Soul of Athens 2008
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under school
Check out some the great work my talented peers did this school year and spring at Ohio University with the 2008 edition of Soul of Athens.
You remember 100% of what you feel
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under inspiration
I gave a brief talk the other night to a photojournalism class at my undergrad and was in search of a quote I love on my old blog, but couldn’t find it so thought it was worth repeating here on my new blog.
One of my professors at OU, Bruce Strong, was a huge advocate for making images that made you feel. A notion I believe in strongly myself.
This quote is from a Business 2.0 article:
You remember 1/3 of what you read, 1/2 of what people tell you, but 100 percent of what you feel.
Who doesn’t love images that invite your heart and soul into a two-dimensional plane and bring a level of rawness and life to what is an otherwise static medium?
My cousin’s first dance as a new bride. Congratulations Tina and Ryan.
Tags: inspiration, ou, quotes
The best way to succeed
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under school
In the latest issue of PDN there’s an article about Dan Habib and his Including Samuel project.
On completing the project Dan states:
The best way to succeed professionally is to surround yourself with talented people.
Dan summed up in one sentence what I was trying to explain in my 5000 word post yesterday about one of the greatest benefits of going to grad school.
A program like OU attracts the passionate and driven, which in turn allows one to take root and blossom.
So to my peers, professors and everyone at VisCom. Thank you for the most grueling, but rewarding two years of my life.
My super classmates and professor Julie Elman. Photo by:Not sure
(Note: Missing are fellow super classmates Chad Stevens, Bob Sacha and
Julie Robert)
Just say no to grad school?
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under school
Mindy McAdams had a post this morning that as a grad student I thought is worth sharing. She writes about a topic I’ve been living for the past two years of my life; grad school.
She makes some valid points and others that I don’t agree with.
Mindy writes
Journalism is not rocket science. You don’t need a master’s degree to know how to do it, and you won’t do it well until you haul yourself out of school and into a working newsroom. Journalism is learned on the job, and if you’re not prepared to go out and do it after four years in undergrad, maybe you should just give up on it — and go to law school instead.
No one in a newsroom will respect your master’s degree, and what’s more, there is no reward at all for having it. So why do you want it?
I posted a reply on her site, but thought it’d be good to share here since I know a bunch of you are either in grad school, on the fence about it or soon to be attending grad school.
Here’s my reply:
Interesting post Mindy with some valid points.
From my own personal experience as a grad student in the Visual Communications program at Ohio University I can confidently say grad school for me was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Environments like the ones at OU don’t exist in newspapers and if your undergrad wasn’t in journalism or in a program that had a weak journalism or photojournalism program finding a place like OU can be a tremendous asset to your growth.
This is the most intense and fertile environment I’ve ever known and nothing my internships have come close to matching.
Sure working in the real world is great, but don’t dismiss what surrounding yourself with passionate and driven people can do for your growth.
For example last year in my video class two of my classmates included Bob Sacha and Chad Stevens both of whom are now working at MediaStorm as producers. Talk about setting the bar high.
I don’t know many environments like this that fosters creativity, critical thinking and promotes strong quality storytelling. Just how many newsrooms can say they do that on a regular basis?
I have to disagree with not doing journalism well until you leave school. How many newspapers do you see doing work on par with what my classmates did with Soul of Athens? Or doing what my classmates and I did for our capstone class?
If you’re interested a few links to the projects we did for the class -
Jenn’s multimedia piece on Mental Illness in America’s Prisons - http://indepth.jennackerman.com/trapped/feature.html
My piece on Snowbirds in Quartzsite, AZ
http://www.timgruber.com/moment
Kainaz’s print piece on the public housing crisis in New Orleans - http://kainazamaria.wordpress.com/2008/04/01/right-of-return/
So basically what I’m trying to say with all the shameless plugging of my friends and peers is that graduate school is more than just a piece of paper and I wouldn’t expect anyone to respect the fact that I have a masters degree, but with time I hope I’d earn their respect with the skills and knowledge I bring to the table.
The skills and knowledge that took birth and grew in grad school.
Tags: journalism, ou, photojournalism, school
Editing multimedia.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under me, multimedia, school
Since returning from Arizona I’ve lost what little tan I had, narrowed a boatload of images down to a “tighter” edit of 60, designed a mock layout to only trash it for a WordPress theme, ingested a lot of bad video and pushed off editing audio and video until tonight.
As I type this my first rough, very rough two minutes of my project are exporting. 10 days of shooting boxed into a Final Cut window. The start to what will hopefully be the essence of a place in a shorter than Spud Webb timeline — only to awake in the morning to find the exported piece like nothing I dreamt and wonder just what my sleepless mind was thinking.
The joys of late night editing.
Forgive me for shooting this silhouette, but I couldn’t help myself when
I came across this couple dancing outside their RV sunset.
Tags: editing, me, multimedia, ou, Quartzsite, school
Telling a story in 100 frames.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under me, school
My first photo story assignment back at OU had the class and I trying to tell a story from an event by shooting no more than 100 frames and with every frame being from a different angle/situation.
The whole idea of every frame being different wasn’t the easiest thing for me to do since as photojournalists we cherish the moment like peanut butter does bread. Normally we’re taught to work a situation until the moment falls off or we capture what we’re after.
As one song by Eminem goes you only have one shot, one opportunity(or something like that) to capture that moment.
I did cheat a time or two as hard as I didn’t want to, but the desire to capture the most telling moment is a hard habit to break.
It turned out to be a nice creative exercise though and a lot cheaper than breaking out of a creative rut by buying new gear.
Here are a few frames from the assignment:
Tags: me, ou, photojournalism, school
Back to school with advice from Sam Abell’s dad.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under books, school
School is in the second week here at OU and I found this advice from Sam Abell’s dad, Thad, as I was flipping through The Photographic Life. (nice stuff at that link if you haven’t seen the book)
On page 48 of the book Sam writes about having to get a D in linguistics to meet the minimum requirements for graduation. On the following page there’s a copy of a letter his dad sent Sam with some advice.
Here are a few I liked:
Show more than average interest at all times.
Lean forward from the hip line toward Prof.
Scout the opposition.(other students) Be more dynamic than they.
Most Profs will not fail a student whoin their opinion really tried to pass the course.
Consider the course a challenge. Cope with the challenge.
Take notes or pretend to be taking notes.
Ask to sit closer.
Give him a bottle of liquor as a going away gift.
