"Uprooted: Flicks Mobile Home Park"

This piece, shot by the San Jose Mercury News’ Dai Sugano, on a mobile home park that’s being closed so the land can be redeveloped, is amazingly well done. The story, pacing and tone all match perfectly – it is, to be honest, hard to watch in some places because of the emotions at play.

You’ll need some time – it’s broken into six chapters (and none of them say how long they are), so plan on 20-25 minutes to get through it all.

Things I noted:

• The photographer was acutely aware of how many shots he was going to need. Case in point, there are two consecutive closeups of the eviction notice, with very shallow depth of field, but different focus points
• The sequencing of stills (or frame grabs – this may all be video, though some of it looks like a full-frame digital camera, based on background control)
• The use of text to help cover time between segments
• Transitions – movement to stills, color to black and white

Thanks to Jake Daniels for pointing us to this from our JOUR5990 blog.