An Experiment in Photography

This week I worked by myself to take some photographs that were meant to be both newsworthy and portray emotion. I think I did a fairly good job of doing this, although it was pretty hard to capture emotion. I wanted to go to the football game, since I figured this would be a good place to see different emotions, but unfortunately, it was during when I was working on Saturday.

Two of my photos are from the WSBE scholarship ceremony that occurred on Friday. I thought that the pictures of students smiling after receiving their awards conveyed not only the obvious emotion of happiness, but also of pride. I also took some photographs of a blindfolded man tight-rope walking between two trees on T-Hall lawn. I thought that this portrayed the emotion of determination on his part, and hope or anxiousness on the part of the viewer (at least, I know I felt hopeful that he would not fall and anxious that he might while I was watching him).

One of my favorite photos is of the young boy running. There was a track event going on at the football field Monday night for the elementary school, and this was where I took this picture. I tried to get some of the kids running and laughing with eachother, but it was very difficult to take a picture that was not fuzzy (they were really fast), plus the more pictures I took, the worse looks I was getting from parents who must have thought I was a creep.

I wish that I could have found a little more emotion, but I think that for a first attempt, I did a pretty good job. I look forward to being able to take more pictures and improve the content and also the look of them, as I felt that some of mine this week were a bit fuzzy.

Another Experiment in Audio Recording

This week we had to create an NPR-style news story that included not only the voices of our sources but also a narration by a member of the group. I narrated most of the story, and I thought I was doing a pretty good job while recording, but turns out- I sound dull! Apparently, I was not made to be on radio!

Otherwise, this project was generally more difficult than the last one- not the recording and editing aspects, but the interviewing and finding sources part. We had a great interview lined up with two professors who are husband and wife and are both in the microbiology department here at UNH, and then a few hours before our scheduled meeting, they contacted me saying they had a family emergency. Our group was left to scramble around campus on Monday trying to find other sources of information, without having to come up with a whole new story. I think under the circumstances we did a good job, and I am proud of the final project. Still, I can't help but think of what could have been...

An Experiment in Audio Recording

This week our assignment was to do an audio interview with a person who makes UNH work. My group chose to interview Sheila Mosley, a housekeeper in Smith Hall here at UNH. She was a really interesting person to interview and I was very surprised to hear about her past professional life. She was an RN before becoming a housekeeper here, and was such an interesting person to talk to.

We had one minor slip-up during the actual interview process when I thought I was recording but wasn't, but it ended ok. I think we got some really great sounds for the background noise of her job, and I loved her voice itself and the way it sounded on tape.

When it came to the actual editing and putting the story together, I was pretty nervous. No one in my group had ever done any audio editing before and so it was quite the adventure. But I think that we got the hang of it towards the end and will only continue to get better as the semester continues. It was kind of hard for me, since I am a bit of a perfectionist and was worried that it wasn't going to be good enough. But I just had to remind myself that I am certainly no expert and just like everyone else, am learning as I go in this class. Overall though, I am really pleased with how this audio story came out.

The First of Many

This post begins what is sure to be a challenging and interesting semester (with any luck, a fun one, too!) Sitting in class on Wednesday I was feeling a little 0verwhelmed. I was one of the less experienced students, with many people in the class having already done their internships and having been TNH staff writers for awhile now. Still, I am now feeling a lot less nervousness because I realized that everyone else, and I don't mean just every other student in my class, but also many, many journalists young and old (some of whom have been reporters for decades), feels the same way. Even the most experienced reporters are now having to learn the art of creating multimedia, whether its photo slide shows or videos to accompany articles. So I decided I don't have to worry, because we are all learning together.

After realizing that, I got really excited. This is going to be an awesome experience and I feel confident that participating in this course will make me a much better journalist: a journalist of the future. A lot more is going to be expected of journalists in the years to come and I am glad that I can start to prepare myself for that now.

In the area of story ideas, I am still at a bit of a blank. I have been trying to think about different multimedia projects that could be done for this class and for the newspaper as well, but it's kind of hard to know what will make a good video. I am sure that in the coming weeks, however, I will come up with something. For now, I am happy to start learning the art that is multimedia.