Charlie Brown

For some reason the weather feature today reminds me of Charlie Brown when Lucy would hold the ball for him... And that being in Virginia in winter isn't so bad sometimes...

Lil' Different

So we've got this series of very short audio slideshows running over the next week or so. What I'm trying to do is start off with just the first one, then continue adding to it as each runs, but you can still see the ones from previous days. Hopefully it will keep people coming back, or give them a chance to see ones that are gone, plus by tying together the multimedia in a simple way I'm hoping it will give it more oomph. Check it out over the next week here.

Surprisingly Accurate Predictions

This was made by the Museum of Media History in 2004. I've seen it a few times, and it amazes me how surprisingly accurate it is given it is now almost the end of 2008. The more reading I do, the more I wonder if customization is where it is at for the future of presentation in our industry.

Who Wouldn't Love It?

It's like a big treasure hunt. May take you 5 hours to find the 5 houses you're looking for, but once you turn the corner and see the glow of inflatable Santa Clauses on motorcycles and trees blinking to the beat of carols playing through your car radio and snowmen blinking so bright the image stays on the back of your eyelids when you blink, I ask you: who wouldn't love the annual Holiday Lights Tour?

Parade Fun

It's the time of year again...

Tried to have a little fun with the parades yesterday. I don't think videos always need to be shots and voices and interviews. This is all ambient audio, but I thought it would be a different way to give the flavor of the holiday parades.

Response to Post

This is a response to the Multimedia Muse email by Angela Grant on News Videographer that I also think has a key point.

I received an email today from Multimedia Muse, a new web site that highlights inspiring works of multimedia. It’s basically a promotional email trying to get people to use the site. But it contains an inherent thought that I believe damages journalism, and is one of the reasons why our craft is going through hard times.

I’m all about good, quality journalism. But the inherent thought in this message is, “We [journalists] know what is best for you [audience], and we don’t care what you want.”

I think it’s important that we get past this old-timey idea. People do know what they want, and they know how to go out and find it. If we’re not willing to give it to them, because we have a high-and-mighty view of ourselves and the importance of our work … They will find it elsewhere, and totally ignore us.

If a great work of journalism drops on the Internet, and no one is watching, does it still have an impact?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do great journalism because of that. I’m saying we have to work it in within the framework of giving people what they’re looking for. If it’s necessary to rework some of our quality standards (putting cameras in the hands of writers, soliciting reader’s pictures for their homepages, littering our multimedia pages with TV news videos) in order to fit the bill, we have to do it.

This is not about us!

Email with a valuable point

Got this email from Multimedia Muse, a website that displays a variety of multimedia to give a venue for the work we do. I thought it had a meaningful point, and one that put into words what I think, from discussions I've had with photographers at my own newspaper and other photographers out in the field, many of us are feeling and gives a thought on what we should continue to strive to do in these hard times. I've really enjoyed checking out the work on the site, and Well Said!

Two months. Seventy five stories. A ton of hits. If we didn’t have bags over our heads you’d see tears of gratitude in our eyes.

And yet these are dark days, my fellow photogs; our industry is sinking, being pulled below the surface by all those newspapers and magazines that can’t get their act together.

To borrow a phrase first coined by Thomas Kean of the 9/11 Commission, much of our nation’s print media suffers from a “failure of imagination.” At least in relation to their photo departments. The Web is bursting with visual potential. And yet major publications are selling our craft short: putting cameras in the hands of writers, soliciting reader’s pictures for their homepages, littering our multimedia pages with TV news videos.

We at the Muse don’t believe that what works for TV works for the Web. We don’t believe in the inclination to make multimedia bigger and more flashy, but rather smaller and more personal. More precise. With craft. We also don’t believe that posting amateurish imagery, no matter how cheap to obtain, is going to help publications to balance their books. Readers have a high degree of visually literacy; it’s the pictures that are going to sell a story. If you agree, and if your hard-earned project isn’t getting the play you think it deserves, don’t allow it to go under-noticed. Fight the power. Stick it to The Man. Send it to the Muse: www.multimediamuse.org

New Camera

The next version of the D3, the D3X from Nikon . Not quite an answer to the Canon with its video capabilities, and the main difference seems to be a bump up in the megapixels at 24.5.