The Owens Outlook to be taken off maintenance mode April 1

Screen grab of the countdown to the launch date of the Owens Outlook online newspaper:  http://www.owensoutlook.com/

   Mark your calendars!

   April 1 is the launch date for the debut of the new and improved Owens Outlook student online newspaper! 

   The website, currently in mainetenace mode, is going live that day, and the student staff is very excited, nervous and terrified, but definitely ready and able to once again report the news for the Owens Community College community.

   Unfortunately, not too many people on campus know Owens even has an online newspaper, or that The Outlook website was shut down for most of this semester. It's a sad fact that ever since the print edition ceased several years ago, the online edition eventually faded away to black.

   Shutting down the website early in the semester wasn't an easy decision for editor-in-chief Josh Widanka to make, but I still think it was the right one. He decided that his staff needed to be trained as scholastic journalists before representing the student newspaper. We also hired a new company, School Newspapers Online (SNO), to host our website.

   Why such extreme measures? Because Owens canned its journalism program about the same time the printed paper was put to rest. By cutting that class, most of the student Outlook staff didn't have any idea of what it takes to be responsible scholastic journalists. 

   To help solve that problem, I designed an 8-week News Academy training regime that ends March 27. During the 2-hour weekly training sessions, they learned the following skills, much of it from guest trainers from the Toledo Blade:

• What news is, and how to cover a beat
• Writing (how to interview subjects, take notes and craft stories)
• Photography (how to use Photo Mechanic, upload photos and write captions)
• Law and ethics
• Copyrighting 
• Social media

   In the beginning of the semester, during our very first meeting, I referred to The Outlook as a fail lab, meaning they will most assuredly make lots of mistakes during their on-the-job training. It's impossible to expect them to learn everything they need to know about journalism in 16 hours, but my philosophy as an adviser is not that they be punished for their mistakes, but that they be rewarded for learning from them. 

   I have confidence their mistakes will lesson as their own confidence grows! After all, a student newspaper is the perfect workplace to hone their writing, communication and critical thinking skills, which better prepares them for whatever profession they choose when they graduate.

   Nope, this is no April Fool's joke. April 1 is the day Owens gets their student newspaper back!

A big giant THANKS to the following Toledo Blade employees who donated their time and expertise during the News Academy training sessions this semester:

Alex Mester, animal welfare reporter; Dave Hackenberg, sports columnist; Don Emmons, sports reporter; copy editors Heather Denniss and Shannon Kolkedy; Perrysburg beat reporter Matt Thompson; photojournalist Katie Rausch; webmaster Nabil Shaheen and education reporter Nolan_Rosenkrans.

Q&A #3 Toledo Blade photographer and diver Andy Morrison: Shooting ship wrecks in the depth of the Great Lakes

The Eber Ward sits in 140 feet of water on the Lake Michigan side of the Straits of Mackinac. The ship is a highlight of the Straits of Mackinac Shipwreck Preserve.

Andy Morrison shoots a self portrait as he swims with the fishes at Gilboa, Ohio.

Andy Morrison

      There's an understood theory amongst photojournalists that we all need personal photo stories/projects/hobbies to help keep us motivated.

    Some choose long-story documentaries, while others like Instagram.

    Whatever it is, our own personal photo projects help us escape from the drudgery of daily assignments. Our own projects also allows us to control our content; allows us to follow our hearts; inspires us to shoot topics that interests us all the time.

    For this month's Q&A, I spotlighted Toledo Blade photojournalist Andy Morrison, who is gaining quite an impressive reputation for shooting ship wrecks in the Great Lakes.

    I've always been impressed with his nature photography, but it's his diving photography that really fascinates me... maybe because diving into the depths of pitch black water scares the hell out of me!

    He recently had a Toledo Blade magazine page dedicated to a recent ice dive in Lake Erie. This photo page, published March 2, prompted me to ask Andy the following questions:

Q: How and when did you get into underwater photography?

A: I was certified to dive in 2000, and wanted a hobby away from my daily job as a photojournalist. I quickly realized I needed a camera to show friends all the cool things I was seeing underwater. Diving helped me discover I'm not comfortable being without a camera no matter where I am. I had my first story published in 2006 and have been a regular contributor to diving magazines since. I mostly work with a writing partner but have written some of my own stories.

Q: What led you to specialize in ship wreck photography around the Great Lakes?

Divers explore the Dunderberg, 155' deep in Lake Huron near Harbor Beach, MI.

A: Location was a big factor initially. It's easier and cheaper to dive the Great Lakes than the Galapagos Islands. So I started diving here, and just fell in love with the beauty and history of shipwrecks and Great Lakes maritime history in general. We have world class shipwrecks in beautiful locations. I'd rather be diving in 40 degree water in Canada's Bruce Peninsula or Michigan's Upper Peninsula than 80 degree water anywhere else in the world. I'm a sucker for fresh water, shipwrecks and birch trees, I guess.

Q: Is there a different shooting philosophy to underwater storytelling compared to top side (above water) photography?

A: Yes and no. I'm still trying to tell a story, but it's often much harder to tell. I can't shoot reactively as much as I do topside. The water makes all of my movements in slow motion. At 200 feet I may only have 15 to 20 minutes to explore and get my shots, whereas at 30 feet I could have more than an hour. Either way, my time is limited by my air supply and decompression factors. So there is much more planning involved with my dive buddy. But generally I try to shoot overalls, portraits and details like I do for any assignment.

Q: Have you ever been injured or nearly harmed on a dive?

A: I suffered a decompression-related illness after a dive in Lake Huron once that required three treatments in a re-compression chamber in Detroit. I did a total of 17 1/2 hours in the chamber over the course of three days. It's something I hope I never have to do again. We traced the cause to an overexertion post-dive from moving my gear from the boat, so I'm pretty careful now what I do after I dive.

Q: What kind of equipment do you use?

A: I use Canon DSLR cameras in a Subal housing with multiple Ikelite strobes and various other items for shooting. As a technical rated diver, meaning I sometimes do mixed-gas diving with required decompression, my gear is suited for that. My standard life support is a drysuit, double 95 cubic inch tanks, Dive Rite backplate and wing for buoyancy and Poseidon regulators to deliver my breathing gas. It's an expensive hobby, no doubt.

Q: What advice do you have for people who want to get into this underwater niche?

Andy and his camera equipment in Key Largo, Fla. (Photo by Tim Grollimund)

A: Learn to be a proficient diver first. Shooting in a fluid environment where humans don't belong takes above average dive skills. Staying alive is priority No. 1. Anyone can fall off a boat and sink to the bottom. Coming home is the hard part. So get good training before taking a camera underwater. Then practice in your local quarries with the camera to be comfortable with the housing and managing the task loading that underwater photography requires. There are different skill sets required for an underwater photographer. It's best to find a mentor if possible. I have many diving mentors who have helped me over the years.

Q: I've seen some of your diving photos, and I have to admit that the darkness, silence and claustrophobic conditions were terrifying. How do you handle it?

A: It all goes back to training. I train in the conditions I dive in so I get used to it. And I don't dive in conditions where I'm not relatively comfortable with the situation. I've had scary moments but I always revert back to my mantra - "if I'm breathing I'm okay." Our water is dark and cold compared to tropical locations, so Great Lakes divers tend to be comfortable diving anywhere in the world. The reverse is not always true. If you go to Mexico, for example, and boat captains learn you are a Great Lakes diver, they realize you probably know what you are doing.

    I tend to be a bit claustrophobic, but usually in large crowds where the nois,e as much as anything else, makes me want to bug out. The silence underwater is my favorite part. It's just me and the sound of my breathing. It's very Zen-like and relaxing. It's the quietest place on earth and I crave that silence. In fact, I hear from a lot of divers who claim to be claustrophobic that they don't feel that way underwater.

View Andy's website at http://www.andymorrisonphotography.com/

Andy shuttling gear back to shore on an ice diving trip on Lake Erie near Colchester, Ontario. (Photo by Rich Synowiec)

Shutter speed controls motion. Class dismissed.

Dear B&W 1 students:
   This week's lecture in class was on how shutter speed controls motion.
   It seems like a fairly simple concept, until I actually begin to explain it. When I wrote on the whiteboard how you can control motion three different ways, many of your facial expressions gave me that "I'm so confused!" look.
   The same expression was evident last week when I taught you how to control depth of field three different ways: aperture, proximity to the subject and lens length choice.
   And that same expression was there the week before that, when I showed you how to use a gray card to expose for a scene.
   Relax! That 'look' is perfectly normal for the first half of this class (and sometimes for years to come), which mostly consists of beginner and amateur photography students like you who know very little about using a camera on manual mode.
   Because I think the best way to teach is to show and do, we all marched down to the SHAC gym, where I gave my body up for science. Not really. After helping you set their camera controls properly, I looked like a dork and ran back and forth so you can learn how to pan a subject. It was exciting to hear 15 cameras clicking as I ran past you. I also did jumping jacks for the slow motion concept.
    To recap today's lesson:

• Panning - set your camera on a slow shutter speed, around 1/15th of a second, follow the subject and snap the photo as the subject passes you by. Results = the moving subject will be in focus but the background will be motion blurred.
• Slow motion - set your camera to a slow shutter speed and shoot a moving subject without following the subject. The subject will be motion blurred but the background will be in focus.
• Stopped action - set your camera to  a fast shutter speed, from 1/500th of a second or faster, set your f/stop accordingly. and shoot away. The subject will be in focus, and the background will a shallow depth of field since you'll most likely be shooting at a wide f/stop.

   Remember that you always have to pay attention to your inside camera meter, which measures the light reflected off your gray card.
   Since this is a film class, you will have to wait until lab on Thursday to see if you nailed the two concepts of panning and slow motion. I, too, am anxious to see your results. But from what I've seen so far, you can relax. I'm sure it'll be fine!

Toledo Blade reporter instructs News Academy candidates

Toledo Blade reporter Alex Mester holds a mock press conference during a writing exercise. (Photo by Quinn Hatfield-King)

   There is a distinct difference between writing English papers and news stories. 

   This became quite evident when the Owens Outlook student staff participated in a news story writing exercise during Session 3 of the News Academy on Thursday.    

   This is how the exercise went: 

  Guest speaker Alex Mester, a Toledo Blade reporter, pretended to be an animal shelter supervisor. She held a 10-minute mock press conference about a feral cat whose tail and one foot was frozen to the bottom of a dumpster and saved by a Good Samaritan (a real story she recently covered).  

   Students posed as media and asked her questions, and then were given 15 minutes to write the story on deadline.
   It was a thrill to watch them labor over MAC computers, and write their first news stories. Alex and I took turns reading every lede sentence out loud, and then broke each story down to what worked, and what didn't. I hope it was a valuable learning experience for them!

   This exercise proved to be a practical way to teach them several things:

1. Ask the right questions, and make sure the 5Ws and the H are answered. If you don't have the information you need, it's hard to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
2. The lede sentence should be short, concise, and most importantly, interesting enough to get the reader to read the rest of the story.
3. Write concisely, directly, while pulling interesting details from your notes.
4. It's hard to write under deadline pressure!
5. There's a lot more training to do, most of which will be learned on the job.

   The students will continue to hone their writing skills throughout the rest of the semester, and I can't wait to watch them progress as their confidence grows.
   The Owens Outlook is in the process of switching to a new website, so they still have a few weeks before they make initial contact with their beats. In the meantime, the News Academy sessions will continue for another five or six weeks.
   The training agenda includes the following  remaining topics: photography, videography, law and ethics, and social media.
   Guest speakers, including the Great Blade sports columnist Dave Hackenberg, are scheduled to attend many of the remaining News Academy sessions, and I'm very thankful for their help.

Learn about stops, and how to measure light with a camera

   Dear PHO121 students:
   Welcome to Week 2! It is time to start getting into the basic instruction of photography.
   As I told you in class last week, you'll get instruction from several different sources: me during class, your textbook, Owens-produced Powerpoints, and from outside sources, like the video I embedded in this blog post.
   I surfed the Web looking for alternative tutorials, and these videos from Allversity.org were pretty good! I will post Shane's videos sporadically throughout the course, depending on our topics. These videos are simply another way to learn about the basics of photography.
   This first video explores stops, which is how photographers measure light with a camera to make  properly exposed images. I will also talk about stops in class, of course.

Q&A #2: Jeremy Wadsworth explains his shot of 'the shot'

Jeremy Wadsworth's published photo of Toledo's Julius Brown hitting his mark. (Screen grab)

   On the front page of today's Toledo Blade newspaper sports section is a dominate photo that tells half a story.  The photo shows University of Toledo's basketball player Julius Brown taking aim while being defended by a large hand. The headline tells the rest of the story.  He sunk the 'game-winner at the buzzer' as the seconds ticked down to nothing.

   I tell my photography students that professional, experienced photographers make these kinds of action shots look easy. After all, it's just a photo of a player shooting a basketball, right? But they should know there is so much more to sports photography than aiming and shooting. 

   Sports shooters have to worry about many things: where to shoot from, what to set our camera controls on, and capturing the key moments of the game. The latter can be very important, and sometimes the most difficult. A number of things can prevent a photographer from getting that key shot, like being in the wrong spot, or refs and other players getting in the way, which is a hazard that sometimes can't be prevented. In this respect, a little luck doesn't hurt.

   When I saw his photo this morning, I instinctively knew I wanted to share some background information about it with my students. So I did a Q&A with Jeremy Wadsworth, the photographer of the awesome Julius Brown jumper.

  

Jeremy chipping with his 300mm lens.  (Courtesy Photo)

Q: Where were you sitting when you shot the photo of Julius Brown's game-winning, 18-foot jump shot?   

A:  I was sitting under the basket when I took the picture that ran in the paper. I normally shoot from that spot during the second half and from outside the key during the first half. I basically followed the ball because there were only 2.4 seconds left on the clock. I had a gut feeling Julius Brown would be the one to take the shot.

Q: What were your camera settings during this game?
A:  I was shooting at ISO 4000 at 1/1000 at F4.

Q: What do you think is the most important factor(s) when shooting sports, particularly basketball?
A: I think paying attention to the game and the story line of the game is very important. You want to get good action shots, but you want those shots to be of the high scorers and play makers. For basketball, specifically, knowing the players and knowing who will take the shot in the clutch is key. Being able to anticipate the action is key, too.

Q: What advice can you give photographers who want to improve their sports shooting?
A:  Shoot a lot of pictures. Practice. There is no substitute for experience. The more you shoot, the better you will get.

Q: What's your favorite lens for shooting basketball?
A:  I have two primary lenses I use for shooting basketball; 70-200 2.8, and the 300 2.8. Of the two, the 70-200 is the workhorse and favorite. Sometimes I use a 50mm underneath the basket.

View Jeremy's photo gallery of this game: UT vs. Buffalo photo gallery