OK, I’m being facetious. Sure, a photography or journalism program can polish your skills and help you reach the next level in your career. But, editors are looking at your portfolio, not your diploma, so what’s a cash-strapped photographer to do?

This photo has been making its way around the internet in a few different photo essays and site.

As you can see in this photo of Rickets the Dog, the effect of the grid spot is useful in small areas where you don’t want light bouncing around. My faithful subject was sitting in a narrow hallway, maybe four feet wide,with bright white walls.

Serena Renner recaps the events leading up to her decision to apply to UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism for Fall 2010.

I am posting this from my iPhone (3gs), usig the wordpress 2.0 app. Below is a photo I took with said iPhone. This post is more or less a test but technology is grand isn’t it?

I tend to roll my eyes at the promotion schemes Chase Jarvis seems to dream up every other day, but kudos to him for getting on board with tradesecretcards.com and appealing to my urge to collect trading cards. Meanwhile, my massive baseball card collection rests quietly in my parents’ garage while I let my Randy Johnson rookie card slowly compound in value.  If Trade Secret Cards wants my unsolicited opinion, they should sell premium packs with randomly inserted serialized refractors and autographed used-gear slivers.

I can’t make too much fun of Chase since he’s one of us (people with verbs for names), so check out Chase’s blog if you haven’t already.

A couple of weeks ago, I got to shoot for the cover story for Village Voice. Although it wasn’t going to be the cover, I was super excited for the extra space allotted for photos and the subject matter. My editor explained to the situation to me as modern day tenement-styled housing in the heart of Chinatown.

In his gym shorts and Army shirt, Sinh Tho Nguyen appeared out of place in the front row of a veteran’s memorial ceremony. But, sitting among dozens of servicemen and veterans in uniform, with various buttons pinned neatly to their caps, Sinh was the guest of honor…

A new photo blog with the background of each shot, satisfying this little history major’s heart in a big way.