ASSIGNMENT: Campus Scene

DUE: Friday, Feb. 29 at 5 p.m. (for review in class on Monday, March 3)

Sometimes called feature photos or enterprise photos, these are stand-alone images that can really get to the heart of a community. They tell smaller stories, slices of life and there are some photographers who are absolute masters at these.

There are two ways of approaching this: wandering and hunting. The former is the more common and less successful way of doing this. You wander around, hoping something interesting just happens to happen right in front of you.

Yeah, it's a very low percentage way of getting good feature photos.

The better way is what David Labelle refers to as hunting (he even wrote two books on it that are amazingly good). It's about planning ahead, knowing where you're going to find great moments, great stories. It involves reading everything and talking to everyone. And leaving your business card with everybody you meet, asking them to call you.

So, your assignment: One amazingly great photo from this campus. Tell me a story, share a piece of someone's life, in just one frame. This is all about moment.


Somethings to look at for more ideas:

The National Press Photographers Association runs an annual Best of Photojournalism competition where there is an Enterprise category.

The University of Missouri runs the Pictures of the Year competition and they have a Feature Picture category you can browse though. (Although that first photo is more of a Spot News image than a Feature, to me.)