30 Day Project: A Caregiver and a Wife

 

30 Day: Works in Progress

Job Profile: Animal-Assisted Therapy

http://player.vimeo.com/video/17455903

Animal-Assisted Therapy from Michelle Kanaar on Vimeo.

CPOY Reflection 2

CPOY Picture Story Reflection Paper: Domestic Picture Story

11/15/2010

The strong stories stood really stood out in this category.  This was because an overwhelming amount of the entries lacked a strong narrative.  Most were superficial and lacked cohesion.  I see the same deficiency in my own work, which needs to dig deeper.  It was disheartening when I overheard Patty saying over and over again during breaks how weak she thought this category was.  I don’t think this is a reflection on the stories that placed, but rather on the scare competition.

Though there were many technically strong stories, a strong and reflective narrative was not present.   We are photographers, but we are just as equally journalists.  This is an important point to be reminded of.  I’ve noticed my captions and research slipping lately and I am glad to be reminded of the importance.  Not only do thorough captions add to the story, but they also provide legitimacy.  Good captions show that the photographer has researched their story and understands the inner workings.

Captions need to be more than just who, what, where, when.  The ‘why?’ is of the utmost importance.  We saw evidence of this with the three stories that were lacking summaries, and were subsequently voted out.   This was especially unfortunate with the story of the little girl that was living with her grandparents, although, I feel that would have been voted out regardless since it failed to show the relationship/conflict with her parents, which was discussed in the captions, but never illustrated through the images.  That consistency between word and images was also important.  I don’t think the two have to mirror each other, but if you raise an important point, such as the relationship of the girl with her parents, then you have to show it to us.  This is after all a picture story.

CPOY Reflection

CPOY Multimedia Reflection Paper: Individual Multimedia Story/Essay

11/15/2010

Ahhh multimedia.  Sometimes I wish we could just be still photographers and leave the video to the videographers.  Is that so crazy?

The multimedia category did entice/excite me, however, hearing the judges discuss it definitely intimidated me.  There is so much more you have to be aware of: audio, visual, flow, narrative, length, voice, EDITING, etc.  Editing particularly, because when you have that much more content, editing it down is that much more difficult.  The judges seem to agree that 2:20 and 3:20 were standard lengths with which the submitted pieces should comply (I didn’t actually measure them to see if that was the case).  Though I have to agree that I generally tend to lose interest when pieces starting reaching four or five minutes.   However, if the story is compelling enough I stay glued.

Perhaps the judges are jaded, or perhaps I am just a bad editor (substantial evidence for the latter), but I felt that they lost patience and voted things out very quickly.  There were many times where I thought to myself that I would have liked to have seen where the story is going.  I know that we always argue that the standard viewer loses attention after 30 seconds if the piece isn’t good enough and doesn’t get to the grit fast enough, but I think we are underestimating our audience.

People watch movies don’t they?  Well personally I find the beginning of every movie to be a drawn out intro, but I sit patient through it as it sets the scene for me.  Now, you may argue that people do not expect their news and their movies to be held by the same standard, but isn’t a multimedia story a small movie? Yes, it is.  And I think having a time limit on it is limiting and stifling.

Part of that has to do with giving the viewer a chance to get to know the place and the subjects instead of just jumping in to the story.  I agree with the judges the voice of the subject is very important.  In the story about the woman with fragile bones, the technique the photographer used of inserting text slides instead of letting us hear the subject’s voice telling us the information, definitely took away from the intimacy of the story.  If the photographer had simply asked the subject the right questions, we could have heard her tell her own story.  I think relying on text to tell the story weakens the project.

I found it especially interesting to look at the “For Better or For Worse” story in the two mediums in which it was represented: stills in the documentary category and multimedia for the multimedia category.  Before this I thought that there was a specific medium that was best for each story, but now I see that the representation of a story is more flexible than that.   To be honest I liked the multimedia more than the documentary version because I felt that the multimedia touched me more.  I felt more connected with the story and I think that was because I could hear the subjects’ voices.  In a way that frightens me because I wonder then if video is just a more successful medium for longer form projects?  Something to chew on…

Picture Story Reading for 10/4

The Great Photographic Essays

- the reading states: Photographic essays require cooperation.

Though published stories/essays depict subjects who have honestly and completely opened their lives to documentation, how does one actually find these people?  How can we tell them from another?  I sure don’t know… Half the battle is finding a subject that will let you in to every aspect of their life.

Brief History of Photojournalism in the United States

Who knew that it was as early as the 1800s that content was being steered by advertisers (indirectly) and that photojournalists were battling censorship by the military?  Have things changed?

It would seem not.  I guess that goes back to the whole concept of journalism being a business just like anything else, and we just need to work with those limitations to continue to fight for quality content and meaningful work.

One Day Story: The Baker

Gary Stewart, 22, takes a nap before having to go into work at about 9 p.m.  Stewart is a baker.  He has been working nights at Uprise Bakery, in Columbia, for the last year and a half.

Stewart rolls out the croissant dough.  “Bread is the base of every meal,” he says.  Stewart has been working in the food industry since he was 16.

Uprise Bakery offers an assortment of baked goods, all of which Stewart has a hand in making.

The lights are off at Uprise Bakery, but behind the scenes Stewart continues to work.

It is morning and Stewart is shoveling bread out of the oven.

Stewart arrives home at about eight in the morning.  He takes off his shoes so as not to get flour in the house, and then sits back with a beer on his couch to decompress a few minutes before heading to bed.