2008 National Leadership and Skills Conference - SkillsUSA
In early May I attended the New York State SkillsUSA Competitions. After a whole day of photography-related challenges I placed 1st. At the awards ceremony I was a little apprehensive about attending the National conference in Missouri. After some careful deliberation (and at the urging of parents, teachers, and friends) I decided to face my fears and go!
On Monday June 23rd, 2008 I departed Albany Airport. Destination: Kansas City, Missouri. I was heading out for a weeklong national competition known as the 2008 Skills USA National Leadership and Skills Conference. After departing the airport in our rental cars, we plugged in the hotel address in our GPS and headed on our way. We got a little curious when the GPS instructed us to turn down a dirt road but… It was Missouri so… We continued! After a few more minutes we turned down a road with a “No Outlet” sign… This is not exactly where we want to be… Nevertheless, we continued! We weaved in and out of various cornfields on our no outlet dirt road. Eventually we turned a corner and were promptly greeted with “You have arrived at your destination.” At that very moment a rather quaint log farmhouse appeared around the bend. This was definitely not the Hilton Garden Inn… Not even in Missouri!
Once we got all three vehicles turned around and heading back towards the main road we finally got the correct address in our GPS. 30 miles away, that sounds about right. Finally we arrived at the hotel, tired and still chuckling at our cornfield adventure. We got our room assignments, chucked our suitcases next to our beds, and went to the steakhouse connected to the hotel. Later that night was the conference’s opening ceremony. I had seen photos online of the amazing setup for the National Conference’s Opening Ceremony but it was even more amazing to see in person. The venue was huge, the speakers were amazing, and the lights were spectacular. Not only were the lights affixed to the stage amazing but several groups of people had worn blinking headbands, or other crazy, light-up, head-gear.
Out of all the amazing speakers at the event my personal favourite was the last, and not for the reason you’re thinking! The last speaker was Barrington Irving, the youngest and first black to fly solo around the world. His speech of overcoming all odds and reaching for your dreams was hugely inspirational. This opening speech was only one of many coincidental occasions where aviation popped up during this trip; I will explain the significance of this later on.
Tuesday was one of the two days where we had a large portion of free time. We left the hotel with our semi-trusty GPS and headed to the Kansas City Convention Center; Bartle Hall. Phew! We made it! Maybe the GPS can be rather handy. Several streets were closed off specifically for our event. There were many vendors setup around the outside of the convention center exhibiting their products, and giving away information… And free stuff! I spent the majority of the day walking around the convention center and checking out all the exhibitors. There were a lot of interesting products, many fun interactive demonstrations, and lots and lots of people!
At the appropriate time I reported to my briefing room to meet the contest chairperson, Bill Chenaille, and the competition! I arrived at the room about 20 minutes before we needed to be there and got to talk to a few people. It was fun to scope out the competition as I saw them write their contestant numbers on the back of their prints. Prints… Shoot… I hope we don’t need them yet; mine are back in my hotel. Oh well, what could happen?
The doors finally opened and we went in and sat down. The judges were introduced, along with special guest Bill Fortney; world-renowned nature, sport, and aerial photographer, and Nikon service representative, and we were given a brief plan of what would be going on in the following days. Then the time came and they started to collect the prints. A few people also left theirs at their hotel but... they had called their advisors and they were on their way… They got to me and I was the only one whose prints weren’t on their way. After nervously stating that my prints were back in my hotel they told me that I could bring them in the morning; Phew! Catastrophe avoided. Thankfully I was not the only one who was bringing their prints in the morning. We dispersed and I met up with my advisor and we headed back to the hotel for a good night’s rest.
Wednesday
Prints, Camera, and Laptop in hand we headed back to the convention center. A 20 minute drive from our hotel by the way. Upon arriving I decided to skip the whole ‘search-for-the-group’ deal because I had no idea where we were supposed to meet, and I just headed up to the competition area. I pulled out my cell and called the contest chairperson to tell him where I was, and he told me they’d be up momentarily. In the brief time I had alone there I browsed my opponents’ prints which were already displayed in our competition area. Wow! This was going to be tough!
The group finally came up and we set our laptops in the competition area, those of us that had forgotten our prints the previous evening turned them in now, and then we all headed down to a bus for our field shoot! After A brief ride to a local park we convened in the picnic area to discuss our assignment. Bill Fortney of Nikon talked with us for a brief moment about shape, and how everything in life is made up of shapes. This was our theme; Shoot Shapes!
I took out the one thing I had that I thought not many other would, perhaps one thing that could give me an advantage if used right. My Cactus V2s remote flash triggers. After a few minutes of playing around I determined that while I could get some cool shots, more the most part it was useless. I used them for about 20 minutes and then bagged them and my flash and headed out to find some shapes!
Our deadline was drawing near so I started to head back towards where we began. I got there about 10 minutes before we needed to be so I sat down to rest. Bill Fortney arrived shortly afterwards and we got to talkin’. I drooled over his D3 and 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR as he chuckled over my D50 and ungodly old 50mm f/1.8 without an AF motor… nor a meter! We discussed the gear, and he showed me around the D3, amazing me with its low noise at ISO 3200. ISO 3200 on the D3 is about equivalent to ISO 400 on the D50… Wow!
We all had to turn in our memory cards to make sure we didn’t have any unfair advantages of in-camera editing or image reviewing. We then re-boarded the bus and headed back to the convention center. Upon our arrival in the competition area we setup our laptops and retrieved our memory cards to select our four best photos from the shoot to turn in for judging. We turned in our memory cards again and that was all for today! We left around noon, and had the rest of the day to roam around.
Thursday
Today was the main day of competition. We arrived and setup our laptops, and got our memory cards back again. Today we had several hours to finish the conceptual portion of the competition. This is a free-form competition where you take at least three of the four photos from your field shoot into anything you can imagine! Personally this wasn’t my best. The photos I had chosen were mostly texture type photos and were pretty hard to combine but I did well with what I had.
While we were working on the conceptual portion of the competition we were pulled away to participate in other areas of the competition. We had a written test that tested your knowledge of photography terms and concepts. I got the highest score in the competition on the written test with 90 out of 100. We also had a job interview we had to partake in. Portfolios are optional and you will not be penalized if you do not bring a portfolio. Another portion of the competition was the troubleshooting test. You are presented with several photos and must identify what is wrong with each photo. Examples would be blooming, over sharpening, and posterization. I finished this portion of the test in a matter of seconds, moments later the woman who was watching over this portion came over to me while I was working on my conceptual and quietly congratulated me on getting 100 on this portion.
We also had to color correct a photo. This is done by manipulating the channels of a photo to get the color values of three separate swatches as close to the goal values as you could in 20 minutes. I had never color corrected to this extent before and had to teach myself what to do while I was being judged. I tried several methods before re-reading the instructions. The instructions said to manipulate the channels, and that’s what I did. I switched to the channels one by one and manipulated their brightness/contrast how I saw fit. I soon learned that the brighter white there was in a particular channel, the more of that colour was in the RGB version.
Digital Image Manipulation was another portion of the competition. We were given three separate files and a set of instructions and had to follow the instructions to combine the three images together. There was a landscape, a portrait, and a photo of the moon. These three images had to be combined into a sunset image with the moon appearing behind clouds that were already present in the landscape photo with a cutout of the portrait in the foreground.
The final portion of the competition was the one that I was the most worried about: Studio lighting setup. I had studied a few lighting setups but did not have a great understanding of them and was rather nervous since this was the only portion of the state competition which I totally blew! I had completely forgotten to set the aperture on the camera at states. You know for sure that I won’t forget that this time!!! I entered the closed off studio to find two lights against the wall, a chair, and a camera. I was introduced to the judge Bill G, and to my model. I had to setup split lighting for a head and shoulders shot with the main light at f/11, and the fill light 2 stops below that. I had twenty minutes to complete my setup.
I pulled the chair out to the position I wanted it in, followed by my main light, and then my fill light. I walk around them a few times, adjusted their positions, and then got to setting the power. I asked my model to sit down and took out the light meter. Bill was generous enough to give me a quick overview of the basic operation of the light meter. He demonstrated how to extend and retract the bulb, and then explain the purpose of that. I set my main light to where I thought it might be, and went to take a reading with the bulb retracted, f/16, Need to bring down the power a bit. I lowered it and went back to test again: f/16 again. Bill explained that these lights are self-dumping; however it takes 10 times longer to dump power than to charge it. I learned that after you lower the power you should fire the flash with the test button so that it charges to the new level. I thanked him and took my second reading. f/11.6, I dialed it down a few millimeters and went over to set my fill light.
I turned the dial to where I thought it should be and took a reading with a retracted bulb, f/5.6, perfect! I then extended the bulb on the light meter, placed it in front of the subject, pointed it at the camera, and took my overall reading. This reading is then used to set the shutter speed and aperture on the camera. I framed the subject in the camera and focused the lens. This whole setup had taken me about three minutes… out of twenty… I looked at everything nervously and couldn’t think of anything more to do, so I took a deep breath and depressed the shutter button. About 60 seconds later I had my studio lighting photo on a Polaroid. Not bad!
After I had finished all the portions of the competition I was free to leave. I met up with my advisor and we went back to the hotel. The whole group was heading to an amusement park, World’s of Fun, but I really didn’t want to go. The past two nights I had gotten only a few winks of sleep and I really needed to rest. I didn’t need to be up until 1pm the next day so I figured I’d have a good night’s rest. Our group left for the amusement park at 6:30, I did some work on my laptop, watched some TV, and passed out around 8:30. I woke up the next morning around 7:00.
Friday
Today was the big day. I was thinking I did pretty well, I was hoping on finishing second or third, I had never expected to get first. All of the exhibitors had left the convention center and we had nothing to do today. Our school group split up and my advisor and I went to eat breakfast and find something to do. We stopped at an information booth and were looking at some brochures when we found one for the Airline Museum at Kansas City Airport. We grabbed a map and headed out to find it. We arrived and started our guided tour. We were informed that in just a few moments a young man was going to be speaking to some local students interested in aviation. We suspected that the young man was Barrington Irving, the same young man who spoke at our opening ceremony, but to our surprise it wasn’t. There just happened to be another young pilot visiting the area, and we got to listen to his inspiring story as well.
After our tour we headed back to the convention center for my debriefing which began at 1. We had guessed that it wouldn’t take long and that I would be out by 2:00. At 4:30 I was just leaving.
The debriefing consisted of several video presentations. On Thursday we were also asked to edit and submit 4 photos that we had taken in Kansas City throughout the week. Today we watched a presentation of everyone photos combined. It was amazing seeing all these amazing photos from these amazing photographers in this amazing city. We also saw several presentations from Bill Fortney. He showed us a presentation of his aerial photos from his book he released, he showed us a video presentation featuring inspirational quotes, and he was kind enough to allow us to be the first people to see a sneak preview of his upcoming sequel to his aerial photography book, “America from 500 ft II”.
After everyone else had left the debriefing I stayed and asked Mr. Fortney if he would be kind enough to review my portfolio, and that he did. He complimented me on several of my shots, and kindly explained to me how I could improve others.
Later that night we attended the Awards ceremony. I was sitting up at the top of one of the sections. They were calling out the winners of the competitions and I was getting more and more nervous as they continued. Please let me at least place! All I wanted to do was to place! When they finally called out for photography my heart was pounding. They had been announcing the names of the winners rather fast but once they got to photography it seemed an eternity between the names. 3rd place was called, not me… 2nd place was called… also not me… Now I was scared. All I wanted to do was place, and I may not even have done that… Then they called out “First Place, Justin DiPierro.” My heart must have skipped a beat! I got up and made my way to the floor, then walked to the side of the stage where I saw a lady holding up a sign that said “Photography.” I must have had a smile on my face the size of Missouri. Down at the bottom of the stage I met the other winners, and got congratulated by Bill Chenaille, his wife, and Bill Fortney.
We got up on stage and were ‘presented’ to the rest of the audience. Then we headed to the back of the stage and had our photos taken and were presented with our large boxes of prizes.
We shook hands, and departed our separate ways. I headed up-stairs to the lobby and met up with my advisor, we called back to BOCES and my teacher and told them the good news then departed for a celebratory dinner. I didn’t get to sleep until 1:30 that night, and I had to be up at 3:30 the next morning. Two hours of sleep, and one hour of security later we were boarding the plane to head back home. Finally I could get some good rest.