Pixels on Pixels on Pixels
My first engagement shoot: Nick and Julianne
My favorites from my first shoot of this kind. All natural light. Nikon D800 with 20mm f/1.8, 35mm f/2, 60mm f/2.8 macro. Lightroom.
My two friends are marrying each other.
Visual inspiration: Friend Megan Gielow (who happens to be shooting their wedding photos!)
Stream of consciousness, DC-NYC-SYR
Jayne
Dupont Circle Fountain
Dog walker, NYC; Beer, Chucks, Syracuse; Dupont Circle, DC
LES, NYC
LES, NYC
Near Canal and Broadway, NYC
Closed forever at Canal and Broadway, NYC
Andrew Burton
Listener, LES, NYC
Stoop flowers, Brooklyn
Subway, NYC
Cellphones, NYC Streets
The trail, NYC near 42nd Street
Near Times Square, on the way to Ryan.
Be a wolf
Takeoff
In which the sun reflecting off of NYC skyscrapers becomes found studio light.
And again.
Arriving at Syracuse.
Maclean at the bar.
Ross Taylor gave us all paperclips.
Seth Siditsky is not nearly as ominous as this picture implies. Fall Workshop Day 1, Syracuse, NY
John Moore speaking about photographing Abu Ghraib. The Fall Workshop, Syracuse, NY
Editing went 24 hours on the last day of the workshop. Screen photo by Jennifer Swanson. Fall workshop, Syracuse, NY
Hiking Signal Knob
Jayne, pre-hike.
Old building on our drive through what I believe was Strasburg, VA.
Sweet classic Jeep.
Daddy longlegs.
Snake!
The crew, in the fall leaves.
Lunchtime.
As yet unidentified insect #1
As yet unidentified insect #2
As yet unidentified insect #3
Signal Knob Lookout. Great dynamic range out of my D800.
Hiking feet.
Hiking heads.
Fiery fungus.
Wildflowers.
Me, post-hike. Photo by Jayne.
A visual tone poem of the Democratic and Republican conventions, side by side, by A.J. Chavar (The Washington Post).
For more multimedia goodness from the campaign realm, go here.
Wanderlust & Awakening: Reporting on "In D.C., another measure of gun violence: Men in wheelchairs" →
Several years ago I noticed what seemed like a tragic trend happening in Washington, D.C. I saw numerous young men riding around town in wheelchairs and guessed that most of them were not put there because of car accidents or disease, but because of violence. I wanted to find out if this was…
post-it pun
thanks to AJ Chavar
Two weeks in politics: The RNC and DNC, side-by-side, by AJ Chavar/The Washington Post
What a long and crazy two weeks it has been! A good chunk of the Washington Post video team (including director of video Andrew Pergam, technical director Meghan Sims, segment producers Theresa Poulson and Jason Aldag, video editors Jayne Orenstein and Kristen Boghosian, and videojournalist AJ Chavar [hey, that’s me!]) has been on the road for two weeks, first covering the RNC in Tampa, Fl., and then the DNC in Charlotte, N.C.
The video above, though I may biased in being its creator, is one of our “must-watch” videos from the conventions. I spent the in-between moments during both conventions shooting, planning, sequencing and reshooting scenes for video diptych at the top of the post. Planning for the project started almost three full months ago, when we were first formulating our ideas for covering the conventions. I was inspired by a number of things while shooting, but it is no secret to fans of their work that a big influence on this video was the Everynone video “Symmetry:”
My hope was to expand on their split screen concept and tell more of a direct, linear story about the political conventions, showing how very different, and how very similar they could be.
Before even arriving in Tampa I had a short shot list, a skeleton file in Final Cut Pro that cut the screen in two and was filled with dummy footage, and some music selected. I felt that I was somewhat underprepared, but this turned out to be a good thing. Every day I pushed myself to find more and shoot more because I was worried about undershooting—there were no second chances!
(shot list, RNC)
Over the weekend, in between Tampa and Charlotte, I took all of my RNC footage and began to edit it down and sync it with the music. This took a few hours spread out over the course of a day, and let me go into the DNC with much more focus—I knew what scenes I had to find compliments to, so I had a checklist. At this time, I also asked Jayne Orenstein to start pulling clips of politicians from both conventions and matching up their hand gestures.
By the last day of the DNC everything was completed and in place except for the final shot of President Obama. It went surprisingly smoothly. I watched the President’s speech from the Washington Post workspace, waiting for him to formally accept the nomination. By the time he had ended his speech, the video was done and on its way to our video CMS.
But of course, we did simply TONS of video from both conventions, and you can find all of it, and new political video reporting daily, on our website. For all the video from the RNC, just click here. Those playlists include a ton of Post-original content, including analysis and takeaways from our top political reporters and bloggers, as well as the footage of all the major speeches, and original reporting by our videojournalists. And don’t forget the same playlists for the DNC, here.
(two weeks worth of press credentials)
You should definitely check out the “Say What” player, spearheaded by Kat Downs. It allows you to watch full speeches with embedded transcripts, and see where both Post reporters and Twitter decided to weigh in.
Overall, here at Post Video, we’re trying to give you the most complete, and completely unique coverage of politics. You can always let us know how we’re doing by getting in touch with us on twitter.
Hiking New Paltz, redux
Larger pics this time.
Polaroid SX-70
Impossible Project Silver Shade instant film.
