Blog | Jakob Berr Photography

Earlier this week, I joined Aidan and his parents during an appointment at the audiologist where his hearing spectrum was tested. The test went really well and with his implants, Aidan is able to hear the entire spectrum of human speech.

Aidan sits in a sound booth with his parents while the audiologist plays a number of sounds that he has to hear. When Aidan can hear them, he drops a chip into the grid of a four-in-a-row game.

After the successful testing, the audiologist goes over the results with Aidan’s parents. I love the moment between Aidan and his father in this picture…

For my final projects in both the Electronic Photojournalism and the Picture Story class, I’m working on a story on the Moog School in Columbia. Moog is a school for deaf and hearing impaired children that uses highly specialized educational techniques in combination with cutting-edge hearing technology to teach hearing impaired children how to listen and talk. To give the story a more personal touch, I’m focussing on one kid and his family. Aidan is two years old and lost his hearing at age four months through a meningitis. He got a cochlear implant soon after and is now able to hear the entire spectrum human speech. To get en impression of what it is like to hear with a cochlear implant, check out the website of the House Ear Insititute. Here are some of my first pictures that I took at the school last week.

Deaf educator Jessie and Aidan play a fishing game where Aidan has to recognize and say what is on the pictures that he catches with his magentic fishing pole.

During individual pull-out hours, Jessie works one-on-one with the kids. She tests their hearing and plays games that are designed to improve their pronounciation and language skills.

Jessie tests Aidan’s hearing by pronouncing six sounds covering the entire spectrum of human speech through a screen so that he can’t read her lips. If Aidan repeats the sounds correctly it means that his cochlear implants are working properly.

In the morning, the teachers and children gather in a circle and sing a song for every child that is present. Every activity at the school is designed to practice language and pronounciation.

During one of the “warm-up” games in the morning.

One of the educators adjusts a child’s cochlear implant.

Story time.

Kids play outside during play-time.

For our Electronic Photojournalism Class, we had to do another video assignment. I used this opportunity to experiment for the first time with a D-SLR as a video camera instead of a regular camcorder and shot my room mate Tim (a Ph. D. student in neuro sciences) while he was dissecting one of his lampreys in his lab. To get really close to the specimen on the microscope stage, I used a 60mm macro lens, which made holding the camera still quite difficult as I could not shoot from a tripod most of the time. Nevertheless, I really like the quality and the look of the result. Granted, I screwed up majorly because most of the takes are shaky, but nevertheless I just love the shallow depth of field and the feeling of the images. And a small table tripod next time will take care of the camera movement. I guess I will do more video with D-SLRs in future…

A couple of weeks ago, I photographed Derek Kewley, a member of the Columbia Rocket Club (CRC) preparing one of his rockets for the one-day story assignment in our Picture Story and Photographic Essay course. Ever since then, we’ve been waiting for a stretch of good weather that would allow the farmers to bring in their crop so that the rocketeers could access their launch field. Today, the big day had finally arrived.

At 10.45 am we headed out for the field near Sturgeon, where Mark Grant, the director of the club, was already preparing the launch pads. There were about ten to fifteen people out there, and a hell of a lot of rockets in all shapes and sizes. One guy even had rockets in coffee table and cubicle shapes. Anyway, long story short: It was amazing. Here’s what I got:

Derek Kewley closes the doors of his trailer full of rockets before heading out to the launch field.

Derek Kewley and Mark Grant carry another CRC member’s rocket and equipment to the launch pad. It’s a so-called hybrid rocket that is fuelled by propellants in two different states of matter. The stuff in the tank that Mark carries is nitrous oxide. The rocket went off with a gigantic roar, but unfortunately it broke apart in mid-flight and came down “ballistic” (the rocketeers’ way of saying that it crashed into the ground without a parachute…).

One of Derek’s rockets during launch. It reached an altitude of 2,194 ft.

Mark Grant, left, and Mark Brown, of Kansas City, watch Brown’s rocket climb after they launched it.

From left, Derek Kewley, his step-daughter’s friend Brooke and his step-daughter Brittany prepare a small rocket for launch. Like for me, this was Brooke’s first time at a rocket launch.

Final adjustments before the launch…

Derek’s wife Les, his step-daughter’s friend Brooke, and Derek watch a rocket fly.

Mark Grant helps Derek put a rocket on the guide rail of the launch pad.

And then it was time for the big one. Derek and another CRC member carry Derek’s Dragon Claw to the launch pad…

…slide it onto the guide rail…

…adjust it, and…

…BOOOOOOOMMMM!!!!!! I was laying about 30 feet away on the ground when this one went off, and frankly, it was impressive. I ruined my pants and shirts laying in the muddy field, but this shot was totally worth it.