Visual Journalism – Notes from aside the camera

September 7, 2021

Adapting Coverage

The Associated Press’ Emilio Morenatti lost one of his legs while covering the war in Afghanistan. This year, he covered the Paralympic Games in Tokyo, reconnecting with a soldier he met while in the hospital and connecting with others. Connection is one of the most critical parts of good storytelling, Morenatti has a genuine way of doing that.

At Work/Good Work/Photojournalism

September 7, 2021

Parisian Wanderer

A new book and exhibit of work by Henri Cartier-Bresson is out and Blind magazine’s Bill Shapiro has a report. Shapiro reintroduced me to the word flâneur: (A) French word describing a person who strolls without a goal while carefully observing everything around him. In other words, a connoisseur of street life. I want that on my business card.

Craft/Good Work/Photojournalism

August 4, 2021

Racing Through and To History

For several years, we ran a photojournalism workshop at the Petit Le Mans sports car race, not far from our campus in Athens, Georgia. My students, predominantly women, rolled their eyes when I explained what we were doing. Then they came back to class afterwards with their eyes wide open – it wasn’t about cars or crashing, it was about...

Business & Industry/Good Work/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

August 4, 2021

Small Town Wyoming, A Century Ago

Sarah Blackwood has a great piece up at The New Yorker looking at a trove of work done by Lora Webb Nichols a century ago. Anyone with an interest in portraiture or documentary work (done on a hyper local scale) needs to take a look. Beautiful compositions help us see what life was like in a copper mining town. (Thanks...

Good Work/Photojournalism

August 3, 2021

Native American Identity Through the Native Lens

From NPR, information on a new effort to take back the visual story of Native Americans.

Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

August 2, 2021

It’s the Little Things

Great gallery of images from the Associated Press looking at the details that make up the Olympic competition. It is always the little things that separate out the good from the great, how would you apply this to your own work? Does it manifest itself in your compositions, the way you handle edged and corners? Does it show up in...

Craft/Good Work/Photojournalism/Tech Talk

April 13, 2021

When a Lens Is Too Sharp

Nice piece by Michael Johnston at The Online Photographer about portrait lenses. I will admit I obsess over sharpness (and nervousness in bokeh, but that’s different issue), but this line really resonated with me: What’s a portrait but a sympathetic presentation of a person’s appearance? In 1989, I bought a used Nikkor 105 mm f/2.5 AI-s lens and it still...

Craft/Photojournalism/Tech Talk

April 4, 2021

On Getting the Shot

Two quotes in this interview with Getty Images’ Elsa Garrison by Hannah Foslien that stood out to me: For me, the way I look at it is, if I didn’t get it, then I wasn’t meant to get it. You can’t let that frustration of a missed picture carry over into your next assignment, because then you’re self-sabotaging. And this:...

Advice & Learning/At Work/Business & Industry/Good Work/Journalism/Photojournalism

March 30, 2021

Documenting Friendship

I love it when radio leads me to a great documentary project … NPR’s Melody Rowell has a look at Karen Marshall’s 30 year project on a group of friends and how their relationships shifted over time. Someplace in a notebook, I recorded the idea that one image shows what something looks like, two images can demonstrate change but it...

Good Work/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

March 30, 2021

Charging You to Invoice

This is a new one to me – McGraw Hill is now charging independent contractor to submit invoices. They are deducting 2.2% for an administrative fee when submitting invoices via their platform, which is the only way to bill them. Out of curiosity, what would happen if the contractors added a 10% administrative fee to their invoices? I understand that...

At Work/Business & Industry