Intro to PJ students now staff photographers for The Outlook

 The Intro to Photojournalism class is small, as it usually is, but it will make a big difference in the Owens community this semester.

   For the first time since I’ve been teaching this course, it’s been arranged that every student will be official staff photographers with the Owens Outlook online newspaper (it helps that I’m the new adviser).

   During the first week of class each student chose a campus beat to cover for the semester. They introduced themselves to the deans/chairs by hand delivering a letter that explained the beat system.

   Taking that big leap from concept to reality wasn’t an easy task for most of them. Here are some of the reasons why they aren't yet comfortable with their new roles as scholastic photojournalists:

·      Invasion of privacy. One student admitted he felt “nosy.”

·      Most don't like news. They don’t read, listen or watch it, and now they are the news.

·      At this point in their young lives most everything they’ve done at Owens has been for homework. Now their work will be published, making it very public and very real.

   To be fair to all involved, they will be trained before snapping a single photo. Lessons will include writing AP style captions, interviewing subjects, and how to be ethical and legally fit. This is the journalism part of photojournalism.

   As staff photographers for the Outlook they won't be limited to their beats, either. In fact, TJ Barney has already shot his first assignment for the online college newspaper. Before he shot Fall Fest last week I gave him a crash course on caption writing. He admitted to writing down names of his subjects with "shaking hands," but he said it got easier.

  So, if you see a bunch of students running around with cameras, press passes and shaky hands, just ignore them so they can do their jobs.

Lesson One: To understand news is to be a better citizen

   Welcome Intro to Photojournalism students!

   Get ready to stock your photography portfolio, extend your social media reach and improve your writing skills.  

   Lesson One: What is news? This lesson seemed to freak a few of you out, considering half the class admitted to not reading, listening or watching the news...at all. Don’t worry! It’s normal to feel skeptical about learning the news business.  News is a gigantic concept that's hard to wrap your head around because there is so much of it, and it’s often negative. But news, despite all of its ugliness, is what keeps our society going. To be informed and engaged in your local community is to be a better citizen.

   In this class you will not only learn what news is, but you will actually generate real visual news. Each of you will have your own beat on campus, and you will cover the students and faculty in that beat for the entire semester. Your photo stories will be worth more than a grade; you’ll be working for the Owens Outlook newspaper, as well.

   Fear not... you’ll mostly cover ‘soft’ news (nothing heavy or controversial; mostly educational and informative). So, tomorrow you will choose your beats (technology, nursing, automotive, culinary, etc.) and then get started on your new, exciting adventure of being scholastic photojournalists!

Intro to PJ blog to include KSU's Teaching Multimedia class

   This blog was created for Intro to Photojournalism students in 2011. It is a great social media tool for documenting course objectives and highlighting student achievements.
   But that's about to change.
   Beginning Aug. 26 this blog will be shared with students from my Teaching Multimedia course at Kent State University. The Teaching MM course is an online graduate-level class for high school English and journalism teachers/advisers across the nation who want to learn more about using basic multimedia tools in their classrooms and with their student journalism publications. This will be my first time to teach that course.
   I actually was a student in that class in 2009. It's where I learned how to blog and tweet. Needless to say that class fundamentally changed how I communicate with students. In fact, my primary blog, Lori King's Blog, was one of my homework assignments! Teaching MM students will also learn how to capture and edit audio, produce a Soundslides project and shoot a video story.
   I will also be sharing the @intro2pj Twitter account with that class, as well.
   I'm confident students (and myself) in both courses will benefit by learning from one another.
  
  

See you in August!

This course blog will resume the week of Aug. 19, when school resumes for Fall semester. Can't wait!

How to prepare a competitive photojournalism portfolio

The Blade's Dave Zapotosky viewing a student portfolio.

   It’s that time again. Hundreds of student photojournalists are scrambling to find summer newspaper jobs. Despite the dismal job market paid internships still exist.

   This blog post focuses on helping PJ students prepare a competitive portfolio, which is the most important tool in landing an internship.

   A portfolio is a visual showcase; a collection of work that basically defines the skills and interests of the applicant. Seriously, in about 1/125^th of a second a photo editor can tell whether the photographer is a good fit for the newspaper.

   Many newspapers, including the Toledo Blade, hire summer interns. The hiring process for this summer’s Blade intern began in January, and by the end of February Jeffrey Smith from Central Michigan University was selected out of 70 applicants.

   So what helped the chosen one rise to the top? What made him so special? He had the best portfolio.

   A good portfolio includes three vital components: Great photos, strong captions, and a good organization and delivery method. 

   As I recently watched Blade photo supervisor Dave Zapotosky and photographer Andy Morrison go over this year’s crop of portfolios, I asked them to share their concerns and tips.

   Let’s start with the photos, the heartbeat of the portfolio.

        The Photographs

·    Offer visual variety. Include your very best selection of sports, news, features, portraits, and at least one photo story. Editors want their new hires to hit the ground running, even though they expect them to be a little green. Stating in your cover letter you can handle the work isn’t enough. Demonstrate it. Spread the love. For example: 20 photos of portraits aren’t as convincing as five portraits, five sports, five features, and five spot news. Also include a solid photo story. Be very, very choosy in your selection.

·      Don’t overindulge your college life. Editors aren’t too impressed with shock value: images of drunken students depicting wild nightlife; sexual ambiguity for the sake of it (performing drag queens); and nudity. Know the newspaper’s readership. Our newly-hired intern’s leading photo on his website is a man walking goats past a cornfield – our Midwest flavor.

·      Show off your technical skills. Do you have a firm grasp of lighting? Do you know your camera controls? Is your use of motion and depth of field evident, appropriate, overdone?

·      Do not over process your photos in Photoshop! Instagramish, over-processed, hyper contrasted, super saturated photos and sun-flared pictures will not earn you extra points. Less is best. Crop, tone and color correct. Shoot it right and edit tight.  

The Captions

·      Include complete captions with every single photo! Captions explain what the photos are about. Make them super easy to find. Andy and Dave were very frustrated when they couldn’t find captions or had to apply effort to find them. This is a deal breaker!

·      Ensure your captions are complete. This is the journalism part of photojournalism. Answer the 5 Ws and the H. Watch your spelling and grammar. Complete sentences. Use present tense when explaining the 5Ws.

The Delivery

·      This is still evolving. In days gone by, we’d submit a page of 20 slides with a caption sheet. Now there are blogs, websites, CDs, flash drives, Dropbox.com, and who knows what else.

- Dave prefers a CD or flash drive that includes two folders: one for single images and one for the photo story. This allows him to simply drag each folder into Photo Mechanic and view all of the photos at once. He said he doesn’t want to open a lot of folders (one for portraits, one for sports, etc.), considering how many folders he already has to open. When he’s ready to read the caption, he clicks on the Information icon.

- Include no more than 20 images in each folder.

·      Might be good to call and ask each editor how they prefer to view your portfolio. This will save you a lot of work and possible heartache.

·      If you have a website or blog, include the URL in your cover letter. Again, make sure your blog is easy to maneuver, and the captions are easy to find.
- Make your cover letters unique to each particular newspaper. Form cover letters are sometimes quite obvious. Make sure you study each newspaper before you apply. Again, this is knowing your audience. At this point in your collegiate career you should know what "do your homework" means.

      Well, that’s about it. Good luck to all students applying for internships!

      Here are more tips from working pros:

·      Tips by Peter Power

·      How to Make Portfolios by Mark Hancock

·      20 'Great' examples

rustwire.com publishes work of Intro to PJ students

   Nothing makes an instructor prouder than seeing the work of our students get recognized.
   I'm happy to announce my PHO245 students from last semester worked well together to create a powerful photo essay on arson in Toledo that was recently published on rustwire.com.
   It wasn't a big investigative piece into the arson problem. The joint student community assignment was intended to teach them the basics of storytelling with a purpose. They learned how to plan, organize and produce a photo story using an added element of audio.
   The community photo story project is always the highlight of each semester, and this project on arson was even more special because it was published!
   Thank you rustwire.com for giving our students a real outlet to demonstrate their hard work!
   The story: http://rustwire.com/2013/02/11/burned-a-photo-essay-on-arson-in-toledo/.

Tutorial on retrieving a URL for Soundslides projects

   This is the Camtasia Studio tutorial on retrieving a URL for Soundslides using Dropbox.com.
For many semesters we were at a loss at how to upload the SS projects into blogs, but then I found this solution.
    It's not perfect...the html code would be preferable, but baby steps are better than not walking at all. Here's the tutorial I created yesterday so I remember the process in the Fall:


(If you're having a problem viewing this link on Safari, try Firefox.)

(Update as of Jan. 11, 2013: Soundslides now offers a hosting site for Soundslides project. Once you sign up for the hosting site on the SS website, you can retrieve the embed code, though it's not free. It'll cost $12 a month for the service.

 Bittersweet Farms Soundslides

This course will be in temporary hiatus until Fall semester

 Stay tuned: I will post the URL to rustwire.com when the Burned Soundslides project is published. To view individual student photo stories, click on the Student blog roll in the menu bar.
 After I post that URL,  this course blog will be in temporary hiatus until the start of the next Intro to Journalism course in August.
  Thank you for supporting this course.

Students finish production of Burned, a photo story on arson

This photo was taken at one of the arson sites by PHO245 student Amarrah Smith: http://amarrahsmithocc.blogspot.com

Amarrah paid attention to the little things.

Cell phone pic of students producing the Burned project using Soundslides.

   Last week the class finished production on their final project: the team photo story on arson for rustwire.com.
    The editing and sounds teams worked diligently on the painstaking process of marrying three minutes of audio with more than 40 photos of arson sites and abandoned homes scattered throughout Central Toledo.
   The caption writing team gathered arson statistics for the essay they will write. They discovered that Toledo is ranked #4 in the nation for arson fires, according to FBI.gov.
   This team project was real-life journalism. Armed with a short list of confirmed arson sites provided by Toledo Fire Dept. Lt. Matt Hertzfeld, we ventured into urban neighborhoods for two hours one morning last week and knocked on the doors of neighbors who lived next to targeted houses.
   Besides shooting photos at the scenes, the audio team had the added responsibility of searching for witnesses who watched the houses near them burn by the hand of arsonists. The team encountered three different types of witnesses:
· A woman who wanted to tell her story and wasn’t afraid to be identified;
· A man who absolutely didn’t want anything to do with it. In fact, he initially admitted the house next to him was destroyed by arson; then he changed his story when asked if he would be willing to be interviewed.
· Two men who wouldn’t stop talking but refused to be photographed or give their names.
    Watching the students work their multimedia magic in class this morning was amazing. Dave Cantor and I gave them little bits of advice, but for the most part these students did all of the work. It is fundamental students are given hands-on assignments like this because it allows them to make their own content decisions for this real-world project that will be published on a reputable website like rustwire.com.
     Don't expect the students to answer the burning questions of why arsons happen and what the city is doing about them. This project was simply meant to wet their appetites for storytelling: This is an introduction course, after all. PHO245 students don't spend a lot of time on any one subject, especially something as deep as arson. I can only hope that this multimedia project inspires them to advance their skills later on down the road.
     In class next week we will present our story, entitled Burned, to co-founder of rustwire.com Kate Giammarise. I can't wait to show off the skills of these six scholastic photojournalists.
     And that’s a wrap, folks.

Students turn their cameras to homes destroyed by arson

   When students signed up for the Intro to Photojournalism course this semester, they had no idea they would be shooting Toledo-area homes destroyed by fire, but that's what they'll be doing Wednesday morning.

    The class is going on a field trip to document houses targeted by arsonists. Arson is a big problem in the downtown area, and the students are doing a photo story on the problem for rustwire.com, a website dedicated to urban blight and beauty.

    The students will not only shoot photos of the destroyed houses, they will also interview neighbors of a few of those houses. Because this is an introduction class, the students won't be 'investigating' the why of the arson problem ... just the what and where.  The intent is to get their feet wet in the photojournalism biz, and to generate discussion on documenting life around them.

    Next week, back in the classroom, they will collectively produce a photo story that will be published on Rust Wire. This team project is a great way for students to learn how to work with other people, and then work together. It's practical experience they couldn't possibly get by reading a textbook.

    They prepared for the project by learning how to:

• shoot a photo story;
• select and edit photos using Photoshop;
• collect and edit sound using Audacity:
• marry the photos and sound together using Soundslides, an audio/slideshow software.

    The students work in teams throughout the process. All of them will shoot, but then they are divided into teams. One team will capture and edit the audio; a team will write the captions and design the title and end slides; and another team will put the show together using Soundslides.

    The team project began two years ago, and it's so beneficial to the students that it's a mainstay of the course. It's also a great way for Owens to contribute to the local community. So far, former students have covered the Sunshine Home, Cherry St. Mission and Bittersweet Farms.

    The URL link to the arson story will be posted on this blog when it's published on Rust Wire.

Intro to PJ student is a journalist waiting to happen

This is one of several photos taken at an Owens basketball game by PHO245 student Lynn Redding, my student of the week.

    First I saw this photo. 

  It showed a kid from Kellogg College driving through the Owens defense, his feet off the ground in mid-stride. It was a wonderful sports moment frozen in time. And it was in focus! 

   “Wow! That’s fantastic,” I exclaimed.

   Then I started reading her sports essay on the computer screen. I winced as I read the lead sentence, which started out with the date of the game. 

   “Repeat after me,” I instructed Lynn, a student who was working on her sports assignment in class Wednesday. “I will not start a lead sentence with a date.”

    She repeated after me, then promptly deleted the date. And there it was - a strong, descriptive lead sentence that caught my attention right away.

   It read: Owens forward James Kelly quickly broke away from the pack and charged down the court to score the first basket of the night just seconds after the tipoff.

   “That’s your lead!” I told her. Then I proceeded to tell her she was a journalist waiting to happen.  

   In fact, it's already happening. She announced to me at the end of class that she was thinking about joining the Owens Outlook staff as a photojournalist, but she was "too nervous" to make the call.

  I asked her to consider two things: do you have the time, and do you want the job? If the answer is yes and yes, then don't let nervousness stop you from taking advantage of a great opportunity. All it takes for anyone to become a good journalist is journalism education, experience and confidence.

  When Lynn joins the Outlook she will be the second student from the Intro to Photojournalism course on the staff. Former PHO245 student Cathy Zeltner is currently the managing editor!

   To view more of Lynn’s sports coverage of the Owens v. Kellogg basketball game, go her class blog.

   I also want to take the opportunity to give kudos to the other students who posted their sports assignment on their class blogs. Sports is one of the hardest assignments in the course and they all did a great job!

Features, portraits and sports, oh my!

This is a blog post by Miranda, who used a photo slideshow gadget.

   The PJ course is more than half way over, and there is still so much more to do!

  First, I want thank one of the students for creating business cards for all six students in the class. Each biz card has the student’s name and blog URL. Passing them out to their sources and subjects will help to spread the word and keep in touch. I also want to give Miranda kudos for being the first to try out the photo slideshow gadget on Blogger. Miranda is not afraid to try new things, and that will aid her well. Good job, Miranda!

   So the feature assignment is behind us; the portrait assignment is in progress; and next up is learning how to shoot sports. They will use their sports photos to learn Soundslides, which kicks off the photo storytelling lecture. That lecture includes learning how to edit audio using Audacity, editing photos down from many to a chosen few, and marrying audio with multiple photos to tell a story. 

Yep, we're pretty busy!

Students learn about reciprocity and the power of display

Reciprocity is a lesson in camera control

Take note of the blurry background in this image of a moving vehicle. This

effect is achieved by using a slow shutter speed and panning my camera with

movement of the vehicle. (PHO245/Jen Hannum)

By Jen Hannum

   I learned a lot about cameras and how they work while studying camera operations in my photojournalism class this week,
   Did you know that a fixed lens isn’t defined by whether the lens zooms or not? It is actually a lens that stays at its minimum aperture no matter what focal length you set it to.
   We also touched on basic compositional elements, as well as a reminder of how to control our shutter speed, aperture and ISO to achieve the creative control of our images.
   Reciprocity is the process of setting all the controls on my camera to capture an image with my desired creative outcome, which should be determined in my head before I even put that camera to my face.
   Camera operations is really all about knowing my camera and how to achieve the look I desire in my images, and not letting the camera decide for me.

Posted by Jen Hannum's Photojournalism Blog

 

   The above blog post is from PHO245 student Jen Hannum. I’m proud to highlight the work of Jen, who flawlessly demonstrated a technique called panning.  I posted it in its entirety because it’s the epitome of what's expected from a typical student blog post. 

   Students are expected to publish short essays on their blogs each week,  forcing them to strengthen their writing skills. This is also where they will display their photographic work the rest of the semester. They will learn basic layout and design principles, which is just as important as the text and photos they display. If a display is bad, then readers will be too distracted to care about the rest. A good display exhibits attention to detail and an understanding of good showmanship.  

  These are basic layout and design principles to keep in mind:

• No trapped white space
• People and objects, like cars, should face toward the copy, not off the page
• If a photo is on left, then use flush left or block text, and if photo is on the right, use flush right or block text
• Photo captions are flush left or block 
• Use photos LARGE

   From now on every student will display their photos on their blogs. These are their upcoming shooting assignments: feature, portrait, sports and individual/group photo stories.   

   You can find their blogs by clicking on the Student Blog Roll/Fall 2012 in the top menu bar. 

New PHO245 beat system inspires critical thinking and fear

   In education we hear a lot about the term ‘critical thinking.’

   What does it really mean?  I know we journalism educators are expected to inspire students to be critical thinkers, but there isn’t a manual for that, is there? This expectation is always in the back of my mind. How do I get students to be critical thinkers in a class packed with so much dogmatic information, like learning camera controls and caption writing?

   Well, I think I’ve found an answer.  It’s called the beat system, and it’s a powerful way for photojournalism students to become critical thinkers.   

   The beat system is a common way for journalists to cover particular topics on a long-term basis. Popular newspaper beats are cops, health and fitness, politics, local school systems, etc. The main intent is for journalists assigned to beats to become familiar with the people of those beats.

   For the past several years I’ve been struggling on how to get the Intro to PJ students to care about what they are shooting. Typically, I’ll teach them what feature or portrait photography is about and then send them out into the wild blue yonder of Northwest Ohio to stumble upon something interesting. It was frustrating for them and for me. There was little focus or allegiance. I struggled with how to make it better.

   Then late this summer it occurred to me to use the beat system. I talked to a dean in the technology school, a professor in the culinary school, and an adjunct in the Emergency Management School. I asked them what they thought about students covering their schools for the semester. They loved the idea, and so did I.

   I finally introduced the beat system to the students yesterday. I supplied them with an explanation letter to share with their contacts, and told them to go to their assigned beats and make initial contact. You would have thought I told them to go jump off the big O on top of the Health Technologies Hall building! Many of them seemed fearful to make that first step on their own. Approaching deans and instructors can be pretty intimidating to students, but that's the point. It's time to shed those shells!

  Each photojournalist was assigned a beat they were interested in.

   This is where the critical thinking comes in: I told them their beats are their responsibilities. They should be the ones to introduce themselves to the deans, instructors and students, and then dig for interesting visual stories within their own beats.  

   This strategy forces them to step out of the comfort zone of Classroom 206. They will have to be critical of whom they meet and what they find. Will they settle with the first opportunity that comes their way? Will they know when to say yes and no when offered a good or bad idea? How aggressive will they be to find a good story? Can they get past their panic attacks? Will a budding photojournalist or two discover that this career is actually meant for them?

   This is a pilot program I'm anxious to see grow through time, and one I hope they appreciate it some day.

    

Learning to be legally and ethically fit on Constitution Day

   PHO 245 students passed out these flyers on campus to celebrate Constitution Day.

   Week 5 is done, and it’s been a whirlwind of learning and doing.

   The students kicked off the week by celebrating Constitution Day. They spent their first 30 minutes of class Monday posting flyers in many of the buildings on campus. Constitution Day came at a good time, considering we were in the middle of learning about press law, ethics and the First Amendment.

   After they returned to the classroom we conducted the first weekly critique, which comprised of going over their edited blog essays on the projector, and viewing all of their individual blogs.

Students don’t necessarily like being critiqued in a group, but it helps them learn from each other’s good and bad practices. This is where mistakes tend to be nipped at the bud.

   They are certainly getting comfortable with tweeting and blogging. All of their blogs, which include cell phone photography pages in the tab bar, are up and running.  I encourage you to visit their blogs, and please let them know how they are doing. Feedback is an important learning tool.

   We finished the law, ethics and copyright lecture Wednesday morning. This is one of the most important lessons of the course. Being legally and ethically fit is what separates the amateur newsmaker from the pro. Everyone responsible for disseminating information in any way should be aware of their First Amendment rights, and have high legal and ethical standards. Photojournalists have a civic responsibility to record accurate, un-manipulated images. Ignorance is no excuse.

    I was thankful for the opportunity to show two informative online webinars on legal issues offered by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA).  The Fine Print: a Webinar series on Legal Issues for Photographers includes two tutorials on legal issues and copyright. The content generated a few questions and lots of answers. Thank you, NPPA!

   Finally, we wrapped up the week with a lesson on caption writing and the AP Stylebook. This is the journalist part of photojournalist. By this time, however, they’ve already written four essays, so writing brief captions shouldn’t be too intimidating. The 5Ws and the H formula makes data collecting pretty easy.

   Next week we begin the photo part of photojournalism.  

Individual student blogs are now up and running

   The Intro to Photojournalism students created their class blogs last week, and all eight are available for commenting on, viewing, learning and admiring.
   The blog URLs are located in the Student Blog Roll/Fall 2012 tab bar above. Please feel free to comment on them. I'm sure they would enjoy pats on the back and constructive criticism now and then.

It's 'something cool' when students teach fellow students

   I recently received the following email from PJ student Jen Hannum:

“Hi Lori

I just wanted to share something cool with you and also let you know how I did it, and if you thought it was worthy of passing on to the rest of the class.  Check out my blog: http://jenhannum.blogspot.com/

    The pages Jen created for cell photos and her website are in the yellow tab bar.

I created pages at the top, one of which is a cell phone pics page that is easy to upload to right from my cell phone.  It is actually another mobile blog that is tied to my original blog.  I attached directions on how I did it in case you wanted to pass the info along. I have an iPhone so I can only speak to how I did it with that but it seems pretty universal.

I am copying and pasting steps below:

iPhone directions to set up a Cell Phone Picture Blog 

1. txt the word register to 256447

2. you will receive an @(blahblahblah).blogspot.com and a code

3. enter that code at go.blogger.com and captcha provided

4. chose continue as this user if its not selected and click continue

5. name the blog (I chose Cell Phone Shots) click continue

6. chose a template (can be changed to match your regular blog later)

7. you now have a new mobile blog

8. go to your regular blog choose the pages tab

9. create a new page that is a website and name it (I chose Cell Phone Shots)

10. enter the web address that was texted to you back in step 2 (the blahblah .blogspot)

11. Chose location on home page you want page to show up

12. Now you have a page on your original blog that links to your mobile blog

13. Download the blogger app on your cell phone and sign in

14. In settings on the app you can choose  the new blog and send just cell pics there”

   My reply:

   Yes, Jen, what you did is “something cool!”

   Not only did you do this for yourself, but you wanted to share it with your classmates, and that makes me one awfully proud instructor!

  You even taught me something (how to link blogs via pages), which makes me a stronger instructor because I can pass on this new knowledge onto the next class. A+ for your effort!

   Thank you.

Introducing phoneography to the photojournalism curriculum

       A screen grab from Sam's cell pix on Twitter.  

   I introduced a new assignment on cell phone photography this week, and it was about time.

  Cell phone photography has become so popular in the 21st Century that it can no longer be ignored by photojournalism educators. Since the first consumer camera phone was released by Sharp in 2000, it only took seven years to reach a billion devices. By 2009, there were 4.6 billion mobile phones subscriptions (ate.blogs.com).  

   Can you imagine a college student without one?

   Since nearly everyone has a mobile phone, I think it's safe to say they outnumber traditional cameras! All eight of the students in this class have cell phones, and nearly half of those are iPhones. So it's not a big surprise that they all use their cells to take photos.

  Yes, it’s time cell phone photography is covered in photojournalism classes everywhere!

  Using a cell phone to capture images is convenient for several reasons. First, it’s accessible. Cells are always in our pockets, purses and backpacks. We never leave home without them. Secondly, they are convenient; small enough to hide, and light enough to carry 24/7. But what’s really important is the ability to instantly share images using social media tools, like Facebook and Twitter.

   Together we are learning about cell camera apps, tools and features. There’s a lot to learn, but each student brings their own experience to the table. We also had a guest speaker tout his newspaper’s Mobile Blog, which is a trendsetter in phoneography. Enoch Wu demonstrated his ability to shoot and send an image to Twitter via his cell without needing a computer.

   The students are required to tweet five cell phone photos throughout the semester. Each photo must have enough caption information to explain the photo. We also viewed a Lynda.com tutorial by Richard Koci Hernandez.

  I'm happy to witness students, like Sam Ricker, are already tweeting cell photos and experimenting with different apps! I think it's going to be a very successful assignment, and one that's here to stay.

Creating a beat system to find stories is a win-win situation

   Now that the syllabus is handed out and the first day of school is over, it’s time to get to business. While the students complete their first homework assignment next week (learning about the history of news), I will be busy creating a beat system for the course.  

   A beat system is designed for journalists to hone their expertise on a particular topic or geographical area. For our purposes, each PJ student will be assigned a school (School of Technology, School of Health Sciences, etc.) to cover throughout the entire semester. This will allow them to get to know the instructors and students on their beats, making it easier for them to find good stories that would otherwise be overlooked.

   The students are responsible for finding stories, showing up to the event or classroom on time, documenting the event, gathering caption information, and ultimately posting their photos and essays on their blogs for a grade. Most of their shooting assignments, except for sports, will be derived from their beats.

   The beauty of this system is that anyone, particularly those they cover, can view the student blogs at any time!

   So, I'm actively comprising a list of deans and instructors willing to participate in this pilot beat system. I also need to figure out the best way of communication between the PJ students and the instructors. Coordinating the work of the PJ students with the Owens Outlook is another possibility.

   At this point, the College of Technology, the culinary program, and the EMS school are on board.  If this system works, the students can continue to cover these beats each semester!
   It's a win-win situation!

A welcome letter to new Intro to Photojournalism students

   Dear PHO245 students:

   Welcome to the Intro to Photojournalism Course! 

    I'm excited to begin another semester with a new crop of scholastic photojournalists. For the next 16 weeks you will be trained to think, act and shoot like a photojournalist. 

   My primary goal is to help you become a visual storyteller with a heightened sense of purpose and ethics. I also hope you gain an appreciation for the social responsibility photojournalists have in documenting life and death throughout the world.

   Because this is an introduction class, you will be taught a wide variety of subjects, including:

• Law, ethics and copyright 
• Caption writing
• Photo editing tools (Photo Mechanic)
• Social media tools (Twitter and blogging)
• Using your camera to tell a story

   Ever semester I add something new to improve the course and keep up with technology. You will be the first PHO245 class to use your cell phone cameras as another way to tell visual stories. 

   You will be the first class to be on a beat system. This means you are responsible for covering a school (culinary, transportation, etc.) at Owens throughout the semester.

A sample of photos from Rust Wire's Flickr Group

   I'm also happy to announce that for your final individual project, this class is collaborating with rustwire.com. Rust Wire is recruiting photographers in our area take part in a photo project attempting to capture the "unique essence of individual Rust Belt cities."

   We are privileged to have Kate Giammarise, one of the rustwire.com founders, guest speak with you Sept. 24 about the Big Urban Photography Project.

   Needless to say, this is a fast-paced course because there is so much to learn. Every week you will learn something new, and Dave Cantor and I are confident you'll benefit from nearly every assignment, no matter what photography career you choose.

   Again, welcome and have fun!