Students at Work ... Sort Of

It's that time of the semester. Old cameras in new hands, learning where the buttons are and what they do. Time to take the intro students on a brief walk-about, make them shoot ... well, nothing, really. Just get used to metering and focusing and firing off frames. 

There is nothing I can do in the classroom that will make them better at this than forcing them to shoot. Experience is not the best teacher, it is the only teacher when you're starting out. 

What have you shot today?

Southern Short Course in News Photography

The Southern Short Course in News Photography is coming up quickly - next week in Charlotte, N.C. See me about going and we'll help group folks to head up. 

17th annual Southwestern Photojournalism Conference

FYI ...

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is excited to host the 17th annual Southwestern Photojournalism Conference, Feb. 27 - March 1, 2009. The conference, supported by Christians in Photojournalism, benefits those who believe photojournalism is a calling and the act of bearing witness is essential. This year's speakers include Scott Strazzante, staff photographer for the Chicago Tribune; Bill Fortney of Nikon Professional Services; and Bob Carey, NPPA President and professor at Gardner-Webb University; as well as other experts in the field of photojournalism.

Register by January 31, 2009, for a $40 discount. Limited guest rooms are available at Southwestern's Riley Center (www.swbts.edu/RileyCenter), so make your reservations now. Portions of this year's event are sponsored by Canon, Nikon, and Chick-fil-A. Nikon Professional Services will be on site providing camera clean and checks. Additional conference information regarding registration, speakers and conference news, can be found at www.swpjc.org. We look forward to seeing you there.

Another (Former) Student Winner

From the in box ...

After Lindy (Dugger's) good news about scoring 2nd place for spot news in NPPA's monthly clip contest, I realized that I had placed third in NPPA's monthly multimedia contest! First place went to the The New York Times and second went to the St. Petersburg Times. Check me out. [Ed's. note: Lindy seems to have placed in third, but on two occasions ...]

I'm under the "Team Audio Slideshow" category because the reporter grabbed about 5 seconds of audio that I used...oh well.

iMovie Image Stabilization

The latest version of Apple's iMovie now has software image stabilization - and the results are, well, dramatic. 

I don't know how this works, I don't know if it's seriously degrading the quality or if it's better or worse than in-camera stabilization. But it is cool ... 

Streaming Video Hits New Records

CNN.com reports that Tuesday's presidential inauguration shattered records for online video streaming with 7.7 million people watching the event. 

(For the record, I wasn't one of them as I couldn't get the feed to load ... grr ...)

New View of the Inauguration

It may seem simple, but it means a lot to be able to get something different from a Presidential Inauguration. Chuck Kennedy managed to do it, with a low and wide remote shot from Tuesday's event.

UGA PJer in DC

Documentary Photography student Rachel Bailey has skipped out on class today to be in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration. (With my permission, for my class, at least.) She'll be bringing us a first-person report on the Grady Journal site this week, but in the meantime has managed to get two photos published on the New York Times' web site - one from Monday morning and another from Tuesday morning. 

Ms. Bailey is suffering from a bit of hypothermia and hyperbole, but said, "I just got in from the most frigid day of my life to find that (the second image on the Times' site). How come you never mention how much being a photojournalist feels like being a rock star?"

Well, somethings you need to figure out on your own ... 

Study Photojournalism in Berlin

John Freeman, at the University of Florida, sent along information on his May class that will be taught in Berlin this spring. I know one UGA student is already enrolled, and in 2005 several students went and reported it to be a great experience. (Work from that trip is still available for viewing.)

So why would I tell you about a May class elsewhere when we'll have one here? Several reasons, the first being it's a chance to travel abroad and see the world from a radically different perspective. But the larger reason is that it will let you learn about photojournalism from a different perspective. 

One of the weaknesses of our program here at UGA is that it is just one voice, one view. Getting to hear another view is critically important. Photojournalism can be approached and practiced from a lot of ways, not understanding that one photo can generate several different and valid responses might lead to a lot of frustration. 

Look at the work, look at the program. Time's a little short so get to it.