Ally’s Class Blog

Mike Dixon has been the pastor of Albany Missionary Baptist Church for about 25 years or so. I chose to use him as the subject for my photo story because people really only see him for his pastor role unless they know him quite well. I chose to take this opportunity to get a look into his day-to-day life when he’s not behind the pulpit. When he’s not hunting or hiking or preaching, he is sitting in his chair with his dog at his feet, watching a U of O basketball or football game.  Due to Covid-19, Dixon has been under a lot of stress in the event that he has continuously tried every solution to make it possible for the church to meet. He goes to the building every day and teaches to sets of 10 people for 45 minutes each. He is there from 8am to 7pm every Sunday in order to get through every group of ten people until the church is allowed to meet again in full capacity.  Mike absolutely loves hunting. He hunts all over the place, mainly Eastern Oregon. About th...

Although most of the other students are probably going to talk about the scary or horrifying stories as ones that stood out to them, I actually plan to take this a completely different route. One of the stories that stood out to me the most is the story of balancing the bond between her love for her job and her love for Uxval. And when I say that it stands out, I mean that quite literally. Compared to all of her other more depressing or even thrilling stories, it seemed so out of place to talk about something as trivial as a boyfriend back home, but at the same time, it was the perfect story to tell. It made her more real to me. It made her seem like any other woman who had someone back home that she missed and even though she was a brave photographing machine, inside she was still a person with feelings and emotions. Addario talks quite a bit about how she would always love her job more than she could possibly love any man or person, and it shows her complete dedication and passion f...