Portrait: Misagh Jebeli

It was already drizzling when I got to the international house just off campus. I was arriving about 10 minutes late because I was listening to a visitor to the office about a public affairs graduate program down in Springfield, IL.

He was sitting in a chair when I got there. I looked around the room and there wasn't anything on the walls so I decided to do the first shots outside. Amir, one of our graphic designers, also from Iran, was there so he showed me outside where there were two porches. The shot above is from the downstairs one while the other porch is in the background.

I wanted to use my umbrella but it was way too windy and I can't afford to break a flash. I decided to just shoot directly at him with the Sunpak auto 433D. It's this $60 manual flash I got in Chicago and I love it. Just popped on a diffuser and got my correct settings.

Tried this place, against the wall, on top of the bricks. I feel like this shows his personality more. Nice guy.

Well it ends up the paper is running a cutout in a graphic of a different pic so I guess the composition doesn't really matter. Kinda frustrating.

Anyways, probably another few hours of production here in the office. We've been leaving around 1am for the past two issues.



Should've had the flash on the other side of the camera on the new bracket I got. All the highlights are on the gutter or whatever that is. I don't even know if I can have the bracket on the other side but I'll try it out. Doubt it though.



Oh yeah, HUGE NEWS!!! The 80-200 f/2.8L came in today. I've just been playing around with it in the office and wow, it's sharp and fast. Can't wait to try it out for sports or any news for that matter.

Student Fees Rise

The president and several other major university officials came to SGA on Tuesday so I figured I should cover the event myself. Martyn was back in the office taking care of any photos for production that night.

The layout of the page ended up being a center picture which I wasn't too happy about. Seems like we've been having huge building pics for the past few front pages and I was trying to switch it up but no luck. Hopefully, if anyone that knows page layout designs wants to stop by the Courier office, that'd be great and a huge help.

Typically, pictures are submitted and words placed where needed by the page designer but because of a lack of designers, we're sometimes restricted with the front page design.

Chicago and more bball

ICPA was this past weekend from Thursday-Saturday in Chicago. Got a second place in sports photography. Wish I got first but that's alright. At least I didn't come back home empty handed.















Shot some bball last night with Hank, one of the newer photographers. Place was damn near empty. Just tried to show the basics and all the different angles that he could use. I think he did alright but of course, still work to do. I was just shooting for myself and for file photos for the paper.

It's senior games for both mens and womens teams on Saturday when I'll be shooting track over in Sterling, IL for the Summit League so I'll have a photographer at those games.

Office Junk

Still in the office for double production. We head out Thursday morning to Chicago for the Illinois College Press Association conference till Saturday.

I think we're almost done. Been a long night dealing with photos. Still got plenty of other work to do for school.

Dorms 'suck'

Stayed up till 2am last night but managed to get up around 8:30am. Guess it's just habit. Well the friggin fire alarm goes off while I'm in the shower this morning so I threw some clothes on and headed down the stairs. Alright, back to the photo's...




Had another photo illustration yesterday for the Opinions editor Sarah Zeeck. The story was for the dorms sucking up money from students so of course, the first thing in my head was a vacuum. Yeah, I know. Not the most original but time is tight. Just rented a vacuum, set up an umbrella in my room on a light stand about 6ft tall with the SB-80DX at 1/16 fired opticaly via my on pop up flash set to it's lowest setting on the 20D.





Too much ambient light at first so I turned a few off and it looked a lot better. First few were boring so I tried to add some motion by slowing down the shutter speed. to about 1/5 @ISO 100 f/2.8.

Overall, turned out okay with a quick setup. Really wish I had two flashes.

Got a media law paper to type. gtg.

pano

Not a huge fan of photo calls. Just killing time before the Vagina Monologues finished up. Ed the managing editor on the right

Poverty in McDonough County: Making calls

Seems like anyone who's anybody isn't in their offices today. Just managed to talk to a few secretaries and leave some messages. I don't know how the rest of this town works but I do know everyone else has Presidents Day off while we're off for Lincoln's b-day. Drinkin' for Lincoln here on campus. Really wish I made Thursday's police briefing to hear about all the things that happened Wednesday night.

Speaking of which, could be another angle. A few weeks back, a man in a red hoodie robbed HyVee Liquor's and apologized as he was doing it. Sign of the times? Granted everyone can't go around robbing stores to feed their families because the economy is in the crapper. Don't think the cops ever found the guy. I'm pretty sure retail theft is up nationwide and I'd imagine it's the same here.

At the police briefing's, I hear about theft every now and then but for the most part it's DUI's and battery. I just need an angle on something. Guess it's back to making more calls.

Frank Warren of Post Secret

Post Secret creator Frank Warren stopped by WIU last night as part of his nationwide book tour. I heard about his books a while back and liked the idea. Good show.

womens bball vs. NDSU

Women's team lost against NDSU yesterday. The game was definitely a lot less exciting than that mens game yesterday. Either way, here's the shots.

bball vs. SDSU

Both the Mens and Womens team played South Dakota State University on Saturday. I had a photographer out there but decided to shoot some myself just to stay sharp. Good time. Happy with the shots.

















The women lost and the men won.

I came about halfway through the womens game to check and see how my photographer was doing. The women were down by a sizable margin and ended up losing the game. The stadium, (Waste Management Court, who's name I hate because every time we lose, it seems like we're mocking ourselves) seemed a lot more packed than usual. Always glad to see that because pics with a bunch of empty seats in the background just aren't as good no matter how good the action.

They held the press conference upstairs because the Hall of Fame room was being used by the hoyte toites (sp?) according to someone. Rich folks I guess.

Mens game was pretty close the entire game. I spent the first half shooting from the catwalk. I know it gets old shooting from up there since the options are so limited but I love it. I knew Arsenio, the guy screaming in the pre-game huddle, was going to do that so I just planted myself above the huddle and waited. It paid off, I liked the shot. I planned on running my photographers photo's in the paper so I was just shooting for myself but since she wanted to leave during halftime of the mens game, (I told her it was alright), I think I might run one of my mens shots in tomorrow's paper.

I'm still pissed I missed the final shot. It's not every day that the mens team wins let alone with a half court buzzer beater. The thing that shocked me is I didn't even get any jube either. For some reason, decided to have the 16-35 and 50mm 1.8 on both bodies. If only I had a telephoto on, would've been set. Huge back page and everything. Really shows that practice makes perfect and the fact that I haven't shot any games in a few weeks didn't help. Next time, I'll be prepared. I better be. It's why I get paid.

Next game: Monday.

Warning and Watch lists for Poverty in Illinois

Well since I haven't been out anywhere since Blandinsville, I should just start up research again to answer a few questions before I head out again. I heard about a poverty warning list for the state of Illinois in an article by John Pulliam.

The article was from 2006 so I wanted to find an updated version. Well according to the heartland Alliance , poverty rose in 74 of Illinois' 102 counties. Obviously more severe in certain counties but that's 72.5% of all counties in the state.

Anyways, back to the warning list. Well according to the 2008 report on Illinois Poverty, on page 34 is the following:

"Four key indicators of well-being are assessed in each of Illinois’ 102 counties — high school graduation rates, unemployment rates, teen birth rates, and poverty rates. Counties in Illinois are evaluated using a point system, with the higher number of points indicating a worse score.

A point is given to a county if its rate is higher than the state average and/or if they have worsened since the previous year. For each indicator a total of 2 points is possible and overall a total of 8 points is possible. Counties that score 4 or 5 points are placed on a Watch List and counties that score 6, 7, or 8 points are placed on a Warning List. Using this methodology, 66 Illinois counties have been placed on either the Poverty Watch or Poverty Warning lists."

So of those 66 counties, 44 of them are on the watch list while the other 22 are on the warning list. As for McDonough County, we're on the watch list. Being the county with the 5th highest poverty rate, I thought this was a little unusual. Since the factors include high school graduation rates, maybe students at Macomb do better with a University in town as well as the University library.

Also, I'd imagine the University employ's a significant amount of people in the community so that might help as well.

I'm still trying to figure out if the University has any role in keeping us off the warning list but I guess I'll find out later.

For Macomb, I'll need to get out to the Salvation Army. Been in a few times but not as a journalist. I'll try to think up a few questions and ask the owners.

Churches are another place. Being a person who isn't that familiar with the church setting, I'm not quite sure who I'd talk to (the pastor?) but whatever, I'll just ask questions and hopefully someone can help.

The Western Illinois Regional Council seems like a good choice too.

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As much as I like getting all my research done and being knowledgeable on the subject, I really want to start shooting and talking to people. Number one person to e-mail right now is the professor from Northwestern University. I'll need to look up his name again but hopefully he can give me a few pointers and things to look out for.

Also, until I start putting faces with these numbers, they're just numbers to me. The Superbowl is tomorrow and we've got production at the paper at noon so I can't do anything then but I'll need to start Monday morning and make some calls.

Well it's past 10pm on a Saturday so I'm going to call it a night.