Slowing Down from a Soldier to a Park Ranger

Slowing Down: From Soldier to Park Ranger from Jane Fox on Vimeo.

This is my thirty-day project about Sergeant Devin Foust, a Park Ranger in Columbia, Missouri who has had to slow down from the high-adrenaline lifestyle that was being a soldier in Iraq in 2004. During his transition period back in the states, he broke his leg on a four-wheeler in Kentucky, which pained him for 5 years after the incident. He met with a surgeon for corrective surgery and has been working on getting his leg back into shape in order to pursue a career with the Missouri Highway Patrol. This is the edit that I have from our class, but I plan to work on this project more in the future and possibly make it into a thirty minute documentary.

Bird by Bird: Final reading thoughts

I would like to say, as I begin, that this book has been the most incredible gift as both a writer and a photographer that I've yet been given.

It's an amazing instruction manual concerning doing -anything- and I am very thankful to have read it this year.

I loved Anne's chapter about "How do you know when you're done." I've always had the feeling that I've never finished anything and it's because I am always left with that anxious feeling where I'm just driving myself insane, particularly with my writing pieces. I know exactly the moment that she is talking about that she describes as the moment where one is actually finished. Now I'll know, once and for all, when I'm actually done with something.

I plan to spend my time in this upcoming year (after I graduate next week) working on everything that I've produced in college and getting them to this stage. I am looking forward to getting much of what I've worked on to the point where I can feel that they are finished, where I can put them down and think to myself that this script or that multimedia piece are what I've never been able to let myself say they were: finished.

I loved the chapter about KFKD and it was incredibly therapeutic for me. I have this radio station on in my head all the time and reading about it has helped me to become much more aware of when it's playing and more importantly, to tell myself that it's time to turn the dial down.

I saw a therapist this semester that helped me deal with my anxiety disorder by allowing myself to feel okay when I'm struggling with anxiety, to always be able to tell myself: Okay, what can I do -now-? This seems incredibly easy advice to give oneself, but it gave me a good script to tell myself when I'm having issues. It took someone else telling me that it's alright to take down the perfectionist bar that I've built for myself. Instead of building up so much anxiety about the fact that I haven't done something to the point that I never do said thing, I just gently tell myself: "Okay, well what can I do now?" and I get up and do it.

Reading about KFKD helped me to see, as did this entire novel that I am not broken, I am not a waste of space and I am not a failure- I'm just a perfectionist and that can be more of a hinderance than a help. I have this book and my therapist to thank for helping me to forgive myself for failure and move past it, to see myself for the person that I am and keep myself moving into the future by focusing on the now, rather than ignoring the present by obsessing over the future.

Bird by bird has filled me with the hope that I needed to move to the next step in my life. It showed me that I already have inside of me what it will take me to make it where I want to go as a writer, photographer, and most importantly, as a person. I just have to keep going and instead of losing faith, curling in a ball and worrying myself to death before I leave my bed, I just have to think:

What can I do -now-

If all that is is making breakfast, that's OKAY.

I can ask myself the same question once I've finished eating my breakfast burrito.

(Thank you Anne Lamott)

I am intensely excited about graduation and I'm not driving myself crazy about getting a job because that will not be happening next week, tomorrow, today, and most importantly right now.

I am focused on this entry and afterward, putting Bird by Bird in a box with all of the things that I plan to take with me after I move out my apartment because it's been the best gift that I've been given for my future. It's a book that although I've read through in its entirety, I plan to read again and again and again, whenever my thoughts dial back to station KFKD.

Thank you Rita, for everything that you've done for me, but especially for assigning us this book. I will keep it with me for as long as I live, especially because I am, first and foremost, a writer. It was on the list that my writing teacher gave to us last week about great books for writers. Honestly, it's a great book for everyone, anyone.

I will be continuing to work on my 30 day project after graduation, working on my technique as a film-maker, working on the extensive footage that I took of Sergeant Foust, on making it into a documentary. I'm really excited that I'll have the time to do this after graduation, that I'll have time, in general, especially to begin producing on my own terms.

CPOY Multimedia Reaction paper

I was at the larger story individual/small teams judging.

I thought the power plant story had beautiful footage that although beautiful, didn't make sense with the story. I was also unable to completely make the connection between the Vermont and Georgia power plants nor the use of portraiture by the creator(s). The piece went on a bit too long and tried to tackle too many characters without much purpose. I lost interest in the piece far before it had ended.

I liked the deepwater video (spilling over) better, though I felt like the mother figure was a bit melodramatic, which bothered me at first. (Much less the second time through)

The pregnancy piece confused me. It wasn't explained why the mother was giving up her son, nor why the adopting mother was able to breast-feed him. A miscarriage was very briefly mentioned, is this why she was able to do so?

"Open adoption," though the point of this piece, is not explained. I left the piece really not having much of an idea about what an open adoption is.

I thought the start-up piece was really quite good and I initially thought this should be the one to bring home the gold, though I agreed with Spilling over to get the gold once I'd seen it through for the second time. I am a bit disappointed that there was no underwater photography because though the one scene skimming over the water showed the oil inside, I was left a bit wanting. It fails to show how big of a disaster this really is.

I also was left wanting with the toxic fumes/respirator angle.

There is nothing in the piece that legitimizes or explains the dangers posed to residents by this disaster (outside of damage to the tourist and fishing industry)

The start-up piece appealed to me innately because it was hopeful.

It showed a father doing what he could to combat issues presented by the recession.

I like that. It's more often in these projects that we see people in idle anguish, rather than in the combative struggle.

I honestly didn't feel the same way about the woman in spilling over.

The judges were moved by her; I wasn't. I felt like she was more of a fraud than a fighter.

The epilogues where they say that she's been going out daily to help in the effort, but it just shows her standing on the front of a hovercraft, which didn't help much.

And honestly, the first time around, I was lost during the scene where she was yelling at the politician. I wasn't taken and "there with her" as the judges were.

The second time around, I felt more in tune with that read of the project, especially noticing the man's body language. I attribute this to my lack of knowledge on the subject at hand, but feel that this is a failure of the piece as a venue for education on the subject in the same way as the open adoption piece.

Character Portrait

So, I am going to get some steady video, some audio of Kyle's current favorite song, a couple more pictures to replace the redundant record store shots, and export at higher quality for my subsequent revision of this piece.

Ya, heard.

One day Story

Lyle Johnson, left, brings his shoes into Dawson's Shoe Repair on 7th st. where owner and cobbler, Bob Wood, right, assesses what will need to be done to get them back into tip-top shape. The job is a simple one. "Don't worry now, we'll have you dancing in no time," Wood assures Johnson jokingly.

George Wren, 56, previous owner of Wren's Birkenstock, a shoe repair/retail store on Broadway, sews a pair of brown loafers in a room of Dawson's Shoe Repair accessible to customers by way of a small window. Eight months after both the death of Bob Wood's father, Estel, and the closing of Wren's Birkenstock, Wren took a job "doing the rips," or sewing, at Dawson's. Though it used to be Wren's least favorite part about cobblery, 6 months spent selling shoes at Dillard's was enough to make George miss the environment, which to him, feels like home. "Wearing a two-piece suit, that's just not me," Wren said about working at the department store. Aside from missing the environment, Wren has found a new appreciation for the sewing machine. "It's the most creative part of the job. It's like, 'OK, how can this be done?' It's a constant challenge," he said.

Bob Wood, left, reviews a color chart with George Wren, right, in order to find what fabric would best match the red in a pair of shoes needing repair. When asked what got Wren into shoe repair in the first place, he said that he liked working with his hands, the independence, and the dual gratification from the position. "Not only do you get to see what you're accomplishing, you're also helping people with their problems." The two consult a scrap fabric bucket with no close enough matches to satisfy either of them and because the customer did not need them right away, they decided to wait for materials better suited for the job to be uncovered so that the highest quality work could be done on the pair.

Numerous spools of thread of assorted colors hang behind the late Estel Wood's sewing machine, where George Wren waits to repair seams on the shoes, handbags, and other apparel that come through the door of Dawson's Shoe Repair store on 7th Street. Estel's tools, sewing machine, and even his chair and cushion remain in the same spot that they had when he was alive, though his leather apron sits in the display case directly inside the store's entrance. Estel learned under his father, Forrest Henry Wood, and was the lead shoe repairman on the island of Guam for two years during WWII. George admitted that it was a "little weird" at first, working where Estel had for so many years, especially using his tools and chair, but he said that after sewing his first pair of shoes, he looked up and asked Estel if he had done a good job, if he'd done the shoes justice. "And I knew what his answer was too," Bob said with his eyes lighting up. "He'd look at me and say, 'Well do you think that you did a good job?" "Yeah, Estel, yeah I think I did and he'd say, 'Well, alright, then you did a good job." George rushed out to Bob to recount the story and Bob nodded his head, "That's Dad," Bob said, "he'd say, 'you know, you did, if you'd be proud to wear them."

George Wren, 56, recalls his history in cobblery- his apprenticeship in Centralia in the '70s, buying his own shoe repair store behind the Tiger Barber Shop on 9th street in 1981, spending 13 years on Walnut St. repairing shoes in the Berry building, and then 16 years running Wren's Birkenstock on Broadway, where he both repaired shoes and sold Birkenstocks. His store closed its doors on December 31 2009 and George briefly took a job in shoe retail at the department store, Dillard's until Wood offered him a position doing the rips for him in place of Wood's late father, Estel. Pictured behind George is Estel Wood's chair, cushion, sewing machine, and tools, which George uses regularly.

Picture story blog thoughts for 9/10

School Lunches and Polaroids, Lamott

Selecting a subject, Hurn & Jay

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School Lunches and Polaroids, Lamott

Once again, I loved and really related to the reading from "Bird by Bird."

(that should be underlined as it is a book)

Not only is the idea of "school lunches" being a point of absolute judgment for kids by kids a poignant one, but it really does have a plethora of creative meat that can be extracted from expounding on the subject.

I thought it was a great metaphor for breaking down the one-frame idea-

ignore the parental notes, the actual lunch sack, or most of the content.

Start with the sandwich, just the sandwich.

I never had a lunch packed for me as a kid (or as an adult, for that matter)

but I can obviously still understand the metaphor.

I was there, obviously.

I watched the lunch swap, though I never once succeeded in making a trade.

My lunches were undesirable in every way, mostly because I was an undesirable

(and packed my own)

I also appreciated the metaphor of the development of a polaroid for generating a first draft.

"And finally, as the portrait comes into focus, you begin to notice all the props surrounding these people, and you begin to understand how props define us and comfort us, and show us what we value and what we need, and who we think we are." (p. 40)

What a great sentence that tells an awful lot. (maybe I'm just fond of run-ons and big ideas)

I loved the exposition about Lamott's experience writing about the Special Olympics.

Partly because I can really appreciate what she's saying because I've attended,

and partly because I now knew exactly what she meant with her metaphor.

I began to be able to truly relate my own experiences with how it -feels- for the development of the polaroid to begin and how it feels when it comes into view.

It starts out slow and begins to avalanche into that amazing feeling that she describes where one feels like they can "write all day."

--

Selecting a subject, Hurn & Jay

From the very beginning, I responded to the definition of photography as showing not what someone looked like, but what someone looked like under a certain set of circumstances or at a certain moment while relaying that effectively to others.

For me, a photograph is not successful unless it relates something "extra": It makes the viewer feel or think about (or wonder about) the subject.

What I am unsure of is if my pictures carry that unique stamp that tells the reader that in addition to these things that I am the one who is behind the photograph.

The exposition about the photographer needing a curiosity that leads them back to keep trying and failing spoke to my one-day story idea about George Wren and Bob Dawson because thought it's something that I've already had the experience of shooting, I am not satisfied that I am 'done' with the story- either photographically or journalistically or even personally.

The re-staging of George Wren into Bob Dawson's store makes me curious all-over because though I felt like I knew George Wren, I only knew.

I want to know how he has changed with his location, if at all.

I want to know how the story is developing.

I want to know who he has become after his shop closed, after he went to work at a department store, and now for another local cobbler.

I have to.

This makes me proud because this isn't something I've been assigned, it's something that I want to do and to read that it's part of being a good photojournalist makes me feel closer to the craft.

I was able to answer yes to the questions that follow about whether a subject would be good to photograph and came up with an affirmative answer to everything except "is it interesting to others?"

That I don't know.

And although I am sick with worry about how my class will perceive my idea, when it really comes down to doing this assignment, I don't care as much.

This is something that I really want to shoot.

I want to be able to follow a story that I care about and since it's being done for a class and not publication, I feel like I have that luxury, at least a little bit.

(Not worrying whether or not it's really an interesting choice to others. It might not sound interesting, but to me, it absolutely is.)