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Josh Doby: A Lens for All Reasons
by Katherine Bolton
Many students have seen Freshman Josh Doby walking around campus or at a Mars Hill event taking pictures for student publications such as The Laurel and The Hilltop.
But Josh's photography is known beyond Mars Hill College. His photograph of a common green brier species of the genus Smilax won a young photographer's award sponsored by the North Carolina Division of Wildlife and was published in the January 2008 edition of Wildlife of North Carolina magazine.
"Other people were more excited than I was," he said, "but it was great."
Green Briar (click to enlarge)
Click for Bird Gallery
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It took him 45 minutes to an hour to get the perfect lighting for the picture. He applied for the award two years ago.
Josh most loves to take pictures of birds. For his senior project in high school he took pictures of 100 different bird species in North Carolina. Josh says "The book (of bird pictures) was to show what we would lose if the Navy built an outlying landing field near coastal North Carolina wildlife refuges."
He took one third to one half of the photos for his book at the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge. "I was very careful to not photograph any bird in captivity." He went to national forests or wildlife refuges or to the habitats for specific birds.
To get his shots, he played the waiting game. He would set up and wait for the birds to come. "The birds were already there," says Josh. "I just slowly got closer and closer to the birds to allow for a frame-filling shot." Then he had to identify all the different birds by using books and his own knowledge.
He has a life list of about 200 birds that he has seen and identified. "More than 10 species can be seen every day right here at Mars Hill,'" says Josh. "There are doves and Eastern bluebirds and starlings and robins, American crows, cardinals, Carolina wrens, northern mocking birds, sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, ruby-throated humming birds, and sharp-shinned hawks.
"Just the other day I saw a hawk attack a robin in front of Renfro Library." He has spotted quite a bit of wildlife on campus too. "A groundhog lives by the tennis courts, and some skunks have a burrow near Huffman."
Josh has broken the myth that young photographers have a hard time finding jobs. A very interesting job found him. He takes pictures of people's faces for use with autistic children.
"People with autism have trouble with empathy and cannot relate to how the person is feeling," says Josh. They have to learn how to recognize facial expressions and how to tell the difference between them. They might see a disgusted face and think it is a confused face.
So Josh has taken photos of people's faces showing different emotions. The photos are used in games that help the children learn to identify the expressions.
The idea of using photographs to help autistic children learn what most children learn instinctively comes from a psychologist named Paul Ekman, whom many consider the world expert on facial expression. Ekman, however charges around $175 for just a few of his pictures. This is why an educational game developer named "Do 2 Learn" hired Josh for his photography skills.
Josh has taken pictures of 174 different models, 23 of them Mars Hill students. He first photographed the six basic emotions distinguished by Ekman. These are: happy, sad, disgusted, afraid, angry, and surprised. Then he had to photograph six more emotions: ashamed, bored, confused, worried, silly, and interested.
The photos are used in video games for autistic children. The game for "afraid" has scuba divers swimming toward the screen with different expressions superimposed on their faces. When a player clicks on the face that shows "fear," that scuba diver is sucked out of the water. They have to recognize the expression to win. The game called "Face Land" is meant for children under ten.
Josh carries his studio with him. He has set up in Spilman and even in the kitchen of Huffman. He directs his models. If he wants them to look "confused," for example, he tells them to pull the eyebrows to the center and up and drop the jaw.
He had to plan ahead so the pictures would all be the same size and proportion. He also uses Photoshop to make sure everything is sized the same and proportional. The work can be quite tedious but he says he enjoys it.
He prefers shooting birds.
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