EMMA HOWELLS- Visual Journalist

A collection of my most recent work, both personal and professional, and some things I want to say about it

[emmahowells]

What you didn’t get about my post: Talent is irrelevant - women are tired of being disrespected in the field

1. I’m so glad my post (embedded below) resonated with so many people, I’m glad I’ve gotten to express this beyond grumblings to close friends. I am so grateful for all of the comments and messages I’ve received and the fact we’re even talking about this.

 2. Allow something to burst that’s been bubbling up for a long time: I am immensely self conscious when I’m in the field and always act with bravado in order to prove myself as a worthy photographer around other primarily older, primarily male photographers, regardless of their ability. 

Take the whole “my lens is bigger than yours” thing - I frequently keep my lens hood (for non-photogs: a debatably useless piece of plastic that extends the lens about 4 inches) on the camera, even in situations where it isn’t necessary, in order to act tough and to try to prove my worth with the physical size of my gear. 

Even then, when my camera looks so laughably oversized that it constantly warrants comments from old men like “my, little lady, your camera is so BIG!!” (to this day I don’t know why they tell me this? Do they think I didn’t notice that very heavy weight on my right shoulder?), amateur male photographers will take pleasure in telling me what shutter speed is.

Non-photogs: you’ve heard of shutter speed. I’ve learned about shutter speed in every “Intro to Photography” class I’ve ever taken since 7th grade.

But it’s not always so blatant. What set me off on this whole tirade was a photographer I encountered shooting a long exposure photo of a ferris wheel with two other older male photogs. 

I started talking to him, with my credentials on and my manfrotto tripod and sizable camera (a tip off, hopefully, that I know what I’m doing!) and start asking him about his shooting. And he shows me his photos on his phone and talks about his work and his suggestions for my shots. Never once asks to see my work or acts interested in what I was doing there. 

Maybe it was an accidental oversight on his part or a disinterest in other photographer’s work. BUT that sort of act has happened to me so frequently in the ten years I’ve pursued shooting, that even if it was a coincidence, it’s so similar to the rest of my encounters that it doesn’t matter. 

Most times I talk to a male photographer, he will impose his work on me and lavish me with his wisdom or suggestions for compositions without showing any interest in my photography. (side note: if you EVER tell me what to photograph and I don’t know you? I will never take that photograph.) 

I can think of a single time recently that I was treated as an equal immediately by a male photographer. It took me by surprise and I am proud to call that photographer a friend because he didn’t write me off. 

We were both covering the same story in the Athens County Courtroom and I leaned over and asked if he was using a mirrorless (non-photogs: a new type of camera) and he said yes and promptly began talking technical to me, trusting me to understand the terminology (which I did). 

THAT IS SO RARE! Usually they use terms like “yeah I have a BIG CAMERA” or I use a “BIG lens” instead of telling me the specs or anything useful. 

When I’m being ignored, yelling “Stop! I’m a good photographer too! I know this!” isn’t really appropriate. So a lot of the time I just nod along and tune out for a bit. 

But I’m tired of doing it and don’t really know how to stand up for myself in these situations. So I’ve decided to talk about it and use my role as president of the OU chapter of the National Press Photographers Association to encourage an open forum about our experiences in the field. (And many other current topics in the photojournalism industry - NPPA members, get excited!)

I sort of knew this was happening to all of the female photogs I knew, even the ones so madly talented that I felt too starstruck to approach. 

But in this case, talent isn’t even relevant, is it? Whether or not you know of our work when you first meet us, why not treat us with respect? 

Part of what kept me quiet at first was self-doubt in my own work, maybe I wasn’t deserving of their respect. But now I know without a doubt that my work is up to par and need no reassurance from others. I’m not asking for you to praise my work because in this case, my work isn’t the issue. 

I just hope this industry wises up to how we, as women photographers, have to be conscious of this dynamic and prove our self-worth daily in order to get the basic respect that most male photographers are familiar with naturally. 

P.S. Like I said in my Facebook comment, this is not about the guy photogs in my life: you guys know I love you. In fact, I love them so much I’m living with four pretty great ones in the fall. 

[emmahowells]

July 18, 2016

Finding frames during freelance gigs

It’s no secret that I was nervous about this summer, with having little direction and too much freedom to potentially squander. But I’ve found it to be quite the contrary - I began picking up a bunch of photo gigs to the point that I am now shooting very frequently. On top of that, I’ve been photographing for fun (what a notion!) and liking the results (an even more foreign idea to me).

I spend the majority of the time at each event photographing how I’m “supposed to” be shooting, people smiling and straightforward shots that I can deliver to the client. But I stay vigilant, similar to when shooting an assignment, to snap things that strike me. This has been an excellent exercise for my shooting, treating each gig as an opportunity to sharpen my eye. So far, I’m pretty happy with the results, making a couple frames that I’m proud of at each event.

One more thing I’ve been considering a lot recently is photojournalistic trends. I remember my professor Marcy Nighswander would look down on trends, which at the moment happened to be an influx of wide angle shots, but I never understood it. Until recently, when I was flipping through recent copies of the British Journal of Photography and noting that photographer after photographer was going after that washed-out, low contrast, stark and awkward composition look and I became frustrated. Because I too was trying to achieve that look and now I realized I would just be another one of the same.

For that reason, I got a huge photo book of Magnum photographers to look into historic examples of shooting styles. My most recent inspiration comes from Martin Parr, whose style is similar to the modern graphic look yet not the same. Anyone know knows me knows I do not particularly like street photography, but his take on it is so brash that it works.

Up next: the Ohio State Fair, which I will be covering for two straight weeks... expect a wealth of Americana photos, hopefully shot in an interesting way!

[emmahowells]

May 7, 2016 Snapshots around Baltimore

Ventured out to the Kinetic Sculpture Races, put on by the American Visionary Arts Museum, and brought my 28mm all the while wishing it was a 35 or 50. So to work around that, I decided to play around with shooting with an in-camera cropped frame, as if I had a cropped body sensor. The difference in quality was immediately apparent when I began editing the photos, but still it was fun to pretend I had a more moderate length lens and try to frame a little differently today. Certainly didn’t master it, a lot of images had to be thrown out because I chopped off key bits of my subjects. But as always, fun to play around with composition in a casual setting. 

[emmahowells]

March 27, 2016 Audio Slideshow Frames

Had a great time trying to capture the beautiful way the diffused light of a snowy February day hits a 200-year-old barn. This is from a story I shot on Charlie Schoonover and the Athens fairgrounds track and harness-racing that occurs there. 

[emmahowells]

January 30, 2016 Weekend Shooting

I’ve been thinking of refining my personal style to combine my personal shooting and photojournalism shooting style, which at the moment are both very distinct from each other. My photojournalism shooting is always much more straightforward, clear-cut and generic and I’m looking to incorporate a more understated palette, very clean, almost awkward compositions. I’ll be posting my ongoing attempts. 

[emmahowells]

January 27, 2016 CP Editing

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but I wanted to examine how my photos were used in the paper. The designers chose to place text over many of my photos, which gives them a whole new look. 

Some of these compositions have a lot of negative space that accommodates the addition of text quite well (the farmer photograph, for instance.)

Some (like the sports portrait) were cropped in a way I didn’t like as much because what they took away was essential to the photo (I’ve included both, you can make your own conclusions)- I had composed it to include the athlete’s shadow against the stadium wall, which was truly the only strong part of that image. As glad as I am that they ran in large, it took away from my intended impact. 

At some point, photographers have to give up control of their images to those putting them into context. And I’ve always found it interesting to see the two different takes on the same image. Regardless whether I agree with the edit or not, it’s always a rush to see a photo I’ve taken run so prominently. 

[emmahowells]

January 15, 2016 Wrestling

I used to shoot the majority of my high school’s games - all sports- because we simply had no one else to cover them and I had a cheap offbrand 75-300mm, which at the time as if I was brandishing a real telephoto. I wasn’t that bad (aside from the appalling overediting) but once I got to OU, I was intimidated by the increase in rules limiting photographers and stuck to other assignments. 

Apparently ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away and my portfolio was sports-less for a while. Right now feels like a good time to get back into it so I took a couple assignments for The Post shooting wrestling and women’s basketball. And I’m relatively happy with the results, looking forward to shooting more!

Still struggling with focus and reaction times, but I believe I’ll get those back with time.

It was a new experience for me to wait for the checkout room to open to make certain I got the lens I wanted- a 300mm f/2.8. This lens is comically large, and honestly a workout to shoot with, but the results were worth it. 

[emmahowells]

January 25, 2016 Review of Weekend Shots

I was going through my old work on this blog, when I was posting primarily personal shooting with an old cropped sensor Canon and Helios 58mm (manual focus!) film lens. I really missed the old soft and grainy look and the dreary, understated mood. So I tried to revive that look for my second shoot of the weekend- cropping my photos to an aspect ratio of 16:9 and toned in a muted way.

My future-housemates and I went hiking at Ash Cave in Hocking Hills to see the giant “frozen waterfall’ that forms each year. A fellow sightseer came up and asked if I had ever seen it when it connected all the way to the top, which apparently happens only every 10-15 years. I’d love to see that sometime- I feel like I’ll have a longtime connection to this area.

I’m now looking to purchase a mid-length film lens to continue to continue to refine the look of my personal work. 

[emmahowells]

January 26, 2016 Stay POSTed: Episode 1

This is the first in a series of entries that highlight work that ran in The Post, the student-run publication I work for as a photo editor. I hope to showcase work I’m proud of, my thoughts behind how I approached assignments and whether or not the idea worked. 

For the portrait: my original idea was to take the portrait where the incident occurred to show just how public it was, and how in the daylight, it looks so average, so pedestrian. Trying to convey the idea of her feeling unsafe in such an common place. I didn’t get that but we did shoot in her apartment I loved the neutral and subdued soft light from the window.

[emmahowells]

[emmahowells]

[emmahowells]

[emmahowells]

[emmahowells]

[emmahowells]

The light was too tempting not to shoot- this was at a “#TBT concert”for the Ying Yang Twins on South Beach, unfortunately one twin was running incredibly late so we had to miss the concert to go to a Post meeting.

[emmahowells]

[emmahowells]