Is the still photo becoming obsolete

resident Barack Obama greets doctors and nurses following his remarks about health care reform in the East Room of the White House, March 3, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

President Barack Obama reacts to a BlackBerry message in the Treaty Room office in the private residence of the White House, March 21, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

New York Times writer Hank Klibinoff explores the effect of modern technology on photojournalism in his recent piece  “What The Still Photo Does Best”

Hank highlights how common it has become for a nonprofessional photograph to get attention.

I really liked the point made towards the end of the piece that a photojournalist’s mission includes documenting injustice.  To me this is case and point why citizen photojournalism will never replace professional photojournalism.   The motivation is different and there are some photographs you must set out to get.  It seems unlikely that anyone would accidentally take photos of tortured prisoners or crooked politicians.

Although I don’t believe that photojournalist are being replaced I can’t help feeling excited about the possibility of being able to capture a great moment using the video frames technique demonstrated in our in class video by David Leeson.

Simple though it may seem I have a suspicion that not everyone could pull this off either.  You still need a lot of expensive equipment, software, and most importantly an eye for what looks good.   In fact you need the same good aesthetic sense that a photographer would need to pick the right angle, lighting, and moment.  The photographer is simply at greater risk of missing the moment.

Today, everyone with a cellphone is a photographer/videographer and streaming video has become a national obsession. But has the proliferation of images devalued photojournalism and dulled its influence?

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Concentrate Media a Well Oiled Machine

The Concentrate Media website always features an enormous mast clear across the top with their logo and a page wide photograph.  These photographs are usually artful and feature local scenes this most recent one was taken inside the Domino’s Farm’s lobby by David Lewinski

The navigation panel is Kermit Green and also spans the width of the page.  It gives the illusion of being layered behind the mast and the Grid style content just peeking out from behind like so:

Both the Mast and Navigation Panel will follow you all around the site just as they appear on the front page.

On the front page Below mast and navigation is the front page news.  The hierarchy of the page reads from left to right with a silo in the middle.  The largest and most important column on the left “Current Online Magazine”  previews feature stories and includes small photos with each.The Center Silo is slightly narrower and is composed of 3 boxes full of links to other less featurable stories and the right most column is the narrowest and displays ads, a search box, and options to follow the feed.

The font throughout is sanserif and there is no use of any fonts that would cause incompatibility with  a browser.  I believe their logo is an image file not a font.  All fonts are black on white with the exception of links which are blue on white.  Paragraphs are left justified and the site has an overall clean look that is consistent throughout giving a sense of unity.

Concentrate makes good use of color with the mast photo and the green navigation panel and then a more conservative clean look in the body of the page.  I like that the ads are grouped off to one side instead of here there and everywhere as in some sites.

One of the greatest features of this particular news site  is the job postings and event listings which they call filterD.

I think the site is very professional looking and well executed.  I love the way they tie in well written blogs of locals as a fresh way of accepting the work of contributors.  I do think they could improve the look and appeal of the blog section of their site by including pictures, the current long paragraph format is intimidating and I know from clicking around that the blogs themselves are much more visually entertaining then the Concentrate site lets on.

I would like to see the blog section be more of a visual teaser like the first column of the front page with a small photo and an intriguing snip-it from each blog being featured.

That said I look forward to reading Concentrate because of their focus on local businesses, non profits, and individuals.  It is hard for me to decide what to read first.

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Branding a Worthwhile Chore

After hours of fussing I am proud to say I have created a brand for Twitter and Facebook.  The Brand is related to my floral design business and blog Sweet Pea Floral Design.

The social media strategy is to provide photos, videos, links, and discussions related to all Ann Arbor wedding venues and vendors.  Obviously I wont be promoting other florists but I plan to review and recommend halls, jewelers, beauty salons, dress boutiques, caterers, bands and many more local vendors.

I believe that drawing all of this useful information together into one Facebook Page will attract many curious brides who will begin discussing their successes and concerns as they plan or review their wedding.  In the process the Sweet Pea name will become more and more familiar and photos of our work will start circulating in the community.

I will be creating a facebook photo album for each of the categories of vendors.  The captions beneath each photo will include the web address for the vendor, and the web address for the photographer who shot the photo when applicable.  Unfortunately Facebook does not allow these captions to include hyperlinks.

To get the conversation rolling I have posted a discussion topic and I have linked the facebook page to the twitter feed so that it automatically updates twitter when I post on facebook.

the thing that intimidates me the most about these social media fan  and twitter pages is the commitment required to remain professional looking.  I will have to schedule time at least every other day update and respond to posts from followers.  Right now I am looking forward to it there is certainly no shortage of information to share with everyone.

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Serendipity and Curators of Content

“Curator of Content” Nick Bilton, Makes the excellent point that we have all become sifters, collectors and sharers of information online.  I relate the attraction to this behavior to the enjoyment we ladies get out of gossiping or you fella’s get out of telling a great story or joke that no one has heard yet.  It is cool to be in the know, to have a reputation for sharing the latest news, gossip, and knowing where the party is at.

Count me among the many aggregators happy to play hide and go seek with the greatest new ideas, events, and then pass the results of my treasure hunt on to friends proudly as the pioneer of our circle claiming new intellectual territory for my peeps.

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Twitterless

Concentrate Media Site has many terrific features, not among them twitter.  Concentrate identifies itself as

The new story of Washtenaw County — a narrative of creative people and businesses, new development, cool places to live, and the best places to work and play.

It includes news, feature Stories, well written blogs by locals like Mark Maynard, videos, innovation and job news, classifieds, and a special section on new developments in Washtenaw County but no twitter.

A search for “twitter” in Concentrate’s site revealed an in depth article written about how some influential locals use the social media.

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Sundance comes to Ann Arbor

This year Sundance film festival will send  film makers to eight  theaters around  the country including our own Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor.    Those lucky enough to have snagged tickets before they sold outSundance website will see “Cyrus”

A Michigan Theater press release reads

Directors Jay and Mark Duplass will appear at the Michigan Theater along with their brand new film CYRUS on Thursday, January 28 at 7:30 pm

The Official 2010 Sundance provides the following a brief description of the film.

Cyrus — Ann Arbor, MI — Michigan Theater
Directors and screenwriters: Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass –A recently divorced guy meets a new lady. Then he meets her son who is, well…interesting. Cast: John C. Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill, Catherine Keener. World Premiere

Ann Arbor is preparing for the possibility of a star studded night.  There is a good chance either Marisa Tomei or John C. Reilly with be at the Michigan for the event.  Russ Collins, Ann Arbor.com columnist, Michigan Theater executive director and CEO and a co-chair of the Art House Project writes.

The Michigan Theater will play three days before the close of the festival, it means Ann Arbor will see the film before it is shown in Park City. The Michigan Theater screening will be its world premiere!

For a sneak peek at this film you can view the trailer at fox searchlight.com

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The Definition of Online Journalism

Holly’s Definition of Online Journalism:

Online Jour-nal·ism

1.  Original writing and reporting that is delivered via the world wide web

The Urban dictionary definition of Online Journalism:

The art of making up a story with something that sounds like a premise but isn’t, and then spending the entire time writing about how your unfounded premise would play out, if it had any basis, delivered via the world wide web.

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Hello Mark!

Hi my name is Holly I am a journalism student at WCC • I have an undergraduate degree in Business Management from EMU • Using my degree I started a grass roots floral business in Ann Arbor called Sweet Pea Floral Design •  Last winter I took two journalism classes, Intro to Journalism and Feature Writing •  In this web journalism class I am hoping to learn about search engine optimization and how to incorporate video content on websites and blogs. I’m excited lets get started•••Holly

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