Change of Pace

One of the challenging facets of my staff photographer experience thus far is the process of learning how to “enterprise” feature photos. We’re meant to put together a list each week of our ideas for freestanding photographs; either little feature photo stories, slice of life images or simply pretty or interesting pictorial images.

The stereotype of these kinds of pictures is the cute puppy/adorable child genre (i.e. this photo for Sunday’s paper), but the goal is to keep our eyes open for potential interesting scenes that might work for good feature photos in better light or in different situations with more (or fewer) people in them. Tougher than it sounds, I’m finding.

Unfortunately, all I came across this week was a playground that had a real fiberglass boat sunk into the ground that might be fun to photograph if it had kids playing on it. A couple of other things I came across might work as photo story ideas though, including a rundown animal farm I drove by on Old Plank Road, populated by some sad looking miniature donkeys and a bunch of geese and a purportedly well-spoken fellow named Bob who lives off the land in the woods by the football stadium— something along the lines of Columbia’s own Yeti.

Once I get back from New York next week, my plan is to invest in a good map of Boone County so I can start really exploring the smaller byways around Columbia in hopes of finding some better grist for the photo mill. That and to finish my profile of a local taxi cab owning couple—I only need one more photo!