PR/Press Project

The two Victoria's Secret mannequin photos I took for the document project ended up being published to NowPublic, an online news sharing community. I was actually contacted by a contributor to NowPublic.com via my Flickr account who asked my permission to use the photos. View the story at NowPublic.com

The Photo Essay

For the photo essay project, I photographed the Alterra at the Lake coffee shop, located on Lincoln Memorial Drive across from the marina. In my proposal, I planned to visit numerous coffee shops, but I decided Alterra had a lot more action so I took pictures on a few different occasions there. Unlike I expected, there was little calmness and relaxing to be captured in the photographs, but rather chaos and activity. It was actually hard at some points to get a shot that didn’t have someone’s arm or body blurred because people were constantly in motion. In nearly all of these photographs, someone is always doing something. I think the coffee shop has become more of a gathering place for many, as my photographs prove, while I was thinking of it more as a rejuvenation place. I was motivated to use Alterra as the subject of my photo essay because I often go to coffee shops, Alterra most often, but never really sit and observe and enjoy myself. I believe I captured the patrons of the coffee shop within the process of entering, waiting in line, ordering, waiting for coffee, finding a place to sit, and observing the surroundings. In doing that, I kept in mind what was going on while I was taking my photographs so I would have interesting information to use as captions.

Photo Essay Proposal

For the photo essay project, I plan to photograph the popular coffee shop. Although I am unsure whether I will photograph the many aspects of one shop or the many different coffee shops around, my photographs will show the calmness and relaxation that usually surrounds the atmosphere. Coffee has become similar to a drug in society, as people feel they need it to start their day, to keep up with mid-afternoon duties, and to live their life. As coffee is important to many, it is interesting that people may commute ten minutes to a coffee shop even if they have a different one just next door.
In the photo essay, I plan to capture the process, the patrons, and coffee itself. I’ll definitely visit numerous locations, but if a single shop strikes me as perfect for achieving the photographic elements I wish to use, I’ll let that act as a main solution to the project. I am interested in weighing the differences and similarities between the atmospheres and people in different locations, but wish to focus more on getting deep pictures that will allow me to explain the surroundings and attitudes in captions because they cannot be caught in a visual image.