Photojournalism From A Student’s Eye

It is great to have access to so many sites currently writing about the what I need to do to break into and survive in the field of journalism. I can read countless posts on photojournalism and how to start my multimedia kit, my audio kit and my lighting kit. There are sites that point me to how to start learning Flash, where to begin in multimedia, how to compress video for podcasts and for the web, the basics on shooting video, what programs to use for audio editing and what a multimedia producer might need to know. Heck, I can even learn how to build my own planner to keep track of all the things I need to learn how to do.

At times though, it all feels overwhelming. I can’t learn half of this stuff at school and expect to graduate in a timely fashion, and the other half isn’t taught yet. Not only do I want to do it all, but I feel like I need to do it all. Where do I start? I guess with that planner.

When attempting to view the latest photos from my contacts earlier today, I was instead greeted with this screen, which informed me that the time had come, at last, to merge my flickr account with a yahoo account.

While I had been expecting this for some months now, it still came as a surprise to see this rather than my usual flickr homepage. However, instead of crying about the plight of “old skool” users, I would like to extol the positive effects that flickr has had for the photojournalism program at San Jose State.

Three or four semesters ago, our student NPPA chapter established a group on flickr. At the time, we had perhaps eight members. Currently we have 53 members, some of which are SJSU students, but also include graduates and students from other neighboring schools.

Through the flickr group, we have been able to share and critique work amongst ourselves, bring in educators not local to the Bay Area to participate in guest critiques, inform our members of upcoming contests and events, and also hold our own photo competitions (our daily alphabet hunt just ended).

After seeing how useful the flickr group has been in motivating students and keeping them informed, I decided to create a flickr group that I hope can bring together photojournalism students from across the country. I am hoping that it can help form a community that is dedicated to student photojournalists in particular, keeping them up to date on upcoming scholarships and workshops, offering them a place to receive critiques from their peers, pointing them to the latest and greatest multimedia presentations, providing a place where NPPA members can share their stories for what events work and don’t work, and just becoming a forum where ideas can be shared.

I just created the group as I was writing this post, so obviously there isn’t much there yet, but if you are a photojournalism student, or know some, join the group and add to the discussion.

In continuing my work on multi-user virtual environments and their potential applications for education I contacted Rebecca Nesson, one of the key architects behind Berkman Island, the Second Life realm for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

I expected either an email response to some of my questions, or some way to contact her over the phone. Instead, Ms. Nesson invited me into the Second Life world to conduct my interview before the Internet & Society class was scheduled to meet.

The interview was informative and I was allowed to sit in on the class (at-large seats are open to the public). I even contributed a thing or two. The possibilities for the format were apparent, as were some potential drawbacks, the most distracting of which was a “griefer” who thought it fun to wave a German flag with a swastika in front of the screen which was streaming a video for the class.

If you are interested in sitting in on this class, they meet on Tuesdays at 7:30 EST in Berkman Island.

Though my professor was not thrilled, I have decided to do my MCOM 100W article on Multi-User Virtual Environment games such as Second Life and the effects they can have on education. In order to learn more about the game and its possible applications I met with Steve Sloan and resident SJSU Second Life expert Jeremy Kemp on Wednesday.

In speaking with the two, I learned of the positive effects that such environments could have on distance learning, providing an immersive and engaging learning experience. Another possible benefit was the experiential learning that could take place withing a virtual environment. In the case of a journalism classroom, Mr. Sloan gave the example of staging a news event, such as a shuttle crash, and having students in-world have to interview witnesses and experts as they might do in the real world. The virtual world allows instructors to set up news situations that are not possible to experience in the real world due to location, cost or any other number of restrictions.

One word that continued to come up during the discussion was serendipity. Following our talk, I went online to learn more about Second Life and how educators across the country are employing the technology. I came across the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. The Berkman Center has an in-world presence known as Berkman Island. On the island, users can take online classes and participate in and watch moot court trials.

The next moot court trial listed under Berkman Island Info and Events follows the case of Josh Wolf, the journalist currently imprisoned for refusing to give video footage of a 2005 protest to authorities. Coincidentally, I am currently working on a project about this case in my ANTH 136 Thought Control class. Because Harvard Law School offers this virtual learning environment I now have the opportunity to witness a moot court trial presided over by Prof. Charles Nesson and argued by students from Harvard Law School.

Gary Reyes, Mercury News photographer and Internship Coordinator, spoke during Dr. Cheers’ beginning photojournalism class this past Monday. Mr. Reyes spoke mainly about the transition that he has made from digital SLR cameras to HD video cameras (he is one of three Mercury News photographers to shoot exclusively in HD video).

The most important points that I took away from the discussion centered around how shooting video has changed how Gary operates as a journalist. Whereas, with the digital camera Gary had become so accustomed to using, he could practically sleepwalk through an assignment, using the video camera forced him to slow down and really evaluate his work and the story that he is trying to tell.

Also, Mr. Reyes pointed out that, no matter the technological transition (be it from B&W –> color –> digital –> video) storytelling, and the techniques and theory that we learn in school will remain the same.

For those that missed the talk, he will be back at San Jose State again on Wednesday, March 7 at 3:00pm in DBH 209b. Everyone is welcome to attend.