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Cooler Places

After endless trips running up and down the stairs today while trying to move out of my apartment, the Missouri summer heat and humidity did me in.  So, I made my mind go to a much cooler place.  While backing up my computer, I went back through my Germany photos from my trip this past January.  It snowed… a lot.  So, to cool me down, a few random shots from Munich this past January:

Chelsea embraces the snow as it begins to fall in Munich.  It didn’t let up for a good 24 hours after this.

The snow fell the heaviest the next day on our day trip to Fussen, Germany.

The inside of the BMW Museum in Munich, Germany.  Actually, this has nothing to do with the snow, but I liked the picture…

Jun 18, 2010 | Categories:BLOG | Tags: , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall…

Well, I think it is actually only 79 on my wall.

For those of you that know me, you know I like good beer.  My fridge always has some good microbrew in it for the drinking.

When I moved into my apartment in Columbia at the beginning of grad school two years ago, I started to hold on to the bottles when I was finished with them.  For two years, they sat on top of my kitchen cabinets as a classy decoration.  I actually ran out of shelf space and had to start throwing away bottles.  Now that I am moving to Australia, I have to throw them ALL away.  So, instead of letting my hard labor go to waste, I decided to do a beer panorama.  All of the beers in the panorama are beers that I have, at one point, consumed.  They were all delicious…

Maybe I am just procrastinating instead of packing.  Maybe I have too much time on my hands.  But here is the result… a BEER PANORAMA! (Be careful though when scrolling… the mouse movement is a bit touchy…)

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This beer panorama has somewhere around 80 beers in it and consists of 18 different pictures stitched together in Photoshop.  I then took that static panorama and, using Flash, made the picture scrollable.  Hopefully I will be adding to this in the future…

A cross section of the beer panorama

Jun 11, 2010 | Categories:BLOG | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment »

Washington D.C. – No Monuments, I Promise

Wow, it has been a while since I have updated here (I feel like I have started all my posts like this the past few months…).  But, since the semester ended, I have been running around like crazy, trying to get ready for Australia, and going to weddings.  Two weeks ago, I spent the week in Washington D.C. to shoot a wedding.  I promise you I won’t bore you with monument photos.  So, here are a couple of photos from Washington D.C. WITHOUT monuments.

Washington D.C. Metro

The Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Red Line Metro stop which has to have one of the longest escalators I have ever seen.

Abraham Lincoln's Top Hat

Abraham Lincoln’s top hat at the recently renovated American History Museum.  By far one of my favorite museums in D.C. (next the Newseum of course…).  Sometimes, it is more fun to take a look at these things from another angle– the other side of the glass…

Jun 09, 2010 | Categories:BLOG | Tags: , , | Leave A Comment »

Final Project: AIDS in the Recession

I have finished my final class of the semester– Picture Story & Photographic Essay– and turned in my final project.

After my initial story idea for the semester fell through, I decided that I wanted to tell the story of how the recession and state budget cuts are affecting people living with HIV/AIDS.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find willing photo subjects until the last two weeks of the semester.  Luckily, Mark and David were willing to let me into their lives for a couple of weeks and for that, I am very grateful.  Although I was in a bit of a time crunch, I hope that I was able to at least get a start on telling their story.  It is a story that I hope I can continue telling up until I leave for Australia at the end of June.

I also hope that this will be an ongoing project involving other people experiencing the same problems Mark and David are.  I see this initial edit as the first chapter in a longer story…

So, without further adieu, here is the story summary:

“David Hubert and Mark Reed have been living with HIV/AIDS in St. Louis for over twenty years and have been partners for just as long.  Diagnosed with AIDS in the 80’s– a time when the life expectancy for AIDS victims was about two years– David is now one of the longest living AIDS survivors in St. Louis.

With the price of co-pays for HIV medication reaching upwards of $8,500 per year, per person, Mark and David have been forced to the edge of poverty, living each month paycheck to paycheck.  “We basically start off each month in the hole,” says David.

Although they once received aid from the Ryan White Foundation– the payer of last resort for HIV/AIDS victims– the recession in the United States has caused an increase in the amount of people requesting help and has subsequently caused a cut in funding for Mark and David’s medication.   Facing these economic hardships and unable to work because of the disease, Mark and David have found ways to live a life of thrift while still trying to maintain a semi-comfortable lifestyle living off disability payments.”

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May 13, 2010 | Categories:BLOG | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

Final Project Preview

I have been very bad about updating my blog this semester… But, between completely redesigning this website and shooting longer-term projects, I have been fairly busy.  I also don’t want to post too many images from a story before it is officially completed.  But, here is a little preview of my final project for my Picture Story & Photographic Essay class.

I won’t go too in depth into the story summary yet, but I am trying to tell the story of how health care cuts and the recession are affecting people living with HIV/AIDS.  I was fortunate enough to have Mark and David allow me into their lives for a couple of weeks…

David (left) gets a haircut from his partner Mark (right) in the bathroom of their home in St. Louis.  David used to get his hair cut at a local barber until the barber found out David had AIDS and played sick when David came in to get a haircut.  “That is about the day Mark learned to cut hair,” said David.

May 10, 2010 | Categories:BLOG | Leave A Comment »

Video Job Profile: Sea Lion Trainer

For my Picture Story & Photo Essay class, we had to do a video job profile on a job of our choosing.  I thought it would be fun to do it on a sea lion trainer at the Saint Louis Zoo.

I worked at the Zoo for 4 summers as a tour guide on the back of the train.  However, some days I was assigned to work at the Sea Lion Show.  I was always entertained by it and I think I always will be.  If you asked me as a kid what my favorite animals were, I probably would have had the sea lion on that list.  It is pretty hard not to laugh at a sea lion.

A big thanks to Angela and Kyle at the Sea Lion Show who took time out of their busy day to help me out with this.  If this whole journalism thing fails, I may just try to steal their jobs…

Job Profile: Sea Lion Trainer from John Schreiber on Vimeo.

And for the behind the scenes photo (Thank you Chelsea)…..

Apr 12, 2010 | Categories:BLOG, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »