3rd Ward Photo Instructor Jackie Snow on Nonstop Learning

I recently bought my first DSLR, and I knew I was never going to really get to know it just by reading the manual (which I didn't want to do anyway). I took photography classes in college, but that was back when people still shot with film and my darkroom skills weren't going to help me figure out all my camera's bells and whistles on my new T2i, especially if I was in a bind trying to get a shot. So I signed up for 3rd Ward's Learn Your Digital Camera class, taught by photography Jackie Snow. Not only is she a wiz at the all the technical stuff I was struggling to understand, she's a talented photography with an incredible eye for color. 

Jackie started out as a reporter at her college newspaper. "I hated the photos that went with my articles," she said. "I thought I could do a better job. So I picked a story last minute that was too far away for a photographer to get to easily and brought a camera and took my own photos. I've taken a few classes but I'm mostly self-taught. Preparing for my 3rd Ward class actually made me cement some photo knowledge I had taken for granted."

For the last two years she's been documenting Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, a project she references as one of her most gratifying. "I get to be outside, stealing cherry tomatoes and taking lovely photos. [The photos] are also getting picked up by a variety of publications so its pretty exciting to see a project I've worked on for two years in print."

Currently, Jackie's studying CUNY's Graduate School of Journalism. She aims to be a more "well rounded journalist. It would be nice to make it through that program alive," she said. "It does not always feel like a certainty." She also sees some exotic travel in her future. "I want to get published in The New York Times, and if it happened to be photos of Fiji for the travel section, I wouldn't mind."

Meanwhile, here's a couple more of Snow's shots, but get yourself over to her site for the full shebang.

-- Perrin Drumm