Carnival

OOO! Carnival!

If you have never been to a Carnival parade you should go.....

Child Caregivers

Here's an interesting New York Times piece about child caregivers. It talks about a training and support group for kids who have to take care of sick or elderly family members. I thought it was a neat concept. The video flows pretty smoothly--lots of really good natural sound and matched action.

Not exaclty photos

I just found this website. It's association to the subject matter of our class is loose, I suppose, but I think it's a neat idea. Enjoy.

Midnight pictures

I wanted to take pictures last night after the rain, so I did. This is just an intersection outside my apartment complex. I was tempted to submit one of these as a pattern today but I decided to just post them here instead. Most of these are at 30" shutter speed. Here are some of the better ones. Pause and click to see them big.

Poor in Illinois

This one's from the Chicago Tribune. It's shot nicely, but I can't decide how I feel about it on the whole. I know I don't like the way the segments are broken up by statistics that scream at you in big, bold caps. There's one spot at about 2:40 where the woman's child's voice comes in and says something indistinguishable that I would have kept at a lower volume since it doesn't appear to be of importance.

What do you guys think? Is the broad focus of this piece appropriate for what they seem to be trying to do, which is raise some awareness of the problem of poverty in the area? Or should this have been narrowed down to one or two folks who could tell the story in a more personal way?

ASSIGNMENT: Patterns

A three to five photo package on the theme of patterns, on the server by 2 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19.

Also, please watch the rest of the San Jose Mercury News' Flicks package. 

Hungry

Maise Crow won Multimedia Piece of the Year from the Southern Short Course for this audio/video slideshow, and watching it was without a doubt the highlight of the weekend for me, absolutely a must see. Wonderful storytelling at work here, and one could certainly take a lot of insipiration from the various techniques Crow uses. The text of the story itself is really long (although in my opinion still worth reading all the way through), but the multimedia piece is where the heart of the story lies. So even if you don't read the whole thing, at least watch the multimedia.

Moon over...

So I know this isn't exactly journalism-related, but I have a suggestion to make...

I was looking at my calendar this past weekend and noticed that we are going to have a full moon tomorrow night. The moon has been really bright and pretty the past few days, so this week would be a great opportunity to get out and make some pretty pictures of it. :-)

Who knows, maybe we can tie it in to something of journalistic value--or even compile some photos for a nice "Moon over Athens" package just for fun??

Just a suggestion...

NY Times Halted electronics store audio slideshow

Here is a great little audio slideshow from The New York Times about the famous Halted electronics store in Silicon Valley. Once known as the cheap place to shop for budding start-ups, it now caters mainly to enthusiasts due to the exodus of American businesses to Asia.

Eclectic Gallery of News Photos

This is a really nice group of photos, with some really awesome and interesting compositions. There's some great color in the first one, a really interesting mood in the 2nd, and really awesome compositions in the 6th one.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7872510.stm

A Valentines Day Treat!

I really need to apologize upfront for choosing to blog about Mr. and Mrs. McGarry, but with Valentine’s Day approaching, I could not help myself—who doesn’t love hearing/watching a love story?

I like the initial picture of Mrs. McGarry in her wedding dress petting the dog, but I absolutely dislike the transition type chosen between it and the video of her being interviewed. The away-flipping-picture-transition (yes, I just made that term up) looks very tacky to me. I also really do not like when the video zooms in on photographs.

The b-roll at the restaurant where the couple met (between 32 and 34 seconds) is really good.

I like the overall storyline—Mrs. McGarry has a great personality. I think she is the one who really makes this piece work. I love the way Mr. McGarry describes her as a “Southern Princess with a Yankee Waspy Connecticut drawl.”