Black Market Trade in Asia

I found this rather stunning, 6-part piece on the black market of animal trade in Asia. The photos are all in black and white, which I feel works well for this particular story.

The photographer, Patrick Brown, was able to work on the story for five years, and becuse of that, had a chance to photograph a bile farm, the arrest of poachers, and a governmental raid on millions of dollars worth of animals. There's also a sad bit about an innocent woman who got caught up in the middle of an illegal trade and is immediately given the death penalty.

The photos, along with the music and the way the photos are lined up to it, plus his intervies, all add up to a pretty powerful piece.

The story definitely dampened my day, but one of my favorite parts is when Brown emphasizes that while the trade is already occuring, and he can't stop it on his own, he needs to document it so that a large audience sees it and is hopefully inspired to act. That's one of the things about photojournalism that I, personally, have to be reminded of when I see difficult situations, and I appreciate his emphasis. He's obviously passionate about this cause, and it shows.


Oh, and by the way, bile is fluid secreted in the liver and stored in the gall bladder. I'll admit, I had no idea. Had to look it up. Yummy.

ASSIGNMENT: First Video Package

For Tuesday, February 3, you need to shoot a short package. Choose someone who does some sort of repetitive action, interview them, look for cover/b-roll shots and matched action. Plan on this being a very short piece - 30 seconds or so. You'll need 5-10 different shots for this. Think about audio - both the interview itself and some natural sound. 

Video Logging Sheet

Here it is - clean and simple. Have also stuck a link in the upper right corner of the blog for future use. 

Possible Idea To Do In A Day

Stupidest Bike Lanes. 

Check out my multimedia page on some DJs

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The video is almost impossible to do any matched action on because of the fast and intricate movements DJ's quite often make. So the video is one continuous flow, although we will not be using that technique for class I wanted to mix up the video. Anyway I wanted to let you guys know that its there if you want to check it out. And also it is not shot on a high definition camera, so our video quality will look much better.

Well, since Mark suggested it and since I'd never really done it before, I went out and shot some in the fog around my apartment complex. It was essentially a series of experiments in contrasting light sources, white balance, my balance (lots of long shutter speeds), etc. The pictures aren't magazine-quality (and some are more fog-centric than others), but I figured I'd post them here being as that's the blog's purpose.
That's a link to the slide show of the album, and you can click on any picture to view it bigger.

ASSIGNMENT: Video Starter

For Thursday, January 29, you need to find someone doing a repetitive action and shoot four different angles of them doing it. You'll need at least one long, medium and close-up. Two of the shots need to be editable into a matched-action sequence. One of them will need to be a cut-away/b-roll/cover shot to get you from one moment to the next, so think about a detail shot of some sort.

Remember to check the following:

• Focus - zoom in, focus, zoom back out for composition
  
• Exposure - use your histogram
  
• White Balance - set it manually
  
• Audio - get your mic in close, get some detail and natural sounds (no need for an interview)
  

As an example of the matched action, look at this:



Now add a long and medium shot and you're set.