Meridian Collective » photography

New York Fashion Week 2011

Jackie Snow — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:16:51 +0000

It is only a full month later that I feel up to posting about Fashion Week. This past season had me covering 13 shows, by far the most I’ve done. Suffice to say, I got my ass kicked. The sickness I had gotten over a week earlier came back full force, leaving me to shoot the 2nd half of the shows feverish and discretely blowing my nose every few minutes.

Despite the load and the sickness, I enjoyed shooting fashion week…unless their was a celebrity front row. I’m not even talking Madonna level A-list types. It could be sex tape stars and I’m bemoaning what humiliation I know I’m about to go through to get a shot that may or may not sell to some glossy rag for some piddling sum that I don’t see any of at all. While I am not the only woman photographer out and about, there are quite a few more 250-pound ruthless men to contend with over these celebrities. There is one gorilla in particular from Just Jared who I made my nemesis (in my own head at least), giving me a foil to bring up the entertainment during the lulls.

Most interestingly to me, i noticed that street style photographers are becoming a force onto themselves. Of course the mainstays like The Satorialist and Bill Cunningham were creeping around inside and outside the shows; but outside there was a gauntlet of photographers to walk through when either coming or going. They eagerly looked over attendees to see if any style was worthy of their respective blogs. Sometimes they were just interested in shoes, sometimes the whole look, sometimes they got names and what designer the subject was wearing.

So, not only do I have to contend with being one of the shortest, heaviest and least dressed up females backstage, I started to get a complex when no one stopped me for a photo. I ended up dressing up a bit, but as its February and as a child of the subtropic winters, I just couldn’t manage anything spectacular. September’s fashion week I’m making it a goal for one of the Japanese photo bloggers to stop me. I’ll also do a better job at documenting this 2nd economy that has sprung up outside the main fashion week events. It will be warmer.

Currently my New York Fashion Week photo essay on my site looks like this. I’ve shuffled a few in from this past fashion week, but here are a few more.

My Dad is Awesome

Will Parson — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:05:58 +0000

J Parson watches emergency crews work at the scene of a car accident outside of Girard, Kansas.

The past year my dad, J Parson, pushed his music career ever higher with the release of his fifth CD — his first with a full band accompaniment — and gigs across the country. It still seems funny to me, even several years since he got serious about his cowboy songs. I still only see Dad. But, I’ve also come to appreciate that his style — boots, hats, sunglasses, guitars — is distinctive and not to be taken as commonplace among dads in general.

I’ve collected my favorite images of my dad from the past year or so, viewable below.

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Best of January

Will Parson — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 23:59:14 +0000

My January saw partiers, beachgoers and teenagers. All in all, it wasn’t a bad start to 2011. In the slideshow you’ll see images for the La Jolla Light (here and here) and VoicofSanDiego.org, in addition to all my wanderings.

Best of January 2011 – Images by Will Parson

If you’re having trouble viewing the slideshow, click here!

Recent Photo-Writings

Will Parson — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 11:17:35 +0000

Maria Ayala and her daughters squeezed a second shoot in with San Diego photographer John Salgado during Help-Portrait, Dec. 4, 2010.

Recent months have seen a ramping up of my writing activities, something I’m happy to see joining my photos in various outlets, or even standing on its own. I’ve been both a regular blogger for the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Sketchbook arts blog and written about Help-Portrait for VoiceofSanDiego.org’s Behind the Scene arts blog. I also recently wrote and photographed a news article for the La Jolla Light about that community’s latest mural.

What’s cool about my series for the Union-Tribune is that each week I ask a local photographer a few questions about their work, and in every instance they’ve provided thoughtful answers that have increased my knowledge of the medium.

It’s a great exercise, so I suggest you give it a try. All you need is a blog — and it doesn’t even have to be your own. Worried your favorite photographer won’t think it’s worthwhile? Make a deal with them. Ask them to post their answers for you on their own blog if you don’t have one.

I ask questions that speak to my own curiosity — ones that I would like answered even if I wasn’t sharing these photographers’ words with anyone else. It seems to have worked out so far. Here’s one of my favorite pieces, with San Diego photographer Noah Doely, who works with glass plate photography.

Touring the West – A corrupted view of Vancouver

Will Parson — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:30:17 +0000

A corrupted view of Vancouver, British Columbia, overlooking English Bay.

An interesting thing happened after driving back into the United States from Vancouver, British Columbia in July. Something that would have been a nightmare had I been on assignment.

At some point, while transferring files, my new and apparently malcontent card reader decided to gnaw on some of my RAW format image files. I was left in a quandary, needless to say, but remaining calm I searched the internet for solutions and came across File Juicer. This nifty little program quickly turned by useless .CR2 files into slurry and sifted out the embedded jpegs.

Though some were in worse shape than others, I was able to get usable images of every scene I photographed from a full day’s take. And it so happens that some of my favorite images were the corrupted ones.

Spectators watch the 2010 Celebration of Light contest, where teams from different countries compete with firework shows set to music on Vancouver

A corrupted view of Lynn Canyon Park in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

And here are some uncorrupted ones for good measure.

Spectators watch the 2010 Celebration of Light contest, where teams from different countries compete with firework shows set to music on Vancouver

Capilano Salmon Hatchery near Capilano Lake, North Vancouver, British Columbia.

See more images from my corrupted view of Vancouver in my archive gallery: Touring the West – Vancouver.

Capturing Kansas – Fishing Derby

Will Parson — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:57:18 +0000

My first days after driving halfway across the country this September, a fishing derby was one of several events during the Little Balkans Festival in Southeast Kansas that lent itself to some photo exploring. I used the opportunity to familiarize myself with Pittsburg, a town of roughly 20,000 people.

This fishing derby came a day after these photos of the Little Balkans Festival. It took place at Lakeside Park, and though the “lake” is quite scenic it is really just an artificial pond.

Sophie Allison Chapman competes in the Little Balkans Days fishing derby, Sep. 5, 2010.

International Center of Photography Class Work

Jackie Snow — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:52:39 +0000

I haven’t talked much about my ICP classes, but shit – they’re totally great. I have a marketing class with Marcel Saba, the Redux Pictures founder who has brought in 5 editors to talk to us and imparts sagacious advice. My “Visual Thinking for Magazines” class with Alison Morley, who heads up the photojournalism department at ICP, has me producing work almost every week. Here are the results.

See any themes? HMMMMM? HMMM?

Apparently, I’m big into obscuring faces and hands. I bring these images to class and get great feedback, things that tweak how I look at my work and style. Like the black and white photo of Hugh holding his head in his hands. While the lighting was very interesting on the chair when it was empty, it’s totally messy after adding him. Alison held up some jury-rigged frames, cropping it much closer and cleaning up the shot.

This last assignment is particularly close to my heart. I roused my usually slumbering roommate at 9 a.m., disheartened by the overcast skies. I had imagined the photo with crispy, fluffy clouds, putting my sleepwalker character totally out of place. The light, however, turned out to be perfectly iridescent and wonderful. Greg was a total trooper, standing out in the cold, doing my bidding. We typically shoot with a magazine layout already designed, an additional level of “visual thinking for magazines” or, as I like to call it, how I need to hold my camera vertical more often. I didn’t have time to print this second photo for class critique, but maybe it will make it out for the last class as I do like it an awful lot.

An example of what will actually kill photography.

Jackie Snow — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 01:29:40 +0000

Flickr posted in their blog a “success story” of a member licensing his photo to Getty, whom have their fingers in every photo kool-aid around, and having it sell. Not only did it sell, but it was for an ADVERTISEMENT, which is the bread and sweet, sweet butter of all sorts of photographers.

Here is a photo of the photo being used.

Now, lets talk about what is absolutely apparent just looking at this photo: It is not a good candidate for this particular bus-side advertisement. The swimmer is lost in the striated areas of the windows, pretty much negating the whole aesthetic. Paying a photographer to shoot a photo with these limitations in mind would have almost certainly produced something better.

What is less apparent is the money behind this transaction. I have heard from a knowledgeable source that Getty sold it for 40,000 dollars. The same source estimated the photographer made 15% of that. So while this flickr user is PUMPED that he just made 6,000 dollars and has a big ass ad with his photo on it, he is getting shortchanged. Sure, landing something like that might usually take a photo agency championing you and your work. But photo reps typically take about half of a commission, so even with that he is still short 14,000 dollars.

This is the world photographers live in now, where talented, but hobbyist, photographers are poaching work that five years ago would have been unheard of. Get used to it, kiddies. Diversifying and producing OUTSTANDING multimedia content is the only way you’re gonna swim – no pun intended.

Touring the West: Glacier National Park

Will Parson — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 00:45:11 +0000

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It’s been two months since my last post from my summer travels in the American West. Having finished a separate spat of travels between then and now, and seeing how I left off previously in Montana, I’ll pick back up in Glacier National Park.

I haven’t lived anywhere that truly gets cold in the winter. Yet, even in the middle of July, while staying in the warmest campground in Glacier, the chill crept in and dominated my coastal-minded sensibilites.

In that vein, I present these excerpts from my journal:

“After pitching our tent we judged the local climate and put on real shoes instead of trying to hike in our 5-finger Vibrams.”

“With Mt. Brown Lookout coming into view I spotted a pathetic little snow drift, just a few feet long, that had avoided melting all July.”

“… dinner was miso soup mixed with tuna and peas — the soup intended to further warm our miserably damp bodies.”

Jackie’s September

Will Parson — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:33:16 +0000

Jackie appears to have spent some time frolicking before buckling down for Fashion Week this past month.

Meridian Collective » photography

New York Fashion Week 2011

My Dad is Awesome

Best of January

Recent Photo-Writings

Touring the West – A corrupted view of Vancouver

Capturing Kansas – Fishing Derby

International Center of Photography Class Work

An example of what will actually kill photography.

Touring the West: Glacier National Park

Jackie’s September

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