Petit Le Mans

Just got off the phone with our American Le Mans Series guy (John Evenson), looks like everything is falling into place. We'll go over some organizational stuff on Tuesday, but he reiterated the importance of the Green Challenge - we need to make sure we cover this and cover it well.

There will be lots of signage around the track and the paddock, he said the trophies are hand made and gorgeous, so we have to get them before they're presented and while they're being presented. (May be a good chance to do some location lighting, I'll pack up a few reflectors.)

Also, the 007 Aston Martin owner/driver Paul Drayson is a HUGE proponent of this, we have to find him and get some good stuff. 

Links to read up on the event:

• American Le Mans Series - the main site for the sanctioning body
  
• Road Atlanta - track site
  
• AutoWeek - good info in the forums and back stories
  
• SpeedTV - the network that will be broadcasting the event
  
• Modern Racer - news on the series
  
• MotorSports.com - another news site
  

You can also search for individual teams (Audi, Penske Porsche, Andretti Green Racing, Corvetter Racing, Flying Lizard Racing, Peugeot - who had a major crash on Saturday morning and rebuilt the whole car by Sunday).

Start Studying.

ASSIGNMENT: Features, Reading & Learning

For next Tuesday, please shoot three feature photos. One needs to be weather related, one needs to focus on color and one needs to focus on a strong moment. Upload to the site as normal.

Please read chapter 9 in the book and the handout "In A Flash" (now available in the corner of this site and on the class site).

Don't forget to sign up for the Flying Short Course (and the NPPA) and talk with me about internship opportunities.

And don't forget to blog, either. Or do your photo requests. Or do a Tumblr post, if you want. 

ASSIGNMENT: Blog, read, shoot news

Don't forget, you are all supposed to blog every week - posts by Friday at 9 a.m., comments by noon. 

For Tuesday, please read chapter 11 in the book and have a 3-5 photo package on a news event up online. You need to have them up before class starts - we won't have time in class to do this.

Letters - remember the letters? You were supposed to shoot letters ... let's get those on the server in the lab for Tuesday, as well. If you don't have time to do them before class, I'll stay a little late and you can upload them afterwards. Please crop them into a 5 inch wide by 7 inch high at 300 dpi image and I'll build something cool from there. 

And don't forget the tumblr page ... 

ASSIGNMENT: Reading, Shooting and Writing

For next week, please read chapters 2, 3 and 4 from the Photojournalism book. 

Please shoot a 3-5 photo package from a sporting event, you'll have some time at the beginning of class to upload your images on Tuesday. This can be from a high school or intramural event but should be of a competition of some sort. (A scrimmage would be acceptable.)

You need to have two photo requests, typed and printed, for Tuesday as well. One can be event oriented, the other needs to be issue or individually oriented. 

Invitations to the blog will be going out this evening. Starting a week from Friday (September 5) you'll need to post one entry that includes at least one link (more is better) to something of interest to the class and comment on someone else's post. Blogging is about discussions, let's use it that way. 

Your posts will need to be up by 9 a.m. on Friday, comments by noon on Friday. We'll continue that pattern through the rest of the semester.

ASSIGNMENT: Photo Requests

To simplify your life a bit, I've created an editable PDF with all the fields you'll need to fill in for a photo request. There's a link off of the syllabus page, as well as this page, so you can download as many copies throughout the semester as you need. 

Remember, for Tuesday, you need two requests: one can be event-oriented, the other needs to be centered on an individual or issue. Make sure you fill out all the fields, including the contact information - there must be contact information. 

ASSIGNMENT: Pictorials and Reading

For Tuesday, you need to shoot 3-5 different pictorial images. These photographs are all about composition, light, form, texture ... we're not worrying about the journalism, this is to help you develop your vision.

Look for details, look for landscapes. Look for great light. Really great light.

For the reading, please go through chapters 1 (Assignment), 6 (Sports), 8 (Camera Bag) and 17 (History). We'll talk about some of it in class, and some of it is just great background information for you.

Final Portfolios

Lab hours:

• Dec. 7 – 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
• Dec. 10 – 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
• Dec. 11 – 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
• Dec. 12 – 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
• Dec. 13 – 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
• Dec. 14 – 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Don’t push the deadline. Be paranoid - no portfolios will be accepted after 5:00 p.m. Remaining time will be announced throughout the day as shown on the clock on computer 0.

Deadline: Friday, December 14, 5:00 p.m. SHARP

You must turn in your equipment with your portfolio. Be sure that all filters are in good condition, all lens caps are present, hoods are there, synch cords, audio recorder, microphone and adaptor are in your bag. If anything is missing or broken, you’re responsible for replacing or repairing it. If you don’t, your account will be flagged and you won’t graduate.

Portfolio requirements:

20 single images, shot during this semester
1 photo story
Intellectual Photographer Paper

DITL project folder should be on the CD, as well

Color laser prints of all the images, as well as one CD with high resolution versions of the images, to be placed in a 9x12 manila clasp envelope with your name and section on it.

All images must have complete, AP style captions, proper credit lines and correct file names.

To print photos with captions:

• When you are done toning, cropping and captioning, go to File -> Print with Preview
• Make sure “Center Image” is checked
• If a horizontal, click on “Scale to Fit Media”
• If a vertical, set height to 7.5 inches
• Click on “Description” to get captions to print
• Click on “Labels” to get file name to print
• Do not rotate prints in Page Setup
• Send to the HP 4600 printer

Lit portraits

It was asked, and here are some more links to portraits, both executive and environmental. Pay attention to the way the light is balanced between ambient and the flash, as well as the quality of light.

Ed Carreon, Los Angeles based photographer

Chris Ware, New York based photographer

UPDATE - Executive Portraits

To upload your portraits, save all your HTML and images into a folder named "071023" - there isn't a link for that yet on your sites, but I'll add one this evening.

Forgot to do that in my rush out the door last night, my apologies.

Plan on uploading or re-uploading at the start of class on Tuesday. I clicked something wrong and ovewrote any files that had been uploaded. I'll make it up to you next week, somehow.

Future Assignments

A quick run-down, always subject to alterations:

• Tuesday, October 16: Practice audio
• Thursday, October 18: Health and Medical, first edit (3-10 images)
• Tuesday, October 23: Executive portrait (2-5 images)
• Thursday, November 1: Environmental portrait (2-5 images)
• Thursday, November 8: Health and Medical, final package
• Thursday, November 15: Conceptual portrait (2-5 images)
• Tuesday, November 20: Day in the Life of a Photojournalist (8-12 minutes)
• Thursday, November 28: General News (3-5 images)

Assignment: Audio

For Tuesday, October 16: Two separate mini projects ...

First, choose a subject and do an interview with them. You'll need to be able to edit together a brief piece where they introduce themselves, tell us their hometown and major and then say something about their hometown.

The second part is to practice recording natural sound. Look for an opportunity to record ambient, background (long) sound and several instances of close-up/detail sound. Subject matter isn't as important as identifying good sound from a given situation.

We'll be working with Audacity, the audio editing software, on Tuesday.

Story Proposal

Second draft is due on Tuesday. No photo requests needed this week.

Petit Le Mans photos

All the laptop files have been moved to the server in the lab. You can log on, open the 3710 folder, then the Petit folder and you'll see your images (broken into folders by shooter).

Ask the lab attendant for the DVDs that are out back to burn onto - will take too many CDs for most of you. (You can do about 4.5 GB on a DVD.)

For Thursday, please have 5-10 images from the workshop posted. We'll be reviewing features and portraits on Tuesday and starting to talk about audio.

Flash Group Project

Here's the deal ... to get everyone more comfortable with the light kits, you're going to be broken into groups. Each group will need to produce a portrait of each member of the group and have it posted by 10:45 a.m. on October 4. (No class that day, we'll review the following Tuesday.)

Each member of the group needs to shoot one of the portraits - so, if there are three of you, one is the subject, one the shooter, one the assistant, then rotate.

These should be fairly formal images - good light, clean backgrounds.

The groups:

Group A: Ashley, Lindy, Becky, Richard
Group B: Kristen, Sarah, Josh
Group C: Tyler, Emily, Sara
Group D: Waites, Rene, Jenna

Examples:

Freed Photography
Kit Noble (go to portfolio, then corporate)
Gary Parker

Post questions, comments and concerns ...

Assignment: Feature 2

For Thursday, September 27, please have on the server three stand-alone feature photos. These should be from found situations that talk about life in Athens.

A few notes ... proof your pages after publishing, to make sure everything made it up there ... please be on-time ... keep shooting well - there's been improvements across the board already, keep at it.

* I will be on the road for the next few days and without Internet access, I'll send out critiques Sunday evening or Monday morning. Sorry for the delay but I can't alter this schedule.

Assignment: Story Proposal

For Tuesday (in lieu of photo requests), please have your first draft of an in-depth story proposal ready. We're going to use the Alexia Foundation's standards for this - so 750 words maximum length, the first 25 as a summation.

About the foundation:

Alexia Tsairis, an honor photojournalism student at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, was a victim of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. She was returning home for the Christmas holidays after spending a semester at the Syracuse University London Centre. Alexia was known by her peers and professors as one of the most promising photo-journalism students at SU.

During the summers of 1987 and 1988 she interned for the Associated Press Graphics and Photography departments in New York City. Alexia was a dedicated supporter of Amnesty International and Greenpeace. She had a deep commitment to world peace.

The family of Alexia Tsairis has established the Alexia Foundation for World Peace, Inc., a non-profit foundation. Alexia's abiding beliefs were in the capacity and responsibility of individuals to shape and advance peace in our time. The Alexia Foundation is dedicated to providing students and professionals the means to do so.

And about the competition:

The Alexia Competition was not created with the purpose of rewarding the best picture takers -- this is not a portfolio competition. The awards will go to students who can further cultural understanding by conceiving concise, focused, and meaningful story proposals. There is no mathematical formula for determining the winners, but the story proposal is the most important part of the application. All proposals are read and ranked by the judges before any portfolios are reviewed. You are encouraged to have your application reviewed and proofread for accuracy, clarity and conciseness. You may confer with your teachers on topic selection and proposal writing.

You are also encouraged to consider stories that explore cultural understanding in or near you local community. While we do not discourage proposals on foreign topics, the judges give no extra weight to foreign topics, and indeed, think that you are more likely to complete a story near home than one abroad.

When evaluating your portfolio, the judges consider your technical ability, your ability to work with your subjects and your style. The winning entries will be those that provide strong story proposals with portfolios that exhibit the photographic ability to execute a story at a high level.

Assignment: Story Proposal

We're going to postpone the story proposal due date from Sept. 20 to September 25 (and it will be in lieu of photo requests for next week). We haven't talked about it enough yet, we'll do that this week.

DITL Project

As mentioned in class, the deadline for notification by your photojournalist is this Thursday, Sept. 13. I've only heard from about half thus far.

So ... chime in down in comments with who you're doing and I'll let you know if I've heard from them yet.

Health/Medical Project

As discussed we'll be working with Prof. Pat Thomas' graduate health and medical reporting class. She's a little undersubscribed with just six (!) students, so we'll be double and triple teaming them.

They have created a class blog where they've identified different areas they'll be reporting on - along the left hand side are the six topic areas. Take a look at what they're talking about and see what interests you. By Monday morning, please email me your top three choices and then Prof. Thomas and I will work on pairing you guys up.

Also, remember we'll be meeting with her class at 9 a.m. on Wednesday in room 205 - note that's different from where I told you before.

Post questions here, comments there - start the discussion.