Posts tagged photography

Amazingly enough, I’m still alive. 

The past few months have been a whirlwind as the news reporting intern at the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader. I’ve learned a ton. I’ve covered quite a few different stories:

Like the first anniversary of the EF-5 tornado that struck Joplin. 

Or a cattle auction in Missouri State’s Junaita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts (that included storing cattle in a parking garage). 

A bit of data, such as bicycle-vehicle accidents or results of the smoking ban.

And talking to some great people going through hard times, such as the Seitz family, who’s fighting the drought. 

I promise I’ll get back to updating this blog and write a long reflection post in awhile. For now, you’ll have to settle with this:

I’ve had covers on just about every day of the week, including Sunday. But this is my first double story and double photo all on A1. 

It was a crazy day and the stories aren’t the greatest I’ve ever written, but I was pretty proud of this. 

For now, check out my News-Leader Twitter @mgulledgeNL. 

Students at Missouri State marched March 30 in support of Trayvon Martin, the child that was killed in Florida in February. 

The march began outside of the Plaster Student Union and proceeded to downtown Springfield where people gathered in Park Central Square and gave speeches and sang. 

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the event:

It’s not often that you have the opportunity to photograph the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals in Springfield, Mo. On Monday, April 2, the St. Louis Cardinals traveled down to Hammons Field to take on their Double-A Springfield affiliate team. 

While the entire team didn’t travel because of the quick turnaround to Wednesday’s state-side MLB opening game in Miami, fan favorites and some Springfield Cardinals alumni made the trip such as Jon Jay, Matt Carpenter, David Freese and Matt Holliday. 

The coaching staff, including first year head coach Mike Matheny and hitting coach Mark McGwire, also made the trip. 

This offered a lot of great photos both on and off the field. Here are a few of my favorites: 

I made my current portfolio site during the Snowpocalypse of 2011. While I sat at home and watched it snow, I went around, found a free theme and carefully uploaded photos. And that was it. I honestly haven’t touched the site in over a year now and it needs to be updated because I’ve done a lot more I need to showcase and, honestly, my photography is much, much better.

I started thinking about updating my site this past Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then when I was applying for internships. But if you look, it remains the same today as it did those snowy days in February. Now I’m giving myself a deadline by the end of summer.

So, what do you look for in a good portfolio site? This is roughly the plan I was going for, of course with actual design instead of a layout. 

The big challenge here is incorporating everything that I can do together. I’m basing this a journalism site, which includes photojournalism, reporting, data analysis, page design, etc. 

Right now I use Wordpress and I like the user interface and the content analysis that it offers, but to me, it seems like Wordpress is a great CMS for news or a business, but there’s a lack of quality portfolio themes out there. 

These are some of the ones I’ve run across. Which one do you like the best? I can always go in and tweak colors, sizes, fonts and designs, but I’m looking for the main content to be laid out:

• http://themeforest.net/item/duotive-three-complete-wordpress-template/232555?ref=themespotters&ref=themespotters&clickthrough_id=49991081&redirect_back=true
• http://www.wpzoom.com/themes/proudfolio/
• http://themeforest.net/item/aware-responsive-wordpress-portfolio-theme/1049029?ref=lvraa
• http://themeforest.net/item/showycase-portfolio-photography-wp-theme/840346?ref=lvraa
• http://themeforest.net/item/contrast/68089?ref=themespotters (although it may be difficult to integrate writing into this)
• http://themeforest.net/item/dagda-premium-wordpress-theme/848944?ref=lvraa

Do you have any suggestions or comments? What do you look for in a journalist’s portfolio site?

This past Friday I had the opportunity to cover the Missouri Valley Conference men’s basketball tournament at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis for The Standard.

This has been a strong year for the Valley, but a rebuilding year for Missouri State as they lost their former head coach Cuonzo Martin to the University of Tennessee last year. Current head coach Paul Lusk has been doing a great job, in my opinion, in taking what little was left and recruiting to form a strong, fairly competitive team. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough as we entered the tournament as the six seed and lost in the first round. 

Either way, the Scottrade Center is a nice facility, except for the extremely yellow basketball court, which makes it extremely difficult to get a good color balance in shots. It gives all of the players a yellow color cast and the photos turn out looking flat because you have to remove it to make their skin tones look somewhat normal.

This is the view from the Blues press box:

(Taken with an iPhone)

This is a view from courtside:

(Taken with an iPhone)

And here’s a selection of game photos:

One of my favorite “not normal” sports things I like to shoot is the press conferences. I like to get in tight and hope there’s emotion to photograph in reaction to the game. 

Since this could be Kyle Weems’ last game in a Missouri State uniform, there was a bit of emotion. 

After the press conference we had Derrick Docket, director of new media for the Missouri Valley Conference, take a quick group shot of The Standard staff in the arena. The lights were off in the arena for the most part so it unfortunately turned out pretty dark.

(L to R: Ben Loewnau, Megan Gates, Me, John Cook)

I recently had the opportunity to do a game for The Virginian-Pilot when Old Dominion played Missouri State. It was a tight deadline for photos, but it was cool that the photos appeared alongside The Standard sports editor Ben Loewnau’s story. 

Here are the clips:

And the two photos that printed:

Old Dominion’s Kent Bazemore pulls down a rebound over Missouri State’s Anthony Downing during the first half at JQH Arena in Springfield, Mo. on Feb. 18. (Michael R. Gulledge/For The Virginian-Pilot)

Old Dominion’s Chris Cooper attempts to block a jumper by Missouri State’s Isaiah Rhine during the first half at JQH Arena in Springfield, Mo. on Feb. 18. (Michael R. Gulledge/For The Virginian-Pilot)