Last night, we received our assignments for today. My assignment topic was “Fathers”, and the assignment was:

• 5 shot essay
• All images keyworded,
• Rated (by an instructor),
• and captioned.
• Due by 1:15pm

I got started early this morning with a personal pre-planning session. As I contemplated what kind of story I could tell about the fathers here, I was reminded of how God is my own Heavenly Father. I was reminded of how God provides for my needs. I was reminded of how God is my confidant; He cares about me, about what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. I decided to focus my efforts on showing this dimension of fatherhood. The idea of a “father” really directly relates to a relationship (father-son or father-daughter) and the ideal way to show this photographically is with interaction. I decided to structure my photo essay by seeking this relationship and this interaction.

Arriving at 7:00am Father’s Session, I listened to Mr. Gothard and began feeling a bit of the direction my story would take. Hearing his heart for the conference and sensing the response in the men present, I began mentally formulating my “shot list” and set about to get those shots.

The lighting and everything in the session were amazing. I loved it. After downloading those images, I then went out to get more images of fathers and their children. I ended up going out one more time to get a very specific image: the last image in this essay.

Sorting and keywording these images took the remainder of the morning and I finished the essay in the early afternoon.

This assignment was beneficial to me because it forced me to think about a story: I didn’t have an obvious story handed to me (like yesterday’s Cadet Squad Leader Training). I knew the pieces: I have a handle on the technical side of getting a good picture of a dad. What I was able to work on was finding the story, getting (and knowing to get!) the right shots, and assembling a cohesive photo essay.

Let me know what you think of this! I love to hear from y’all!