Thursday October 30th, 2014

Today we met Alexis Cambrol at the Magum foundation. This organization is looking to fund projects that will effect change. The piece of advice that I found to be valuable is that luck is just preparation meeting opportunity. Being prepared and organized to take on anything is crucial so that when an opportunity presents itself you are able react and be ready to take it on. This was one of the few organizations we visited that allowed for long term documentary projects for underreported issues.

The New York Times was next on the list and they haven't hired a photographer in ten years, none the less there is still many opportunities to freelance. They told use the personality of the photographer is important to them and that they should be fearless and have the ability to really work situations, no matter how mundane, and to be able to capture emotion. "If you're asking someone to get naked you have to take off a few items of clothing yourself", meaning that you too need to be a little vulnerable with your subjects. Over all the message was that there are different expectations of photographers today, for every thing that has changed something positive has resulted.

At MSNBC James Collins to talked to us. The theme of social media being an important resource was recurrent throughout today. They have an entire team at NBC dedicated to audience development. The staff was kind enough to show us the control room and we were able to see the live reporting room. They look for problem solving abilities in their shooters which is another common quality that these companies are looking for.


Friday October 31st, 2014

At AP we were able to sit in on the morning news meeting which was such an interesting experience. AP's expectation of their photographers is that they should be able to photograph anything at a high degree. They should be able to photograph 1.) News: news worthy, capable of working in chaos, and action. 2.) Sports: able to use a long lens and have a strong level of engagement. 3.) Stand alone feature makes a photograph around a theme 4.) long term feature: be able to become invisible and make the subject comfortable. For our websites/portfolios they should be organized by theme, dont mix black and white, and a website that opens in every browser. The last piece of advice was to challenge ourselves to consistently maintain our own workshops, to pick a theme and take every opportunity to photograph that theme

Time Magazine showed us how many different platforms and opportunities there can be in photojournalism through their use of print, their lightbox blog, and their website. This is one of the few places that talked not only about making good images but making them beautiful. I think that many places might have thought that this is an obvious point but it made me think about how even mundane news can be made beautiful. The advice given was to have a personal mission, embrace vulnerability, have good presentation, be able to state your purpose in few words, use promos, and be charming. Both AP and Time told use to edit our work by gathering similar images into groups and then pick the best image out of each group. Other advice at TIME in regards to editing was to put distance between yourself and your images, always assume the editor will print the worst image you send in, an ordinary photo next to another ordinary photo can be extraordinary (sequencing matters), and edit by finding your opener and closer and then fill in the middle.