This week has been more of the same: organizing, editing, vomiting (words, that is), digging through notes, re-editing, etc. So, instead of repeating the last blog post in different words, I thought I’d reflect on some things I learned about the impact gear has on photographs, with some comparison before and after editing photos sprinkled in. In preparation for the cruise, I figured I needed a DSLR camera with a couple lenses, a good mic, and a tripod. While this was a great starter kit, I would make quite a few tweaks if I were to go on another cruise. For starters, using a tripod on a close-quarters ship where there is constant action is a bit ridiculous. By the time I had set up the shot, the action had moved somewhere else and I had missed a scene of the sequence. Sure, I used the tripod to film a couple context scenes—like a single shot video of the MOCNESS being deployed that I can use for my own reference or post alongside a story—but ultimately, it was a clunky piece of equipment that I rarely reached for, but that I still had to load on and off the ship. I talked to Mark Farley, the videographer on board, about my frustrations with the tripod and he shared that he also brought a tripod on the previous winter cruise before learning the same lesson. This time, he brought a gimbal—a piece of equipment that can keep a mounted camera parallel to the earth. Essentially, regardless of how bumpy you walk or how unstable your ground is, a gimbal can get a smooth shot that won’t leave your audience nauseous. It was comforting to hear that someone of Mark’s professional level went through the same process I was going through when it came to using the right gear. That got me thinking more about Mark’s kit and how it was specifically tailored for his purpose. Mark uses a Sony camera that has a small body and an inaudible shutter. This set up allowed his picture taking technique to be very casual; he walked up to people in the lab, peered over their shoulders, saw the shot he wanted, extended his arm to get the camera in the right spot, and then used the large digital display to line up his shot. The whole process would take seconds and no one even noticed the camera was there. On the other hand, the Canon 5d Mark ii I was using—a great camera—has a loud shutter click and most settings force the photographer to use the viewfinder rather than the digital display to see what’s being captured. This resulted in me having to stick not only my large camera in people’s space to get the shot, but my head as well because my eye had to be glued to the viewfinder. Additionally, once someone heard the shutter sound, they knew they were being watched and would change their face, posture, action, etc. from something authentic to something posed. As someone whose primary medium is paper and pen, I hadn’t fully considered the discomfort and obtrusion that a camera can bring. If someone isn’t accustomed to being interviewed, all a journalist has to do is turn the interview into a conversation and the discomfort fades away. If someone isn’t accustomed to having their picture taken and is uncomfortable, you can’t remove the camera and take pictures with your eyes instead, the camera has to be there. The realization that a camera can get in the way of getting a good photograph entertained me for a while before it was time to get back to my word vomit.
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This time last week I was on a ship, watching as chief scientist Bob Cowen tried to wrangle science equipment back onto the deck, fighting against the wind and the waves. This week I’ve been sitting hunched in front of my computer sorting photos to edit. It’s been a pretty dramatic change of pace, but one that has allowed me to absorb and put into perspective what I experienced aboard the RV Sally Ride. It took me a couple days into the cruise to realize that the experience I was having was pretty rare—a very limited amount of people get to participate in the type of field work I was immersed in. But once you’re in that environment, it starts to become normalized and things that you originally thought were super exciting and unique turn into your daily routine. Now that I’m back on land and returning to “normal life,” I’m able to get back to that initial perspective of recognizing the cool things that happened on the ship. Instead of prodding pyrosomes and working on my sea legs, I’m going grocery shopping and packing up my apartment and recognizing that my time on the cruise was pretty spectacular. I’m really grateful that I’ve easily returned to an awestruck mindset in which I can recognize the unusual and intriguing aspects of what I experienced because that’s how I can write the most accessible story for a general audience. The real struggle now is editing down 10 days filled with action and excitement, failure and triumph into a single piece of writing. I’ve been getting caught up in the terrible trap of editing as I write—starting a sentence and then immediately deleting it because it’s not quite right—which has left me with fragmented bits and pieces of narrative and exposition. After meeting with my journalism mentor, Mark Blaine at UO’s School of Journalism and Communication, we decided that it’s time for a vomit draft. I’m hopeful that once I “vomit” all of the words in my head onto a page, I can have a clearer idea of what absolutely must be included in the final product and what will remain as a fun story to tell at dinner parties.
The first couple days of the cruise felt like a false start, but transiting to Trinidad Head off the coast of Northern California two days early acted as a reset button. The plan to head south early stemmed from some weather that was threatening the Newport stations. During the 21 hours of travel, the team was able to work on the MOCNESS sensors, which had stopped responding, not allowing any physical sampling to be done off Newport. The main lab table turned into a work bench with the chief scientist, a resident technician, and several engineers huddled around the MOCNESS’s electrical guts. Everyone who wasn’t actively helping seemed to instinctively clear out of the work space, not wanting to add any more stress to the room. It’s in hindsight that I can recognize how disconnected I felt from the process at the time, because there wasn’t much process to speak of. Every hour some new frustration was popping up and the regimented collecting and testing I had expected hadn’t started yet. It wasn’t until day four of the cruise, the morning we arrived in Trinidad Head, that the amount of practiced science happening started to outweigh the time spent on repairs. Once the first California station went well, things started moving fast. The original plan was to spend four days off of Newport, alternating ISIIS imaging days and MOCNESS sampling days, then repeating the process in Trinidad Head. The reality was that we lost two days of sampling in Newport and if we wanted to complete all of the cruise objectives, we had to double down. It was time to fit four days of work into two at Trinidad Head so we could loop back to Newport with three days left to collect data. Suddenly, the labs switched from a handful of scientists roaming around looking for things to do, to seemingly double the amount of people all rushing to put the protocols into action. Each station’s samples had barely been processed by the time we reached the next, throwing everyone from first to fifth gear. But the chaos was welcomed with open arms and everyone acclimated to the new pace almost immediately. As the rhythm was set, I started feel more grounded. This is what a research cruise is like.
We’re currently sitting back at the Newport dock as I’m writing this. Much more has happened in the last week than what I’ve written, but processing it takes time and perspective that I’ve yet to gain. One thing is for sure: I have no shortage of material for my final story. Greetings from the sea! I’ve already learned a lot from the short time we’ve been on the ship, my first lesson being that I severely underestimated the power of seasickness. I spent the first day getting sick in various places on the ship and wobbling back to my bunk for some rest. Fortunately, Mark Farley, the videographer on board, has a cardboard box full of seasick medication where I was able to find some more effective drugs than what I brought. After the first day being a bit of a wash, the second day I learned that things go wrong and it’s just par for the course. There was a series of mechanical issues with ISIIS, imaging equipment that trails behind the ship, to start off the day. After that bug was solved, MOCNESS, an oversized rack with nets that collects physical samples at various depths, started to lose contact with the software, making that two main pieces of scientific equipment that are malfunctioning. The status of the equipment can change moment to moment, so a few “what if” plans have been made. As I’ve watched the people around me having to stop and adjust their plans, it’s helped me do the same. Though we haven’t done much sampling, there have been minimal pyrosomes showing up in the underwater footage. It’s possible that my original idea of covering the excessive amounts of pyrosomes and their effect on sampling might no longer be applicable and I, too, will have to adjust my plans. Fortunately, I have time. We’re only on our third day, so there is still time to shoot the action that’s going on throughout the cruise. As of now, the new story forming is one about the adaptability of scientists at sea. It’s been awhile since I’ve experienced such a dramatic learning curve—I forgot how mentally exhausting it can be. Most of my days during the first week were spent in the Sutherland Lab on the UO campus, reading papers about jelly research and familiarizing myself with the lab space. I couldn’t figure out why I felt like I was dead on my feet when I got back home every day. I had just come off the end of term where I read and wrote until my eyes hurt for nearly two weeks straight, so why was a few days of light reading making my brain feel like incompetent mush? It clicked when Dr. Sutherland sent me two papers to read side-by-side—a paper she wrote about Pyrosome population in the Northeast Pacific Ocean and the accompanying story by Jim Barlow, director of science and research communications at UO. I read through the scientific paper, stopping to google terms and reread sentences where I only understood the connecting words like ‘and’, ‘it’, and ‘the’. After finishing with a 20% comprehension of the topic, I read Barlow’s story that cited Sutherland’s piece, in addition to the interviews he had with her and other experts. I glided through his story with ease, taking in the information the way my brain is accustom to: through narrative. I had been surrounded by literature, and people, that communicated using a different dictionary than my usual peers and it took seeing the translation from research paper to journalism story for me to realize that. At first it felt silly that it took me so long to figure out that the difference in language was causing me trouble given that the core of my internship is to learn how to translate scientific speak into a narrative driven story for a wider audience, but my struggle ultimately highlighted the work it takes to become that translator. I’m grateful that I had my little epiphany prior to visiting OIMB on Monday and Tuesday, or I think I would have pulled out my hair from trying to understand the scientific chatter that flows seamlessly from the lab to the lunch table. The collection of shingled buildings feels much more like summer camp than a research institution, except craft tables are replaced with seawater tables and dinner conversation includes jokes about identifying appendicularians, a filter-feeding jelly with a tadpole-like shape, that flew right over my head. After several days of being completely out of my realm, I was able to meet with Marquis Blaine, a UO professor in the School of Journalism and Communication, and have a grounding conversation about the content I’m going to produce over the summer. We talked about how to approach the research cruise I’m embarking on with the lab come Monday and the importance reminding myself of my objectives when the hustle and bustle on the ship inevitably leaves me scattered. As for now, I’m packing my bags for the cruise and writing notes for myself all over my apartment not to forget my camera charger and seasick medication. |
AuthorI am a third year journalism student at the University of Oregon with a focus in traditional written journalism and interview techniques. Science communication is an underrepresented field of journalism that I’m excited to explore and produce content for through this internship. Archives
August 2018
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