Final Exam Portraits - Griselda Lourdes

Alamo-Fiesta owner Griselda Lourdes poses with a skull sculpture Tuesday May 5. After her mother Consuelo Perez de Cortes died of a heart attack the same hour her brother Juan Luis Cortes was married, Lourdes left Mexico to help her oldest brother Gerardo Cortes through a depression. The skull symbolizes the Mexican holiday Dia de Los Muertes, a festive celebration that honors dead family members, reminding Lourdes of happier times as a child when her father Juan Cortes I would make candy on November 1 until he died when Lourdes was 23.

Griselda Lourdes talks with a customer on the phone at her shop Alamo-Fiesta on E. Ashby and N. Main Ave Tuesday, May 5. She and her son have owned the shop for seventeen years, which is inside a house built in 1905.

Spring 2009 - One to Remember

Spring 2009 will be one of my most memorable semesters at the j-school. I enjoyed all the laughs and experiences working with everyone at the Ranger and in News Photo I. Although I may not be joining those enrolled in News Photo II next semester, I will not allow myself to somehow be excluded from more good times to come. Hope everyone had as much fun as I have! See you next semester? count on it.











Here's some from the Source Awards:

First Softball Game

Tyler Cleveland/The Ranger

Education sophomore Tiffany Smith runs to third base after coach Sam Gallegos hit an outfielder during their softball game against Lonestar Coin 55, a team of players 55 years old and older, at Kroger Field Wednesday, April 8. The Rangers lost 19-9.

Tyler Cleveland/The Ranger

Business sophomore Juan Borrayo talks with public relations freshman Jennifer Flores and University of San Antonio freshman Jessica Flores in the dugout. Borrayo was upset because the players on the opposing team were talking trash.

Tyler Cleveland/The Ranger

Kinesiology freshman Mary Semerisky bats.

Tyler Cleveland/The Ranger

Psychology sophomore Candace Herrera cheers for her teammates during the 5th inning

Poems of Reflection

There lies a book on my small, overcrowded shelf, its binding tearing and decorations coming unglued further each time I wedge it out to read.

This book is a reflection of past ideas and thoughts which have stayed with me, of original and unoriginal poems collected from my sophomore year in high-school, cataloging the efforts of someone trying to find his place in the world. No matter how many new ventures taken or chapters in my life written, these poems read the same soul-inspiring way they always have.

Since taking up the challenge of becoming a photojournalist, I have been enriched by a lifestyle of constant interaction with everything intrinsic to life, of capturing history and emotion in a tangible form, although the future can sometimes appear too far away for me to grasp.

Throughout such moments of uncertainty or confusion, I have been reassured by my never fading confidence that no matter where I end up, I'll know that I worked my hardest and with the fullest of heart to get there (nobody said it would be easy). And I won't allow myself to be anything less than happy, loving, and grateful, too.

This book of poems reminds me of what I've always known, and reading through it helps remove any doubts or suspicions that my life will somehow be less fulfilled.

On looking back on what could have been:

Summer Storm

We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.

We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.

The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.

To my surprise, you took my arm–
A gesture you didn't explain–
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.

Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.

I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn't speak another word
Except to say goodnight.

Why does that evening's memory
Return with this night's storm–
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?

There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won't stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.

-- Dana Gioia



On the choices made and directions taken in life; my recent (past year) pursuit in becoming a professional photojournalist:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

-- Robert Frost

Rain and Such

Here are some images from this week:


Education sophomore Erika Palacios shelters herself from the rain while heading to class south of Loftin on Thursday, March 26.

Theatre Instructor and Director Ronnie Watson laughs during rehearsals for "The Imaginary Invalid," in McCreless Theatre on Monday, March 23.


Following the light

a long time without dad

It has been a goal of mine to form a collection of images from the Via bus, of the journey people take on their next destination in life. And where that life will take them, the destination is not always known.

While waiting for the Via to arrive, I noticed a woman beginning to change her toddler's diaper on the bench, right as the bus pulled around the corner. "We'll do this on the bus," she said. That was a reminder for me to take out the camera. I did this to look legit, to avoid whipping out my camera from the backpack and just start shooting on the bus, it would look like I take pictures everywhere, that this is what I do.

And it worked. As I sat down behind the woman and her children, a man to the right of me immediately asked, "are you a photographer?!?!"

Knowing the woman in-front of me would overhear, I told him I worked for the paper at San Antonio College, that I have loved meeting people and being let into their lives, and that the Via is especially great for that (he asked a few questions). He just nodded and I looked up at the woman as she began changing the diaper, exchanging smiles before I took the first shot. No awkwardness, it was great.



Great until I began asking her where she was coming from (as I often ask people), and to hear her reply, "actually, I'm on my way home from the court house. My husband got locked up for two years off a dope charge."

Shocked, I paused momentarily, shoving out a sighed "wow...man."

"yep," she said. "Two years."

At this point, her daughter was jumping up and down on the seats, yelling out the loudest screams after her mom told her to sit down. She handed Precious McGaritty over to her mother in-law in the mobile chair.

I would learn that all five of the children with this woman were her children. "They're a handful," she said, kissing her fifteen month-old Sapphire on the cheek.



"You have a lot of patience," I told her. "And you've got two boys there to help," this being the most I could say before she would pull the "stop request" cord. She looked at her sons and smiled, "yeah, I do."

"Is daddy going to be gone a long time?" her son asked anxiously. "Yes," she said while exiting the bus, "a long time, a long time."


Anita Davilla, 8, and fifteen months-old Sapphire gaze into the camera lens while riding the Via home with their mother (name withheld) on Monday, March 23. The family of five was returning home from the courthouse downtown, their father sentenced to two years in federal prison after a drug related felony.

Guitar Hero and Ashes

These are some images from a few weeks back, a history professor who wants to start a guitar hero tournament at school, and an Ash Wednesday service given by the Catholic Student Center.

History instructor Sean Duffy jams with his Guitar Hero controller in Chance Academic Center on Monday, Feb. 23. Duffy challenges students and faculty members to play with him and hopes a Guitar Hero Tournament can take place.

Counselor Enrique Velasquez receives a cross-shaped ash mark by Catholic Campus Minister Joseph Liedecke during an ecuminical Ash Wednesday service given by the United Methodist and Catholic Campus Ministries in the Visual Arts Center on Wednesday, Feb 25. Ash Wednesday marks the first day of Lent with fasting and repentance. The ashes come from the burned palm tree leaf crosses of last years Palm Sunday.

Jeff Corwin Visits SAC

I had a blast shooting Jeff Corwin (from Animal Planet) at my school last week. Had fun meeting him in person and laughing with the audience during the performance.


Sell-out crowd


Holding her stuffed-animal snakes, Linbsey Kastner, 5, and her mom Amy Kastner, enter McCallister Auditorium befor seeing Jeff Corwin on Friday, Feb 27. Calling herself Jeff Corwin's biggest fan, Kastner's said snakes are her favorite animal.

Jasmine Brown, 10, tries to stay dry as a Cane Toad unexpectedly pees in the hands of Jeff Corwin

Andrew Esteves, 14, gestures for the crowd to be quiet while Jeff Corwin and herpetologist Michael Ralbovsky bring out a water monitor lizard to surprise him.

Sebastian Gilbert, 6, hoists the tail of an eight-foot American Alligator

Elementary education sophomore Celia Ramirez braces herself as Jeff Corwin and herpetologist Michael Ralbovsky lower an albino Burmese Python into her arms in McCallister on Friday, Feb 27. Native to southeast asia, the Burmese Python is one of the largest snakes in the world. Although the snake fears humans, Corwin reminded the audience of its strength of constricting and swalling man-sized prey.

One from the home

Travels to the Capitol

Here are some images from my drive up to the Capitol in Austin a few weeks back.

Getting ready to report


the points of the star are eight feet apart!

Lunch delivery

Donuts for Portraits

So I spent maybe five minutes of thinking about how I would complete the "portrait assignment" in my News Photography class. For what compelled me to think about donuts, I have no idea, but as soon as the idea popped in my head, I knew it would work. I could now fall asleep, knowing that tomorrow morning would be spent in Shipley's Donuts off Bandera Rd and Loop 4-10, photographing those delving donuts to working America.

Arriving to see a group of old men talking over coffee and pastries, I walked inside Shipley's and greeted the family working there. Chanthea Chem and her father Chheng Sok moved to Texas from Cambodia twenty years ago, and have been working at Shipley's out of Houston before moving to San Antonio.

Their energetic and enthusiastic attitude about the job is what made my photographs. You could tell, these people really enjoyed serving Donuts and Coffee to people, and were thankful for the opportunity to work, although it didn't seem like just a "job"for them.

After spending an hour of my morning with them, I decided to bring back a dozen for the newsroom. Chem offered that I take them without paying, but I insisted on tipping them five dollars at least.

I look forward to printing out a photo for them to post in the restaurant, and maybe splurge on some of the tastiest donuts ever, too.


Chanthea Chem and her father Chheng Sok serve pastries at Shipley's Donuts at Bandera and Loop 4-10 on Tuesday, March 3. Chem and Sok came to Texas from Cambodia twenty years ago.

Express News Lay-offs

Mark Sobhani, photojournalist for the San Antonio-Express News

Photojournalists provide an intimate view of the unique lives and world they are surrounded by, hoping that their images instill an emotional response in viewers, a compassion for humanity or awe-inspiring recognition of witnessing history. All journalists with cameras desire that their photographs be reciprocated by the viewer and society as essential and necessary, for being the truthful eyes of the world, the watchdog providing factual and historical information. We take pictures to tell the stories of others, and by doing so, share a portion of our own experiences in life.

The San Antonio Express-News laid off 135 employees last week, seventy-five of those working journalists in the newsroom. This was a wide-spread cut, including some of my most admired photographers.

I heard about papers around the country cutting jobs, and wasn't sure if the Express-News would soon follow. I heard about the lay offs when a KSAT 12 news crew showed up at the Ranger newsroom, interviewing my co-workers about how they felt working in a "dying field." This upset me, and I, too, found myself asking why I was working tirelessly everyday, motivated by my growing yet fragile passions, to work as a professional photojournalist.

I have big dreams, dreams I have needed to think long and hard about to make them dreams, to make sure this is something I really want to do. And amidst the terrible news and the feelings I carry, like I'm up against the world who has mostly forgotten to care about newspapers, I have been forced to take my life's dreams into much greater consideration. This isn't a totally bad thing, however, as it has made me begin forming a more concrete plan of what I really want in life and what I need to do to get there.

I still want to be a photographer, preferably a photojournalist, maybe a sports shooter, but never an exclusively wedding/portrait photographer. I have passions in the medical/nutrition field, and I have gone so far as to rethinking my life's career in these terms, treating photography like a hobby. But when I think seriously about that, it doesn't feel right. I take great pride and joy in helping people, and have always felt that the best way for anyone to live is by making a positive impact on people's lives and the world around them. But I need variety and change, a way to express my creativity. I want to be able to travel and experience the world, to really experience it, like no tourist can. And I have been reassured that my images can provide a lasting impression on people's lives, in their own vision and response to the world.

I don't believe photographs in news media will ever go away, there will always be a need for news photos as visual aids to stories. It's the community's value for print media and stories that are less "big" news and more local, human issues, that has brought me back to the drawing board, to form a backup plan and decide roughly what steps I should take. I don't know what will become of the newspaper industry in ten years, and can only guess that they will further be moved online. Photographs will travel with the news, how and wherever it ends up being told.

You can read MySA.com's article on the lay offs here


Courtesy of Mystand.com