Social media keeps us connected, informed and competitive

  Do you ever feel overwhelmed with social media?

  Do you Facebook, Tweet, blog, connect with LinkedIn and maintain a website?

 Are people left behind if they don’t do most of these things? Is being hyper connected really necessary? I pondered these questions this week when I finally broke down and started a website.

  Most everyone I know is connected through some sort of social media, mostly on Facebook. If I drew a pyramid for social media populations, Facebook would be the base. For nine years Facebook has been connecting billions of people to each other. It’s so eclectic that it appeals to nearly every person on the planet. If you’re really private, you can limit your contact to just 10 close friends or relatives. Or you can have more than 1,000 ‘friends’ and counting, like my mom.

    "Privacy is dead, and social media holds the smoking gun." - Pete Cashmore, Mashable

   There is no doubt Facebook has its problems, like invasion of privacy and copyright issues. But that’s another story.

  Next would be Twitter, the 140-character micro-blogging service.  This is geared more for the professional, as it LinkedIn. Twitter and LinkedIn both have about 200 million active subscribers.

    I check my Twitter account several times a day because I like the articles and tutorials posted by educators and photographers I choose to follow. Twitter allows me to stay informed with people and industries I wouldn’t normally be privy to, primarily educators and the media. I retweet way more than I post because it’s all about sharing information.

    Then there’s blogging, a free and easy way of publishing stories, photos, videos and even novels on the web. I maintain two blogs through Blogger: the one you're reading now, which is more personal, and the Intro to Photojournalism course blog. Both allow me to express myself beyond 140 characters. I share each blog post on Facebook and Twitter, giving my Facebook friends and Twitter followers the choice whether they want to read what I have to say, or not.

    Finally, the website. Finding a suitable website host was not easy. There are dozens of companies that offer websites. I started by Googling websites for photographers, and narrowed them down to affordability and simplicity. I ultimately chose Squarespace, which allows me to control the content without needing to know how to code.

The homepage for my new website,  which includes a photo gallery and a CV.

  Websites are a great way to showcase a photographer’s work because they have a variety of templates that include photo and video galleries. Websites are a must if you own a business, are job hunting, or simply want to share your work. 

  I chose to create a website because many students have them now, and I want to understand the process of searching, choosing and maintaining a website so I can better relate to them. Having a website allows me to appear more professional, and that’s the image I want to portray.

  So, am I overwhelmed with social media? Not at all. Being social media savvy keeps me connected, informed and competitive. My family, on the other hand, thinks I'm too connected; but that's another story, as well.

"When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place." - Mark Zuckerberg, CEO & Founder of Facebook

Tips on how to prepare a competitive photojournalism portfolio

Blade supervisor Dave Zapotosky views student portfolios.

   It’s that time again. Hundreds of student photojournalists are scrambling to find summer newspaper jobs. Fortunately, paid internships still exist despite the dismal job market .

   This blog post focuses on helping PJ students prepare a competitive portfolio, which is the most important tool in landing an internship.

   A portfolio is a visual showcase; a collection of work that basically defines the skills and interests of the applicant. Seriously, in about 1/125^th of a second a photo editor can tell whether the photographer is a good fit for the newspaper.

   Many newspapers, including the Toledo Blade, hire summer interns. The hiring process for this summer’s Blade intern began in January, and by the end of February Jeffrey Smith from Central Michigan University was selected out of 70 applicants.

   So what helped the chosen one rise to the top? What made him so special? He had the best portfolio.

   A good portfolio includes three vital components: Great photos, strong captions, and a good organization and delivery method. 

   As I recently watched Blade photo supervisor Dave Zapotosky and photographer Andy Morrison go over this year’s crop of portfolios, I asked them to share their concerns and tips.

   Let’s start with the photos, the heartbeat of the portfolio.

        The Photographs

·    Offer visual variety. Include your very best selection of sports, news, features, portraits, and at least one photo story. Editors want their new hires to hit the ground running, even though they expect them to be a little green. Stating in your cover letter you can handle the work isn’t enough. Demonstrate it. Spread the love. For example: 20 photos of portraits aren’t as convincing as five portraits, five sports, five features, and five spot news. Also include a solid photo story. Be very, very choosy in your selection.

·      Don’t overindulge your college life. Editors aren’t too impressed with shock value: images of drunken students depicting wild nightlife; sexual ambiguity for the sake of it (performing drag queens); and nudity. Know the newspaper’s readership. Our newly-hired intern’s leading photo on his website is a man walking goats past a cornfield – our Midwest flavor.

·      Show off your technical skills. Do you have a firm grasp of lighting? Do you know your camera controls? Is your use of motion and depth of field evident, appropriate, overdone?

·      Do not over process your photos in Photoshop! Instagramish, over-processed, hyper contrasted, super-saturated photos and sun-flared pictures will not earn you extra points. Less is best. Crop, tone and color correct. Shoot it right and edit tight.  

The Captions

·      Include complete captions with every single photo! Captions explain what the photos are about. Make them super easy to find. Andy and Dave were very frustrated when they couldn’t find captions or had to apply effort to find them. This is a deal breaker!

·      Ensure your captions are complete. This is the journalism part of photojournalism. Answer the 5 Ws and the H. Watch your spelling and grammar. Complete sentences. Use present tense when explaining the 5Ws.

The Delivery

·      This is still evolving. In days gone by, we’d submit a page of 20 slides with a caption sheet. Now there are blogs, websites, CDs, flash drives, Dropbox.com, and who knows what else.

- Dave prefers a CD or flash drive that includes two folders: one for single images and one for the photo story. This allows him to simply drag each folder into Photo Mechanic and view all of the photos at once. He said he doesn’t want to open a lot of folders (one for portraits, one for sports, etc.), considering how many folders he already has to open. When he’s ready to read the caption, he clicks on the Information icon.

- Include no more than 20 images in each folder.

·      Might be good to call and ask each editor how they prefer to view your portfolio. This will save you a lot of work and possible heartache.

·      If you have a website or blog, include the URL in your cover letter. Again, make sure your blog is easy to maneuver, and the captions are easy to find.
-  Make your cover letters unique to each particular newspaper. Form cover letters are sometimes quite obvious. Make sure you study each newspaper before you apply. Again, this is knowing your audience. At this point in your collegiate career you should know what "do your homework" means.
   Well, that’s about it. Good luck to all students applying for internships!

    Here are more tips from working pros:

·      Tips by Peter Power

·      How to Make Portfolios by Mark Hancock

·      20 'Great' examples

Craving the need to turn blank slates into finished products

   This morning I had a very strong urge to want to create my own newspaper.
   It's not a new feeling. For a long time now I've been missing the glory days when I was a military newspaper editor responsible for planning and designing an end product. I loved the challenge of turning blank slates into finished publications. Back then I wrote stories on typewriters and shot black and white film, and the editing tools were whiz wheels, pica poles, reduced-sized dummy sheets and fingers (used to count headline sizes).
   This urge was so overwhelming that I drove straight to the Owens Bookstore before my 9 a.m. class and bought the Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard for Educators.  I bought the suite for InDesign CS6, which replaces the old-fashioned design tools from the 20th Century.
   I have no idea what I'll end up doing with my new purchase, but I constantly crave to tell stories and place them on a page.
   One good example of what can be done is J. Bruce Baumann's Posey Magazine.  He is an experienced photojournalist who created this magazine "for and about Posey County, Indiana."  I'm certainly not capable of being that ambitious, but I'm still inspired by his own need to tell stories for the love of it.

Soundslides now offers a hosting site, finally!

   Ever since I've been teaching Soundslides at Owens Community College, I've been unable to generate an embed code for publishing the projects...until now.
   Ten minutes ago I discovered that Soundslides now offers a hosting site for Soundslide projects. Soundslides is offering six months of free hosting, and I immediately signed up for it. Then it's only $12 a year after that. I can't tell you how excited I am that this publishing issue has been resolved.
   So many students have created Soundslides projects that couldn't be viewed because we didn't have access to a website, which was needed to create the HTML embed code. Now I can generate their embed codes and they can post their projects on their blogs. Here's the link to the site: http://support.soundslides.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=154.
   Problem solved! Thank you, Joe!
   The following Soundslides project is the community project the Intro to Photojournalism class shot and produced during the Fall of 2012. 

Capturing a street art scene from 22 floors high

   Looking out the window of the 22nd floor of the Government Center, I noticed many of the streets were marked with black tar lines. It immediately caught my eye, and I took a few shots just for the heck of it.
   As luck would have it, this couple walked by and art was made. I love everything about this photo, except the distraction of the street pole. Because the pole is part of the scene, it would be against my photojournalism ethics to remove it.
   Simple yet pure.

Burned: a Soundslides project on arson in Central Toledo

   It took me two years to show you what you are about to watch: a Soundslides project on a blog post.
   After much research and trial & error, I finally figured it out. Now it seems so simple. I actually did a Camtasia Studio tutorial on the process yesterday. It's a little rough because I just learned Camtasia right before I did the tutorial, but it's still effective. It can be viewed here.
The project: Burned

The Intro to PJ course must go on for sake of students

   This is a blog post from former PJ student Lynn Redding. This essay will appear in rustwire.com.

   As I prepare for the start of classes at Owens Community College Monday, I took a few moments to view the student blogs for the Intro to Photojournalism course I taught last semester. I must say I’m pretty impressed with how the students kept up.

   Over the past few years the course has morphed into a very progressive curriculum. It started out with basic instruction on how to shoot certain types of assignments, like sports, features and portraits. We also covered law and ethics and caption writing. But those traditional subjects aren’t enough for the 21^st Century photojournalist.

   Though most of my PJ students don’t plan on entering the PJ field, I am still committed to training them to be responsible, ethical citizen communicators by teaching them how to blog, tweet and shoot photos with cell phones. They also engage with the local community for their final project. So far, as a class, the students have done photo stories on the Cherry St. Mission and Bittersweet Farms. Last semester we visited arson sites in Central Toledo for a photo story that will soon run in rustwire.com. The above screen grab represents the work on the arson project from of one of the students, Lynn Redding, who has since joined the staff of the Owens Outlook online newspaper!

   The only concern I have regarding this course is that it’s traditionally small in numbers because it’s a niche subject. The Owens photography program is geared for commercial photography, so classes include large format, studio lighting, B&W/color film and digital photography.  The Intro to PJ course is only an elective, though Public Relations/Marketing students are required to take it.

   I strongly believe this course should be required in the photo program because it offers so many fundamental skills, but I admit I’m very biased! I wish Owens was a magnet for photojournalists who plan on transferring to Ohio University or Kent State, but the news field is suffering in today's economy. Sadly, as I write this, the course is on the verge of being cancelled (only this semester) due to lack of attendance. Sigh.

   To view student blogs from last semester, click on this link. To view the course blog: Introduction to Photojournalism course.