Ryan Stewarts journey to becoming a photojournalist. All images copyright Ryan Stewart 2010

So just a quick blog update.

I went to Waterloo last Saturday for homecoming. Originally I didn’t want to shoot the game, because in all my time at Laurier, I had not gotten plastered and gone to the homecoming game. I was always shooting it. But as it got closer to the date, I had an assignment on depth of field due this week, and I would miss taking photos to much, so I decided to compromise and shoot just the first half.

Mother nature didn’t agree with my compromise. As soon as the half time buzzer rang, it started to down pour. So I ran back to the stands where my friends were sitting and hurriedly packed my gear up and we made our way to the kegger.

I got some good shots from the first half. I got this shot of receiver Shamawd Chambers running the ball into the end zone. I had some other good ones, like the ones I have done for the Cord in the past (catches, tackles, qb throwing etc). But I liked this one because you could see the eyes of Shamawd and how intensely focused he is. And its something different than the Ryan Stewart football style I usually do haha. Anyways hope ya enjoy.

Also a big thank you to the Cord Photo Managers, Yusuf and Nick, for getting me into the game on such short notice, thanks boys!

I shot this with a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L

WATERLOO, Ont. (03/08/09) - Laurier Golden Hawks receiver, Shamawd Chambers, carries the ball during Lauriers' Homecoming match against the University of Ottawa Gees Gee's on Saturday, October 3rd. Chambers only rushed for a total of 22 yards as the Golden Hawks suffered a 27-25 loss to the Gee Gee's.

So in the past couple of weeks, I made the biggest decision so far in my life. I finally decided to attend Loyalist College for photojournalism. It was not an easy decision to make, with many factors coming into play. The main one was how financially responsible is this for me. With the newspaper industry dying, the field looks pretty bleak. But right now everything looks bleak, we’re in a freaking recession, every field is in the toilet. It will only be a matter of time before someone fixes the newspapers now broken business model, (thanks a lot interwebs). I am going into this with an optimistic mindset, some may say even a little naive, but so be it, all I can do is work my ass off and hope to become the best I can.

So not that any of you care, but I am living in residence on campus, and by the way, these residences are so much nicer the ones at Wilfrid Laurier University. My fridge has a freaking ice dispenser, enough said. Its going good so far though. Over the last couple of weeks the program has been going mind numbingly slow. Right now we are learning about shutter speed. Oh Boy. Its like learning my abc’s all over again. Its gonna pick up though quickly, I hope. Right now the most interesting class for me is my writing class. So hopefully my horrible writing skills improve by the end of the semester to make this blog a little more readable and bearable.

So onto some photos I have taken

This one is from when I just decided to go for a walk and check out Belleville, I came across this bridge, and it is quite stunning, with sailboats running around it.

The Belleville Bay Bridge

This next shot is just a little exercise we did for shutter speed. Its actually a really cool technique called panning, makes for a really cool effect. You move the camera with the subject while at a slow shutter speed so that the object is in focus and the background along with moving parts appear blurry.

Classmate, Mark, riding a bike during a panning excercise.

Only photoshop work done is basic colour correction.

Anyways I hope to post more frequently and get this thing maintained to a standard where you guys want to come back and see whats been going on.

Thanks Guys!

- Ryan