The blog has migrated. Where you ask? Why here, of course!

http://photopperman.visualsociety.com

And what? A new post there already? Wow!

My apologies for those 2 or 3 of you that have to update you RSS feed. And perhaps those of you with bookmarks here. The rest of you: deal with it!

That is all this time.

More sports? Weird, I know. But this past weekend I was assigned to shoot a couple things that forced me to look back at where I came from.

Saturday was the NCAA West Regional Cross Country Championships. In high school, cross country was what I lived for. Actually, it’s probably what kept me going to school everyday. There aren’t many things more familiar to me than the thick foggy courses, spotted with a rainbow of track suits before the start of a race. For those racing, nothing lingers on their minds besides the upcoming quarter to half-hour of pure adrenaline, sweat, exhaustion and likely mud. If you’ve never seriously raced before, it’s hard to imagine how important that fleeting competition can be for one so seriously involved. In that time before and during the race, it really is all that matters. As I photographed these competitors racing at a level I never achieved, I realized that there was little difference between them and myself in high school.

Later that day, I was sent to photograph the Oregon 4A volleyball championship match between Marist High School and Sisters High. The seriousness of all the competitors made me reflect once again on the past competitiveness that I thought I had since given up. The girls react to each sideout as if it was the game point. Celebration didn’t wait until 25, because each point was just as important as the next. As I worked to capture each of these brief moments of elation and disappointment, I realized that the competitive nature I had developed as a high school runner is now a part of my photography. It’s an internal competition, like when I took my last gasp of air before crossing the finish line as a runner. I’ve never looked to beat the people behind or in front of me; I’ve only ever focused on beating the me from before.

Passion is passion. I may not be a cross country runner anymore, but I’ve found something more important to me than that. My photography allows me to uphold the spirit of competition everyday, because I’ve realized that competition is not about one and one’s competitors, but rather one and oneself. And I am kicking the ass of the me of yesterday.

I must admit, I’m not typically in to showing off my sports photography because I’m not really a fan of how repetitive it seems to get. However, I can’t really hate a photo of one man flying above five. Especially when it’s a Duck. I shot the opening exhibition game for the Ducks against Concordia and when I grabbed this frame of Michael Dunigan above all 5 of Concordia’s players early in the first half, I hoped that he would have a killer game so I would have a reason to run it. However, Dunigan was overshadowed by better playing from fellow teammates. Got a little bit of ink inside, but not the front of sports. Oh well. Got great play here on my blog.

Fluffy post time. I just feel like I need another update here, so I’m sharing some stuff from Musicfest NW. My biggest complaint about stage photography is that it all ends up looking so damn similar. But with so many different venues in Portland, I tried to take some stuff that was pretty unique to me and the way I shoot. Success? Not sure, but I still walked away with stuff I liked.

This is my roommate. Jason Kim.

A couple weeks ago, Jason asked me to take some photographs of him in his uniform. It was his last day of service after 10 years in the Army. I asked him where we should take the photos.

“The forest.”

One thing that can definitely be said about Oregon: We have some pretty kick ass greenery. We traveled up to Spencer Butte and made some stuff that Jason had sort of envisioned. Then, like a true friend, Jason let me do my thing. Stand here, look there, turn this way, no wait, the other way.

And this was the absolute last frame I took. One of those ohwaitlookatthat moments. By far my favorite frame from the day.

Now I know Jason took a particular liking to another frame, but to me, this is Jason. I mentioned Jason a few posts back, but not by name. Jason is by far one of the most compelling people I know. He speaks with the knowledge of someone twice his age and he has a heart that is as big as anyone’s I know. And I know some big hearts. But what truly draws me to Jason is part of his philosophy on life. In the short time I’ve known him, Jason has taught me to start defining myself. And slowly, but surely, I have been working on becoming the person that I’ve consistently wanted to be. And I know Jason is doing the same.

“My dad was a soldier. His dad was a soldier. Even his dad was a soldier. It’s in my blood. It’s who I am. Who I’ll always be.” I hope that Jason realizes that there is much more than this that defines him though, and much more that he will do to define himself now as a civilian.

This post is long overdue. But it has taken some time for me to digest.

Two weeks and two days ago was my last day as an intern at The Register-Guard. And on that day, I had 3 assignments: A portrait at a high school volleyball practice, a Ducks football practice/press conference and a funeral. It was a weird mix. I kept stressing over how I was going to balance my mood going from sport practices to a funeral. I didn’t want to show up to photograph a funeral and be so emotionally out of place, because I figured that would only make the people there uncomfortable.

So I showed up a half hour early, to the location where James Pelfrey’s funeral would be held. A homeless resident of Eugene, Pelfrey was fatally stabbed in the heart a few weeks earlier. I took in the mood of the folks already there. Before I had even taken out my camera, friends of James came to talk to me. To tell stories, to complain about his death, to simply let me know what they knew. It seemed like everyone I talked to was hoping I could offer some sort of comfort, whether that be through some kind words or through the hope that I would publish something that would lead to the arrest of whomever had killed James. My interactions with everyone helped me when I began photographing. But it also made me realize how much I detest other people in my field who work without any sort of sympathy/empathy.

Soon, as the funeral was about to officially start, TV crews rolled in, plopped down their tripods and began gathering as footage left and right. A quick interview with a friend of James and then it was off to another. It felt like people were being used for a quick quote that’d hopefully boost the stories interest. Nobody was truly listening to these people. People who had lost a friend, people who were scared for their lives, people whose already bleak lives were becoming even more difficult.

The funeral came and went. I took maybe 10 total photographs during it. Any more seemed too obtrusive. The TV crews packed up and left and I found myself and my fellow reporter talking to these people even more. Emily Smith, who had been following the story since the day of the incident, was on a very short deadline and yet she continued to talk to people, not looking for quotes necessarily, but make connections with everyone. It made me proud to be working with someone who sees our job in a similar way that I do: A job which still has the potential to create change, even small change, in the community. And as it turns out, the man whom stabbed James was arrested a few days later.

I’m using these photographs as a vehicle to empty my thoughts a bit. My apologies that they don’t completely go together.

The images themselves come from the Scandinavian Festival, which happens every summer in Junction City, Ore. Every night during the festival, the community comes out and performs these dances, most of them being Scandinavian-influenced. 

The majority of the people on stage? Teens and tweens. (Here come’s the abrupt segway.) At those ages, I never would have gotten up there. Afraid that someone “cooler” than me would have seen me and judged my awkward flailing limbs, I probably would have sat on the side, probably with friends doing exactly what I was afraid would be done to me: tease and joke about the people on the stage. 

The sad thing? I didn’t grow out of that awkward insecurity during or even after high school. In fact, I hardly grew out of it during college. All my life, I’ve been what my grandmother calls “bashful.” Always too afraid of making the wrong move for whatever little consequence would come of it. And that has really been contributing to what I’ve been calling My Quarter-Life Crisis.

The thing is, nobody talks about life after college. I get the feeling that it’s this well-kept secret by everyone who has gone through it and sees it as some kind of right of passage. And let me tell you: It’s a terrible time to be insecure. When all you know is school, what is the next step? I’ve spent my entire life climbing this pyramid that seemed to have no summit. Each day of school was like one step up an infinitely ascending staircase. But as I got into my last year of college, I saw the top. And just like at the end of a race, I surged to get there, my heart racing and my breaths becoming more shallow with each step. But I did it. I reached what looked like the top of that pyramid, breathless. Only, it wasn’t the top. Just a plateau before what would rise to be an even bigger climb.

The insecurity swept over me again. I realized that although this is the time that I really need to start planning my future, all I wanted to do is escape into zero responsibilities. Go back to the way it was during my first year of college, where although I had school to attend, I really had absolute freedom. And so I retreated into myself, finding comfort in the things that really only heightened my insecurities.