Women in Photojournalism Competition

Worth looking in to, definitely worth attending if you can ...

CALL FOR ENTRIES
For the
Women in Photojournalism Photojournalism Conference
“Expanding our Vision”
Photography Contest
*The Entry Deadline is July 1st, Please Enter Today*

There are no categories, only your interpretation of the theme. Your photographs
can represent your definition of the theme through people, place, action
or event milestone. Each photograph is a single entry. Submissions must be by women photographers. No stories, just single images that fit the conference theme "Expanding our Visions."

Photos must have been taken between July 1, 2006 and July 1, 2007.
Up to 50 winning images will be selected by judges including up to 2 best of show. Winners will be contacted and asked to submit an exhibit quality 14x18 print matted, for the opening reception Saturday August 18th. Copyright holders retain rights to the photograph. NPPA will have the right to print winners in the magazine or on the official website for conference for promotional materials.

"That's going to leave a mark ..."

Good journalism is good journalism. And when it involves killer flying fish, well, you just have to watch ... (okay, not killer, but they could certainly maim you)

Thanks to Poynter's Al Tompkins for the link.

Why Newspapers are in Trouble

First, go read this.

Now, think about it.

Does it hurt yet? Because I keep looking at the date to see if it's April 1 or something ... is there any actual news here?

If I call up the paper and say, oh, I don't know ... "I'm creating a new automobile company, based in Bogart, and if we get the investors lined up, we could employ about 100 people." And then we could get my friend Scott Schamp to say, "If you want to produce professional cars, it's going to be a very expensive endeavor. But why even do it out of Bogart? There's no talent base there. Most car companies are based out of Detroit, Maranello and Tokyo for a reason, because that's where all the talent pools are,"

Whatever happened to, "GET ME REWRITE!"

To Text or Not to Text

Okay, this is way off topic - but there's some good journalism that can be done.

Over on MousePrint.org (a great blog that looks at the ways consumers get ripped off by things in the "mouse print"), they're talking about the text messaging charges television viewers can get hit with when playing along with some game shows. It brings up the question as to whether some of these are becoming lotteries run by companies - and that NBC's "Deal or No Deal" doesn't allow Georgia residents to play because of an ongoing lawsuit.

Grady's (Visual) Anatomy

For the last week I've been elbow deep in high school kids. Everywhere I look, there's another one.

Which is okay, because this was the Georgia Scholastic Press Associations' annual journalism camp - this year called "Grady's Anatomy." I've helped the GSPA with some workshops in the past, but I did the full tour this year, teaching ten students as much as I could about photojournalism in five days.

In a few hours, this audio slide show (put together with Audacity and SoundSlides) will be shown to all the students at their wrap-up banquet. You can take a peak now. Excepting the lead in and last few photos, this is all shot by them. They did the interviews, too, and started the audio editing.

Let me know what you think ...

My Dream Job ... Has Been Taken

There is one book that changed my life more than almost anything else. It convinced me to be a journalist, it reenforced my wandering habits. It taught me that good stories don't come from good writers, they come from great subjects. William Least Heat Moon's "Blue Highways" was loaned to me when I was a very impressionably 16-year-old and I reread it regularly.

Least Heat Moon had lost his job and his wife, so he sold everything, bought a 1970s Ford Econoline ("the basic plumbers model") and headed out on the blue highways on a "journey into the heart of America."

Now, Matt Gross at the New York Times has begun a three-month journey around America, telling his stories online through photos and videos. The video work is good - not great. He's using a tripod to keep people from bouncing around in the frame (or his image stabilization package is stunningly good), but he could use a talk about light ...

I'm so jealous ...

And speaking of Flickr ...

Imagine you're 14-years-old and post a self-portrait of yourself on Flickr. A few years later, you find it on the cover of a pornographic DVD.

So, you have a copyright violation AND a problem with missappropriation of her likeness. Probably not a child endangerment or pornography charge, though. But the producer's response is ... well, let's just say it says a lot about people working in the porn industry.

Seadragon and Photosynth

Another video presentation from the TED conference earlier this year. A Microsoft initiative, Seadragon and Photosynth can link photos from different photographers of the same place to create hyper-real navigatible views of locations. (Video runs about eight minutes)

Okay, so there are some copyright concerns here (they're scraping photos out of Flickr), but the ability to recreate something lost based on multiple photos is, well ... cool.

Twins with Lukemia

Former student Andy McFee has spent the last six months interning at the Chattanooga Times Free Press (one of the best photojournalism internships in the country, but don't bother applying - it's only for UGA students ...). He worked on a story looking twin boys who were diagnosed with leukemia a few weeks apart. It's a simple presentation, and it needs a little tweaking, but the content is nicely done.

A Little Late for This Year ...

But bookmark this site for next year - the Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, Va. I'll probably see you there ...

(Slightly) Off the Grid

But only slightly.

Over on Subtraction.com, Khoi Vinh talks about web design and the grid - and bumping off of it ever so slightly. For those coming out of the recent graphic design Maymester class, take a look at how he uses the grid to design his web site. Look familiar?

Students: Store This Away for August

Everyone else, read it now and start practicing.

Marc Andreessen has put together a list of things to do to become more productive. Given that "multitasking" is now a must for everyone, finding a way to control our time is critically important. And with the total invasion of computers into our lives, we need to find ways to manage not just time but content, as well.

I fully admit to the email endorphin-rush problem - I check it constantly. Three minutes until class starts? I've got time to check it, because there may be something critically important my students need me to bring to class there. (Like I could ever consume and regurgitate something of value in three minutes, but this is my television past coming out - it needs to get out there now!)

For students, getting into good workflow habits will help you tremendously. A colleague refers to his class as a "non-linear learning experience." (His way of saying he'll be making this up as he goes along.) But, really, you have five professors, a boss and maybe a couple of newspaper editors all telling you their work is the most important work of the semester - how do you balance that? (Better yet, how do you tell everyone else that your photojournalism work is the most important work?) If you don't have a system in place, it can turn into a nightmare.

Post Script: Don't forget to take a look at this post on a site about managing your academic life.

From the "Why Didn't I Think of That:" Strobe on a Rope

Over at The Strobist, there's a neat way of using what you've got to get better light during outdoor shoots.

And, not to plug Nikon gear any more than necessary, but with my D200 and an SB800 I don't need the synch cord anymore - the D200 has a "commander" mode that will completely control an SB800 or SB600 in manual or TTL mode. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet.

PostHasteScript: Lighting 102 begins today there, too.

Respect at 40

The Detroit Free Press has put together a package looking at the 40th anniversary of the release of Aretha Franklin's "Respect." (Which was a cover of an Otis Redding song, which I did not know.)

There are a lot of different sources in the main story - from her son to colleagues to academics. It flows fairly well, though (and this is an interface issue) I really wish there was a countdown timer so I knew how much more time I needed to devote to the whole package.

Ethics Discussion at the NPPA Photojournalism Summit

The National Press Photographers Association has been having their Photojournalism Summit in Portland, Ore., this week. In addition to a multimedia bootcamp (some of the stories done are online), there was also a panel discussion on ethics in the industry - and it sounds like it was a little bleak. John Long, who has been a long-time commentator on ethics in the photojournalism world, summed it up well:

If you can't use the picture as it is, don't use it.

Seems simple enough, why can't we get that idea across?

Additionally, there was a second ethics conversation for the multimedia world (though I think Long's comment above still fits), and the audio for that is now available, too. (May want to download that and drop it on your iPod or MP3 player.)