NYT: "One in 8 Million" & Penn Relays Project Update

Anyone who's been around me much at all knows that I really love the "One in 8 Million" series on NYT. I came across it last year when an online journalism professor played a few of the stories in class and have been back to check on it periodically ever since. I love that the photography is done in black and white, and that the people featured in the stories get to tell their own stories.

One of the ones I stopped to watch all the way through was the story of Maggie Nesciur, a waitress who walks up to 90 miles a WEEK. She says she doesn't get tired, she just likes to walk around in her boots. She'll do it for 14 or 15 hours at a time and tailor her walk to how she's feeling. She looks for empty streets when she doesn't want to be around people. There's another about Paul Bockwoldt, who joined a mostly gay rugby team to bond with his gay brother. Touching, right? I'm just in awe at the constant sense of curiosity it must require to seek these stories out.

I highly recommend these. If you want to learn how to let people tell their own stories, you should listen to the audio on these and reverse engineer the questions the reporter must have asked. The photography, done by Todd Heisler, is really inspiring. Check it out - One in 8 Million - you'll be glad you did.

Penn Relays project update:
I did a photo interview with Dave Johnson last week at Franklin Field. I was delighted with the weather, and got to shoot the on the upper deck of the stadium with a track meet going on in the background. It went really well. I got some great footage and next week I'm supposed to give him a call so we can talk about arranging for some credentials to shoot video and take photos during the meet. I'm going to work on reaching out to the man who handles getting high school Jamaican teams signed up for the meet. His name escapes me at the moment, but it's scribbled down somewhere. Aside from that, I'm going to try and story board this project so I know exactly what I need on race day.