TESTING
The 10th annual Collegiate A Cappella Concert
A benefit for the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, the 10th annual Collegiate a cappella concert at the Latchis Theater in Brattleboro, Vt., featured performances from the Amherst Zumbeyes, Dartmouth Aires, Smith Smiffenpoofs, Syracuse Mandarins, Tufts Amalgamates, Tufts Beelzebubs and Wesleyan Quasimodal on Saturday, February 2, 2013.
*The following playlist features a video from each of the seven groups.
You never know where there will be an interesting photo. You just have to have your eyes open and be ready to click the shutter.
I was walking around Main Street in Brattleboro, Vt., yesterday, looking for people outside to illustrate a story on cold weather. I glanced across the street and saw this girl drawing designs in the condensation on the window of Amy’s Bakery.
It’s just one of those slice of life moments that is interesting and captivating.
Members of the Brattleboro Union High School Nordic Team wax their skis at the school in Brattleboro, Vt., as they prepare a meet in Woodstock, Vt.
(Zachary P. Stephens/Brattleboro Reformer)
I was out trying to get a good feature photo package to fill out the towns page in the paper the other day and I was having tough luck finding something interesting around town.
At the last minute I thought to go to the high school and see if the Nordic Team was out practicing. Unfortunately when I got there, no one was in the field behind the school. But I did find a couple of skiers waxing their skis near the building. I went over to get a couple of shots and it turned into this great package of photos.
One thing to keep in mind when photographing a bunch of teenagers waxing skis in a crowded small room is to not get too close. Hot irons, wax and distracted teens everywhere. A potentially hazardous situation!
Overall a success!
After what seemed like an unseasonably early beginning to Spring with temperatures in the 50’s, melting all of the snow, we got hit with our second big storm of the year adding a fresh layer to our landscape and ensuring us that Winter is still here.
The Comcast Newsmakers show set up on the stage of the Latchis Theater in Brattleboro, Vt., to interview several local “Newsmakers” for their program on Monday and Tuesday, January 14 and 15, 2013.
Local interviewees included Gail Nunziata of Latchis Arts, Jeff Lewis of the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, Chris Campany of the Windham Regional Commission and several others including Massachusetts State Representative Paul Mark pictured here.
Interviews will air in early February on the Comcast Xfinity Network and will be available in the OnDemand section for comcast subscribers. Viewers can also visit www.comcastnewsmakers.com to see the interviews.
It was quite impressive to walk into the old main theater at the Latchis and see it professionally lit with dozens of lights. There were blue accent lights all along the walls lighting up each panel. There were large flood lights bringing in the red of the old theater seating and of course the rig of lights on the talent. You could smell the heat coming off of them. As a photographer, it was great to have all of the lighting already taken care of so I could focus on capturing the right moments.
Some photo geekery to share:
These images were shot with my trusty old Canon 40D
I was shooting at mostly at ISO 1600 and 1/60th of a second varying my aperture as needed.
For approximately four years a large group of ducks have been takingup residence during the winter in the Whetstone Brook, beneath theWhetstone Pathway bridge, where they are getting ample food frompassersby who toss bread into the water.
Purchase high quality prints and downloads from these photographs here.
Merry Christmas!!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of you readers. I hope you have a wonderful holiday and I thank you for supporting this blog.
-Zach
This selection of photographs was originally published in the December 23-24 Weekend edition of the Brattleboro Reformer.
Tis the season… to decorate your house and yard with the most lights, figures, cutouts, candy canes and more that you can fine.
All around Windham County and neighboring New Hampshire you will find homes that have gone to the extreme with their holiday decorating.
It may take a little searching, but a nice evening drive with the family is well worth it when you come across some of these enthusiastic decorators.
Happy Holidays from the Reformer.
50 years of Santa.
Robert and Thyra Cummings built this Santa in 1962 and had it displayed on the back of their house on Brattle Street in Brattleboro. Several years ago they donated it to the Austine School for the Deaf where it is now proudly displayed 50 years later.
iPhone Journalism.
-On Monday, November 12, 2012, Brattleboro Retreat employees held an informational picket to protest contract talks.
We now have the ability to go to an assignment and get content uploaded to the web for our viewers to see immediately. With the right initiative and creativity we can make use of tools such a the iPhone and other smart phones to create good multimedia pieces that can be shared in this way.
This video was shot entirely on my iPhone as well as edited and uploaded to the web via iPhone apps. I was also shooting with my DSLR but I reserved those photos for the print edition.
During this specific assignment, the employees were marching up and down the sidewalk in front of the building protesting and chanting so I had several chances to get the exact shots I wanted in a few different mediums. I shot stills with Hipstamatic, using a lens and film combination that is good for photojournalism, video with the built in camera and more stills with my DSLR.
The Hipstamatic stills I uploaded directly to Instagram which feeds into my Facebook page, Zachary Stephens | Photographer and to my Twitter feed, @zpstephens.
The video I saved until I got back to the office and cut together with some of the stills in the Splice app and uploaded it to our Brattleboro Reformer youtube page.
The DSLR stills as I said before were saved for the print edition.
The process of creating constant content like this can be a bit overwhelming at first but it is also a lot of fun and it creates this ongoing stream of content for you viewers. They get the immediate stills via Instagram and Facebook which almost acts as a teaser. Then they get a quick 1-2 minute video, which can include short interviews and sights and sounds and will give them a little more info. Then when the print edition comes out the get the whole story with the big images from the DSLR.
We are still in the infancy of developing this process and experimenting with what works best. But it is a lot of fun and it seems that the possibilities are endless. There is always some new app or social network coming out that you have to see if you can work into your workflow.
REFORMER LIVE with Emily Peyton.
Reformer Reporter Mike Faher and Executive Editor Tom D’Errico interview independent candidate for Vermont Governor Emily Peyton live in at the Brattleboro Reformer office.
*produced by Tom D’Errico and Zachary P. Stephens
James Gray.
The Libertarian candidate for Vice President, James Gray, swung by the office for an interview with Reformer Reporter Mike Faher last Friday. I had a couple of minutes after the interview to get a quick shot of him in the parking lot.
Luckily he showed up in this flashy minivan with a graphic wrap of the presidential candidate Gary Johnson and the words “LIVE FREE” in bold letters. This made for a pretty decent background.
I had Mr. Gray stand in front of the van so you could clearly see what was on it and popped my flash on a ttl cord, did some photog-flash yoga holding the speedlite at camera right with my left hand, dropped the ambient, ttl +1 stop and bam. That’s the shot.
A quick and decent portrait for the story which you can read here: http://www.reformer.com/ci_21615491/veep-candidate-libertarians-are-mainstream?source=most_viewed
USDA official tours Bratt Co-op
Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan gets a tour of the new Brattleboro Food Co-op building in downtown Brattleboro from Alex Gyori, GM of the store.
This video took FOREVER to cut and post. It was shot simply with and HD Flip camera and edited with Adobe Premiere elements. I haven’t used the program much so I am still working out the best work flow. Right now I have learned that you need to import all of your clips into your timeline and then render the timeline before you start cutting. The render time takes like 30 min for 4 min worth of content which is crazy. I’m sure that there are some work arounds but I have not found them yet.
Either way, the video came out pretty good. I would have liked to polish it a bit more but it is just suppose to be a sights and sounds type of thing.
I will post more tips that I learn as I make more videos in the future.
The Week in Pictures - Reformer
Here are a few of the notable photos that I shot in the past week for the Brattleboro Reformer.
Purchase photos here: http://reformer.mycapture.com
Load the Latchis
Local radio station WKVT 92.7 joined forces with The Latchis Theatre in Brattleboro, Vt., to Load the Latchis on Friday, August 31, 2012. The intention of the food drive was to fill every seat of the 750 seat main theater with non perishable food items that would be used to stock the shelves of the Brattleboro Drop In Center.
Behind the scenes:
I arrived at the theater and was greeted by local radio personality Fish. As I followed him into the theater he noticed that I was carrying my tripod and said that he didn’t think I was going to need that big tripod thing. Then informed me that he had set up a ladder.
Knowing how dark the theater is, I knew that I would need to do a timed exposure and would actually need the tripod. The ladder was definitely a good bonus though. The extra elevation really helped to get the right perspective that I was going for.
I climbed up the ladder, tripod in hand and slowly figured out how to nestle it into the top rungs so that it wouldn’t fall. It took a little creative thinking but I figured it out just fine without needing a hefty roll of duct tape.
At this point Fish was so kindly, and nervously, holding my camera for me.
I locked down the camera and started to work out the right exposure. After a couple of test shots I figured that I would be at about 13 seconds to get enough light. I could have shot it a little quicker if I upped my ISO but I really wanted to stay at 100 so I would get the least amount of grain possible.
After getting the right exposure I hooked up a wireless shutter release and came down off of the ladder. If I stayed on the ladder while the exposure was being made I would likely cause camera shake. With the wireless release I was able to stand next to the ladder and make the shot and carry on with some friendly banter with Fish.
News stand alone:
This photo ran as a stand alone or feature image on the Towns page of the paper. It was more timely and news worthy so it had an extended cutline (caption) with it. We already ran a preview story of the event so a photo like this would cover it just fine.
Photo Geekery:
Camera: Canon 40D
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter speed: 13 seconds
Shot on a tripod (and ladder)
Remotely triggered with wireless shutter release
Just a frog.
I was driving back from an assignment in Putney, Vt., where I photographed a guy who is starting a community solar farm, and I decided to drive down an old dirt road to explore a little.
I came to an old railroad underpass next to a pond where it looks like farm trucks pass through to get to a corn field on the other side. It looked intriguing so I parked and hopped out of the car.
Immediately a heron flew out of the pond, I’m still bummed I wasn’t able to get a shot of it, there were also several birds, including a woodpecker, flitting about the area though most were out of my focal range to get a good shot.
As I walked through the tunnel I just happened to look down at the right time and saw this frog resting in a shallow puddle. It was about 4” long and sat there as I took as many shots as I needed.
The soft, muted light inside the tunnel combined with the harder directional light coming from the opening helped to make a really good image.
-Photo Geekery:
Camera: Canon EOS 40D
ISO:320
Aperture:f/4
Exposure: 1/160th
Focal Length:314mm
-Stand alone photos, feature photos.
Often times at a small newspaper like the Brattleboro Reformer we need to go out and find good photographs that grab the readers attention and “stand alone” with no story.
These types of photographs can be just about anything, ranging from nature and wildlife to kids playing or construction work and more. The key to the photos is to make them visually interesting and striking. Sometimes an editor just needs a good image to fill a hole in a page.
This photo will be used at some point in this manner. It will probably land on the Towns page or inside on the Calendar page. If there is some particularly heavy news it may make it to the Front to off set the news a bit.
This is also an example of how great working at a small, community driven newspaper can be. Your days vary so much and you are photographing everything. As an example, just look at my previous post of the fire in Hinsdale, N.H. You just never really know what your day will bring.
