my committee), but I feel like it is progressing. Brief explanation of the project: when I started grad school, I was looking around for topics and stories that I found interesting and that could turn into a larger project. I originally wanted to work off the topic of disappearing small towns in the Midwest, but while researching, I found more than a few articles about how Latino populations were migrating into small towns across the Midwest had how this migration had saved the areas from becoming ghost towns.

Recent Work: Sandhill Farm

Lately, I've been working on a story with writer and friend, Wade Livingston, about three intentional communities near Rutledge, MO. For the past few weeks, I have been spending a significant amount of time at one specific community in Northeastern Missouri, Sandhill Farm. 

Landscapes

For the past few months, I've been wandering around shooting landscapes with a Fuji 6x9. Taking out a tripod and slowing my processes down. Trying to see let the pace of shooting with this camera lead the way.

The photos posted here are from two rolls of film shot on the same day. Snow was deep and the walking was cold.

A Tangible Past or A Hipster Side Project?

For the past few months, I have been running around shooting photos with a Fuji Instax and, more recently, a polaroid SX-70 Sonar. 

I honestly don't remember what got me started on the throwback instant photo kick. I guess since I have been shooting more video and spending so much time looking at a computer screen I needed some time away from the digital workflow. Now if I had enough space and a little extra time, I would set up my darkroom equipment in my duplex. I guess in the absence of such luxury, I jumped into the instant film world.

And I've started to see these cameras fitting into my greater work. On a video shoot in November, I took a quick portrait of two of my subjects and gave them the shot. They fell in love with it, and I think it might have put them a little more at ease as I started to roll on the interview. I’ve discovered that handing people a photo as a keepsake seems to help connect them to me.

In general, photos connect us to people we might not know, but they also do a great job of connecting us to our own pasts. In December my wife and I went down to El Paso, Texas, my hometown. While there, I was going through a box of old photos and saw more than a few polaroids and other prints my parents had snapped back when I was a kid. Looking at the photos in my hands took me back in time by giving me a very tactile link to the past. Memories that were probably buried in my head came forward.

If I have kids I hope they find my boxes of prints and polaroids, helping them link back to their past.

OK, enough with the corny crap. Check out these photos 

#fromthegarage

Updating my website and blog while working on my grad school work has proven to be a lot harder than I thought. But it’s winter break, and I have some time to sit down to start changing and adding things. I’m looking at it as a “pre-spring cleaning/updating” of all things photographic.

Yesterday, I spent some of my downtime from editing work at the Missourian to upload a photo essay I shot from a parking garage here in Columbia, photographed coming and going from class and work. #fromthegarage is now up, and I think its finished. I am pretty happy about it, although I might change my sequencing later.

I also have some video projects I'll be uploading soon, maybe this afternoon, maybe tomorrow, maybe early next week … Who knows?

Quick Note...

So as I sit here taking a quick break from packing gear for the first wedding I am photographing this fall. I can't help but think how the past year has been insane! I realize I keep reflecting on coming back to school to get my masters, but beyond that I got married and have completely jumped into a lot of different types of work that I never saw myself doing. 

I spent the majority of the past summer working in the McDougall archive printing a show about Missouri Mules and shooting/editing a video about the photographer who photographed that project. The amount of photo editing I have done in the past year of other peoples work while I was Assistant Director of Photography at the Missourian really amazed me. Editing through all that work has really made me see my own photography differently. I always heard that, but felt it might be a bit cliche, I was wrong... very wrong. 

As I mentioned I shot some video this past summer and am now shooting even more of that. It feels good to work out my visual chops in another medium. Ill be posting some of that soon when I get some of that edited.

Ok back to packing gear... 

Relaxing in Xela

After falling asleep at 8 last night, Lindsey and I got up and went to Democracia market, wandering around the stalls. It feels great to be back in a place where so many good memories were created. Making new ones with Lindsey this time around. Let's see what kinds of trouble we can get into...

In the Bag...

Friday morning my wife and I are heading to Guatemala for a week. Since I am not going there for work, I decided to shed some gear and only take what is pictured.

Equipment:
- Bag Paladin Mission Go Bag (Honestly one of the best bags Ive owned)
- Canon G12
- Olympus XA rangefinder.
- iPhone 4
- iPhone 5
- iPad (for email and editing)
- Card reader for iPad
- Charging cables
- 6 rolls of film (400 Neopan BW)
- Impact Mini Slave
- Flash light
- head lamp
- Chargers and Cables

And whenever I travel, I make sure I have my journal and a notebook.

This trip is a kind of short honeymoon, so my main concern is just having fun. I plan on spending my mornings wandering the markets and streets in Xela. This gear set up has treated me well for street photography in the past and is just so much lighter than my D4 rig. Ill be posting from the road so look out for some photos.

Has the storm passed or is it still coming?

I was talking to my Dad yesterday and he asked how it felt to make it through this past year. I honestly couldn't tell him. Not only was it my first year in grad school, but Lindsey and I got married in March. While married life has been great, its also still kind of on hold, since we live in two different towns. That has been the hardest part of all this. The school work has been time consuming but nothing that I couldn't handle. 

I wish I had, had more time to shoot this past year. I think most of that is my fault for not making more time for it. Trying to balance writing papers and shooting can be difficult. This next year should be different. I am leaving my position at the Missourian to become one of two Missouri Photo Workshop Fellows. I am also going to be shooting more video and some how I got myself signed up for a Rural Sociology Course. I'm pretty excited about all of it, but I want to temper that excitement with the reality of paying bills and picking up some work on the side. Along with school ending for they year, I've really started to dig into my masters project research which has already turned up some interesting problems. Those problems are helping me center in on a story so they are very good problems.

Finally since Lindz and I did get married we have planned a little mini honeymoon, in a few weeks we will be heading to Guatemala for a week. We are both looking forward to that trip, I am excited to show her around the place I loved and called home. We are having trouble deciding what to go see and do while we are there, so I think we might just wing it. 

Advanced Final Group Project...

Its about History

Painting with Light...

Last assignment before finals... Light Painting, my group of three had fun with this one, going off the concept of household accidents which are a serious problem every year. 

PhotoVoice: Last Class

For our last class, we worked with the students on captions for the four photos that were picked to go in the gallery show. Working on captions was a big challenge. Some of the students were very poetic with the captioning, while others were very literal. We ended up working an hour later than normal. The students seemed to love the challenge of thinking outside the box of "this is a picture of."

I should note that before we all sat down to caption, the PhotoVoice class of 2014 spoke with the CMCA board, giving a very brief intro about PhotoVoice. The students were great, speaking with board members with confidence about their work and what they did during class.

At this point in the program, it is up to Staci and I to edit the photos and get them ready for the gallery. The students have been great and I can not wait to see the reaction we get from them when they see their photos up on a wall for the first time. 

Two of the students I was helping had the sudden realization that their photos were going to be seen by a lot of people and had ear to ear grins on their faces as they wrote down captions. It was a great night! As I get this edits done in the next few days, I need to make sure and get the word out about the gallery show on May 15th at PSGallery downtown.

Project K Interview

Project_K_Interview from Josh Bachman on Vimeo.


A brief Interview with Kenton about his interest in photography.

Editing...

Photo by Sami

This week will be our last full class and it is mainly going to be about editing and writing captions. The captions for the photos are not going to be the typical journalist captions that I am used to. Many of them read like artist statements. Declaring a very strong point of view on a certain subject. They have not been completely ironed out as of last class. 

 Photo by William

We are working on getting more out of a few of the students who need a little challenging or pushing in their thought processes. One student's current captions were very general and myself and Sarah both felt this student could use a push to see what else they are thinking when they are looking back on their work from the past six weeks.

For the editing processes, I selected five images I thought were the students strongest, then we open that up to them and allow them to choose their favorites. Most of what I picked was not what they picked. 

What I loved was the conversation about why they liked one image over another. Most of the comments are about their personal connection to the photo, something we try to dismiss in journalism. It was a refreshing to look at work and be able to see photographers really express themselves.

Photo by Hallie

I hope this Thursday is just as mind blowing.

Oh and if you are wondering why some of the images have time stamps on them... those students thought it was cool to have that on their photos.

Multiple Flash Assignment

Shelby Tucker, 14  skates across the ice at the Washington Park Ice Arena Tuesday morning in Jefferson City. Tucker spent two hours practicing and talking with two other skaters that were also at the skating rink Tuesday Morning.

The light setup, I set one light and monoblock in the ice hockey bench as my Key light and an SB900 across from me to act as a backlight/fill.