Cenizo Journal Fall 2010 | Page 16

Photo essay by Barbara Richerson W orking as a photographer for Sul Ross State Univer - sity provided so many photo ops. My students and I covered just about everything connected with the university. We shot sports, theater productions, university events and classes and labs and photographed a number of well-known people along the way. In the 80s and 90s, the job was accomplished with Nikon manual cameras and black and white lab work. Starting in 2003, we used Canon digi- tal cameras and Adobe Photoshop. The object was to get the picture that told the story and sparked an interest in the viewer. Often we needed to tell the story with a single picture. Here are some of the shots I got along the way. Shooting a hot air balloon rally is exhilarating. I like to get there as the sun rises and walk around and around as the crews inflate the balloons and get them in the air. They are huge and beautiful, fragile but powerful, and there are so many views to catch. One of my favorites is shooting through the open- ing, sometimes getting the burst of flame, sometimes a silhouette of the crew working. Looking for that one perfect shot drives me on, year by year. 16 Cenizo Fourth Quarter 2010