by Chelsea Crossett '14, photography major
Editor's note: As part of the "Lighting and Advanced Digital Camera" class taught by Eric Weeks, students had the opportunity to go off-campus to capture portraits of locally prominent Lancastrians. (Click here to read Eric's post about the project.)
Over two weeks in March, photo majors captured the following people: Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray; Judge Bruce Roth, Magisterial District 02-2-02; Pennsylvania State Representative Mike Sturla, 96th Legislative District; and Reverend David Peck (Rector), his wife Dr. Cordelia Moyse, and their daughter Theodora at Lancaster's Saint James Episcopal Church.
Chelsea Crossett '14 is one of the photo majors who participated in this project. Here are her reflections on the experience. You can also read a post by fellow photo majors Celia Gillam and Lindsay Garner.)
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Our photography class had the chance to go into the community and meet with a reverend and his family, the state representative, and a judge.
After introducing ourselves, we got familiarized with the environment, subject, time constraints, and began to set up lighting to make editorial portraits. Although it was a nerve-racking process beforehand, once we actually met with the people who would be our subjects, it was extremely enjoyable.
Fortunately, my photography partner Emma Robertson '14 and I had the opportunity to meet and photograph Reverend David Peck [at St. James Episcopal Church] who is hands-down one of the friendliest persons I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.
Chelsea photographing her subject.
It was a fast paced ordeal, but with the help of assistants and our professor, it went smoothly.
The most challenging aspect of this assignment was maintaining a good balance. There’s a science to figuring out how to get to know your subject, the space, setting equipment up, getting enough photos, and not boring the subject as you go about this process.
However, it was a very rewarding experience, as well. I had the chance to be a part of our community and interact with photography in an entirely different realm. I also gained experience in another aspect of photography that I didn’t expect to reach until later in my career -- going out to photograph people in our community with a commercial end result in mind, such as photographs to support a magazine or newspaper article.
All in all, the nervousness was a fresh rush of reaffirmation that I am doing what I love.