Photo Reporting & Storytelling Spring 2013

Tom Kennedy, multimedia manager and commentator

This website was actually slightly un-appealing. I did not like the layout or any of the aesthetics and the blog section looked slightly disjointed which caused me to not want to look further into the website. Many aspects of it could have been redone to make it an easier to navigate site and make it more user appealing.

This website wasn't user friendly at all! It really bothers me when a website is poorly designed and hard to navigate around/find what you're looking for. I wish there was more color as well and I wish the tabs/ sections were set up differently. I wish it also had a spot for you to comment on the website or ask questioss etc.

This was a very interesting website. I really enjoyed the side scrolling view of some of his work directly on the home page of the website. It made an immediate acknowledgment by the user as to the quality of work done by the photographer. This is crucial when trying to promote one's own work because if the interface is appealing they are more likely to stay around and view the rest of the website. This does this very well.

This website was set up a little differently than most of the other photo websites I've viwed, but I still really enjoyed the layout. I liked how the photographs were set up on the website and I liked how you could click on them individually as well. Andy Levin did an amazing job making a user friendly website that really shows his best photos in an interesting way.

2009 Eddie Adams Multimedia Workshop

This is a great concept and provides these journalists with a chance to practice their skill in finding newsworthy people. In our class, we had to find someone (or something) that was interesting and unique enough to write about and photograph. In the same manner, these NY Times employees were challenged with finding someone like that out of 8 million people. I think it was hard enough to find someone in Maine, not too far from Orono. I can't imagine having to go out and research numerous people in the entire state and find the perfect person to feature in a story.

University of North Carolina students create multifacted multimedia documentary guided by Pat Davison.

I really enjoyed the use of multiple video clips along with a multimedia twist to create a compelling documentary about the evolving issue of balance pertaining to the Galapagos Islands. It was interesting to view the factual information overlaid across the moving images and to create connections between the two. One such powerful clip showed a wheezing man and the fact that there were zero hospitals on the island. With an evolving year round population, there will be a need for things such as hospitals and schools which will lead to a depletion of the natural habitat. This multimedia documentary shows a great view of the balance needed for the two, both human and natural life, to co-exist.

This website is very intriguing. I have always wanted to visit the Galapagos Islands and this website has informed me how I can visit and help with the challenges that the natural environment of the island is facing.

Profile of Robert Frank

This article details a man, Robert Frank, who although only included 83 photographs in the work The Americans, was able to create a masterpiece that some call, "one of the most seminal bodies of photographic work, if not the most influential." This project was a culmination of work he had done "on the road" which had a brutally honest view of Americans. The article describes the photos saying there, "was a sadness and solitude to his photographs that was completely honest, but tough to face," and that, "the country Frank encountered was plagued by poverty, racism and xenophobia." Very interesting that someone can make a group of work that most in his time find, "offensively imbalanced, unfocused, even drunken," but have it become one of the most influential body of photographic work today.

Nick Nichols photographs a giant redwood for National Geographic

I actually have two National Geographic foldouts of two massive redwood trees in my house. They are in my kitchen and I always admire them when I am fixing up something to eat. That is quite the rig that they used to capture the whole body of the tree and I would have loved to be one of those people that got to climb up into the canopy of those trees. I have only witnessed those trees from the base of their trunk many years ago when I was much shorter than today and I vividly remember climbing through knots in the tree that could envelope a car. The world is an amazing place.

Seeing the redwood trees has been a dream of mine since I was young and this picture was something a actually viewed in the National Geographic article within the magazine it was released in. The photo was incredible and I really enjoyed the perspective of the entire tree from base to top. Also, the inclusion of climbers was a great way to describe the actual size of the tree in comparison to something more people are familiar with. Many people can understand that someone six feet tall is large, but when put next to a redwood, this height becomes miniscule.

Pedro Meyer photography website

This was an interesting selection of images and stories. I was a little confused on where to go or what I was supposed to be doing on that site. I chose to look at some of the featured galleries because that was on the home page, but it seemed like the site lacked direction. Just like in a good image, I think a well designed website gives the reader's eyes a place to go.

Lauren Greenfield photo essay on Dubai

The money invested in Dubai is ridiculous, along with the energy spent to run an operation of resorts and businesses like that.

This articles describes how extraordinarily high-class Dubai became, with the worlds largest skyscraper, plastik (the high-end club that is, "Exclusively For The Filthy Rich And Aesthetically Perfect,"), and even artificial islands constructed to resemble palm trees. Lauren Greenfield did an excellent job photographing the lavish life-style there, and juxtaposing it with the idea of an inevitable economic crisis, described as perhaps a, "cautionary tale of mythical dimensions."

University of North Carolina Photojournalism workshop: Being Asheville: Unearthing the spirit of Western North Carolina

Website of the University of North Carolina Photojournalism program

I really enjoyed the layout of this site and the media of recent stories being featured in a line on the left side of the website. It gives good views of stories being produced by the program and shows the different subjects available to be documented within the program. Also, the site is easy to manage and work through which helps for the overall interface. I enjoyed the ability to leave comments on different articles as well.

This website was extremely easy to nativigate and find exactly what you are looking for. The website provides a good view of the stories and different parts of the website. Everything is presented on the left side of the website which makes it extremely easy to navigate.

Ten tips for working with music in multimedia

I couldn't seem to find the particular article your comment refers to, as the link brings you directly to the site's blog. However the site appears to be very informational on the subject of video/audio use to tell a story. One of the main objectives of mediastorm.org is to teach rising journalists, "to harness the power of this craft and to engage and inspire viewers." Not only does the site offer guides and tutorials, but also interesting interviews and articles on news-worthy subjects, which teaches journalism in and of it's self.

(Interview with Brian Storm, president of MediaStorm

Brian Storm talks about MediaStorm

This was a compelling article speaking about a group of photojournalists who use multi-media production techniques to better show stories about still photography integrated with video and audio segments. This concept is more common in the study of new media however it still showed interesting ideas such as when it spoke about how the completion rate of most video views was around sixty-five percent. This high percentage shows the want people have to understand stories about others and that they do have a desire for news. It also spoke on the ideas of how "the crowd" will create more competition for journalists and photographers due to the accessibility of the tools of the trade in today's world. This idea is an important one because it reinforces the idea that people have to think outside the box in order to get their ideas across in new and fresh means.

Interview with Brian Storm, president of MediaStorm, NYC

Documentary on topless coffeeshop in Vassalboro, Maine produced by student at Salt Institute for Documentary Studies.

I know there was a lot of discussion over this place when it first came about. Some were all for it while others very against it. Many of my relatives live in that area, so they were some of the first to know when it started up. I am really indifferent about it, though I will probably never visit there, it seems like the women who work there are there for a reason, to make money that they need. How different is that from any of our jobs? If they are comfortable with it and are making an honest living, then who am I to judge them? It seems to be helping people who needed jobs, which is all we can hope for in this economy.

This documentary shows a very interesting side to this coffee shop. As stated by Sara, I also suspected that there would be controversy over a shop such as this. It explores an interesting moral battle about having waitresses without shirts on in an open environment for coffee drinkers to interact with. It also explored an interesting idea of connecting how one waitress can advertise for her boyfriend's tattoo shop through the ability to be shirtless while on the job as well as the actual lack of jobs around that area. The ability to make better money by being topless, in my eyes, is not anything that should be looked down upon. People should feel comfortable in their own skin and this coffee shop helps people to accept themselves as well as others in a happy and relaxed environment.

Documentary audio/visual project in Portland, Maine

I wasn't sure what I thought of this when I first read about this coffee shop in the newspapers. The women tha towrk their don't seem to be enjoying their job because "desperation" has brought them to it. This is an interesting business model and I think it would be better if people were more used to it, as said by one of the waters at the Topless Coffee Shop.