Cher Phillips
Views on online media and journalismArchive for October, 2007
Kobre C & D — tagged to remember
Section C
Photo Story
Oh, the boob pictures upset me. I call the Kobre book “the Butt book” in my office, because it seems like the danged thing has someone’s naked rear end, or other part is every chapter. Not that I’m complaining. But I’m also excited to get books in the mail and opened this book in the McIntosh Post Office. I was flipping through it and page 86 fell open showing the full page image of the kid playing with the other kid’s bottom. There were little old ladies in the post office with me, and I had to slam the book shut before someone in town dubbed me a sicko for looking at nekkid kid pics in the post office.
Anyway. The breast cancer pictures chapter 8 really worked me over. The crack babies in chapter 4, along with the torture victim on page 74 were up there on my I-have-to-look-but-I-need-to-cringe-while-I-do-it list. I think the thing I like about photojournalism is its raw honesty. Even the nekkid parts. I hope we never get to a place as a society where we don’t put that out there, or put ourselves out there, because we’re so afraid of upsetting the readership.
Newspeg. This is what I feel like our soundslides are missing. It doesn’t feel like journalism to me with out a newspeg of some kind. Maybe soundslide three will feel different since there’s an issue involved.
Motel Dad. I’ve seen this online, but the images in the web package didn’t include some of the images in this photo project.
Section D
Lighting: I always wondered why they sold photographic filters. I knew that anything I took under fluorescents came out kind of green and had to be corrected in Photoshop. Although, I have to admit that I would have to have a key to carry around to figure out what filter goes with what type of light. I also never realized that normal lightbulbs are called tungsten bulbs.
Web: Do platypuses have pouches? I looked them up on Wikipedia but couldn’t tell. From the reading… if a journalist is going to fill so many roles as a platypus does, it sure would be nice to have a pouch to carry around all this crap in. It makes me a little scared to learn video.
Law: I love the graphic on page 281 of where is OK to shoot and where it is not. I need to print that out and put it on the other side of the “what filter to use” sheet. Kobre wrote, “Press passes entitle you to nothing.” Just because you’ve got the clearance to shoot it doesn’t make it legal. Having no OFFICIAL press credentials… this sentence made me feel a little better after reading the first tip for avoiding jail, which is to always carry your press creds.
Digital Darkroom: I learned Photoshop when I was still at SFCC by working the overnight shift at Target Copy. You wouldn’t think that’d be a great way to learn it, but you’d be amazed at how fast you pick up how to fix miscellaneous issues in PR campaign projects at 3 a.m. so they’ll print right. Everything else has been self-learned trial and error. I never picked apart an image to correct like the book shows in the step-by-step guide. But I’m going to give this a try, I think.
And, oh yeah, cropping — I always need to be reminded to crop aggressively.
Soundslide Critiques
1. Is there a real story?
Per se, no. But I do think the soundslide illustrated well how and why the interviewee works or the Free Student Bike Repair.
2. Explain… For instance, when Ian was talking about racing bikes, I found that I wanted to see him work on his, or ride in different scenarios like commuting and racing. Although, this might have pulled away from the focus of the bike repair shop.
3. I don’t think that Curt’s intro could be a traditional hook to a storyline, no. But again, it’s serves the purpose of helping us identify Ian throughout the rest of the piece.
4. Ian introducing himself explains who he is, but it’s not necessarily the kind of lede that grabs you.
5. Yes, I liked the ending, and it did have a firm closing feel to it.
6. I think the close in part because of the image of Ian and a woman from the back walking away, accompanied with the audio track indicating that bikes were going to be part of his life for a long period of time. Kind of a feel-good ending.
7. I think this story overlapped between campus life and profile mainly because we don’t leave campus in the telling of the story, which makes this differentiation kind of difficult. So, roughly: this story is 30 percent about bike repair and 70 percent about a bike mechanic.
8. Perhaps another way of focusing on the story rather than capturing a sense of the bike repair service, which Curt does very well with his photos, would have been to ask Ian more questions about what day-to-day life is like repairing bikes and include a greater percentage of those comments in the interview. How did he learn to fix bikes? What was the worst bike repair he’s ever had to take on working there? I also would have like to hear some bike wheels spinning and other clicking-clacking bike sounds.
9. As hokey as this might sound, I’m really digging the sound quality of his interview and the smooth editing.
Spread Out
The University of Florida Policy Debate Squad Captain Amanda Kelly explains the challenges of policy debate, including spreading — a debate technique of accelerated speaking that’s three or four times faster than normal speech. Kelly shares how being part of the UF Debate Team formed her experience as a UF student.
Click on the image to view a Soundslide focusing on the policy squad.
Photographer tackles suspect: what would you do?
I know this is revisiting the ethics issue, but I saw this video on CNN.com this morning about a Maine photojournalist Russ Dillingham, who jumped into an assignment and tackled a man running from the police.
John Roberts mentions a Maine state statute that says citizens are required to oblige if police order them to assist in catching or keeping a suspect from escaping. Interestingly enough, the photographer said he wasn’t aware of that law but was cognizant of his ethical responsibility to not become involved in something he’s reporting on.
I also thought it was interesting that the suspect later contacted the photographer wanting to know why Dillingham helped the police catch him. The suspect told the photographer he would have fought him off if he’d known he wasn’t a cop and wouldn’t have faced charges of assaulting an officer.
Check out the video. What would you do in his shoes?
Fresh eyes, story shape
In class last week, Brittany and I pulled up our Photo 1 assignments, excited to showing someone else the images we’d collected.
My subject is the UF Policy Debate team. When I was picking the images for Photo 1, my criteria in choosing each picture was “Does this tell me something about the team?”
To me, all the images seemed very different.
But I realized this didn’t necessarily come across the same way to someone who wasn’t there when I was taking the pictures. It really hit home when I showed Brittany the pictures I’d taken. I knew what the team members were doing in the images because I’d been there.
Mindy had sent some great feedback that caught some things I needed to collect in later shoots to have a better final package. One point was a good number of my images were taken from the same distance.
Most of the pictures were of students were standing here and there from the mid-thigh on up. I shot the images in two sessions for Photo 1. The first was while the team was packing up their evidence for a tournament one night, and the second caught them packing the van the next day. Each of the four squad members packs a giant Rubbermaid tub full of accordion folders with evidence from news clippings and articles on a central theme. They each prepare a 10 minute argument that they read like an auctioneer, which they call spreading. I chose this subject because I had absolutely no understanding of this kind of debate and the spreading sounds cool.
But sounding cool doesn’t necessitate a variety of images.
In the following image, they’re preparing evidence. I chose it because of the flurry of movement with the paper.
One of the problems with debaters is that they don’t seem to be sitting down very much. They’re packing or arguing. Shooting and recording a practice debate the other day, I overheard their coach correct them and ask them why they shouldn’t sit when they’re cross examining an argument. The answer: sitting puts the person standing in the room in a power position.
I ran into some challenges with the size of the room. There were some pictures I took from the center of the room that I just don’t think I’ll be able to use because I was in the reflection in the window.
Debate doesn’t have that many dangers. But paper cuts can be one of them. On that same note, there’s not a ton of variety of action for debaters. So, I was pleased to catch Amanda nursing a nasty paper cut. Although, she wasn’t too happy about it.
The good thing about the timing for the Photo 1 assignment was that I had a chance to go back and get some of the detail shots and some variety that Mindy mentioned I would need at a later photo shoot. I was able to get some close up detailed shots of the coach’s timer during the debate. Time is a key element in their work, so my hope is to be able to weave that into the slide show later.
So far, I’ve collected about 1,800 images. I’ve figure out that I cull them down by viewing them in the Windows viewer. Anything that works for me, I pull into a file I call “decent.” Then, I use screen shots to print a thumbnail sheet on 11 X 17 black and white paper. After that, I circle the ones I want to tell a story. I can number them and scribble outside the lines with paper.
Soundwise, I’ve collected about two and a half hours of practice debate, which will serve as ambient sound. Due to the team’s travel schedule, I’m still waiting on my main interview with the team captain.
I feel a little unsure because the shape of the story is still not very clear to me. I don’t know how to explain this in any other way. When I write, I can feel the shape of the story in my head, logically and stylistically. At times, when I’ve been unsure of the story shape like I am now, it’s a signal that I need do to more reporting.
I’m hoping after I get my audio logged and the photos organized, this feels like it’s got more of a shape.
Cher Phillips 