A visual journal by Richard Koci Hernandez
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under inspiration
We all loved MultimediaShooter and it’ll be dearly missed, but thankfully Richard has found what he calls his new online distraction. Check out the first piece in his new visual journal.
If you haven’t yet take a look at the rest of his work. It’ll be good for your senses. His On The Road series does the impossible and makes the logistics of traveling seem sexy.
Check this one out from his trip to judge CPOY. Watch for the plane cut out and if you’ve ever witnessed contest judging live you’ll enjoy the “out, out, out” portion of the clip too.
Hopefully he has another in store for us with his trip to the Convergence workshop.
Richard’s work is the Uncola of newspaper video. Very refreshing and something I wish more papers were exploring.
Plastic Dreams by Richard Koci Hernandez
Tags: inspiration, multimedia, photojournalism
The Pulitzer Prize - Feature Photography Preston Gannaway
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under photojournalism
A big congrats to Preston Gannaway for winning one of the greatest honors for any storyteller; a Pulitzer. Her story “Remember Me“(link to the multimedia piece) is an incredible and intimate journey with Carolynne St. Pierre and her family. Thanks to the St. Pierre’s for sharing their story and to Preston for documenting the precious journey. As somebody going through something very similar right now this piece hits me hard. I don’t know where they found the strength, but I’m glad they did. Thank you Carolynee, Preston and company.
Check out Preston’s winning entry here.
Rich and EJ plant trees in the backyard to memorialize Carolynne.
Photo by: Preston Gannaway
Tags: contests, documentary, photojournalism, pulitzer
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
MultimediaShooter is no longer being published?
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under multimedia
Awoke to find that MultimediaShooter was down this morning and I’m hoping it’s only a bad dream.
My stomach dropped when I read this:
I’m walking away this time with my head held high. It’s been fun. I’m closing the blog doors for good this time. There’s not enough Jack Daniels or Red Bull to get me back this time. Sorry for on again off again nature of the blog lately. Thanks for the support through the hacks. This is a great time for me to step away from the blogosphere.
Good Night and Good Luck, see you in the real world.
Richard thanks again for everything. As I’ve said before you’ve been an incredible asset to the storytelling community and hopefully your voice isn’t lost for good.
Richard’s Multimedia Journal is sitting on my wish list and can be bought here.
Tags: inspiration, journalism, multimedia, photojournalism, web
Contests: The love and hate relationship.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under career, contests
With the contest season slowly coming to a close I enjoyed a recent post by Trent Nelson on contests in response to a student threatening to burn his photos. A panel of contest judges deemed the young photographer and all the entries in the Young Scottish Photographer of the Year category to be unworthy of the honor.
Apparently the young photographer was misquoted and never threatened to burn his photos, rather he said he’d be burning bridges by speaking out.
What fun is that? Burn those suckers. (Alright I didn’t major in PR so I’m not sure if that’s the best move.)
After finishing up my latest contest entry last night I had the same thoughts linger in my head that always appear after I enter a contest:
Why do I do this? What good is this for? If I’m doing this to give a voice to my subjects why bother? Why expose myself to the torture of losing?
The reality remains though — I’m new to the business and don’t have much of a career(if you can call it that) in this field I love. A contest helps bring credibility to my work.
We all know our field is extremely competitive and talent flows from all corners. Contests are a way to give yourself an edge. In many ways it’s like building a brand. Your name and your work are your brand. It’s your passion and you want validation that your hard work means something to your peers.
This recent blog post on Innovation in College Media touches on the idea of branding yourself in hopes of landing a job:
You might think you’re too young in your career to build a brand. Wrong. You need to start developing it now. Literally, your employer is purchasing your skills over someone else. You have to sell that idea to them. This requires you to think in marketing and advertising mode.
Contests are also a chance to reflect on the year. What worked? What didn’t? Did I meet the goals I set out for myself? It’s a chance to see how many bad photos I took(a lot) and serves as a reminder that there’s always more that can be done.
It’s a wonderful way to gauge your growth against not only yourself, but your peers.
What do we know for certain about contests?
As Melissa states:
They are such a double-edged sword. You win: You feel validated. Your bosses and publications are happy. Your resume gets padded with a few extra lines. You lose: You take it personally. You feel like your best is not good enough. Your ego get deflated.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em they’re a part of our business.
Trent says it best:
To all of you young photographers looking to be the next big thing: Invest your emotion into your work, not into contest wins. Contests are not science. The results are subjective and unpredictable. If you work hard and stay focused on your art, then recognition will come.
I came home to this last year on the floor in my house and it
served as a nice reminder that there’s more to life than contests.
Thanks guys.
Tags: brand, contests, photojournalism, selfpromo
A new breed
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under Uncategorized
Check out the Verve Photo blog for the work of a new breed of documentary photographers. It’s a nice list that includes some work thats new to me. Geoffrey does a nice write-up of each photographer he profiles. He was kind enough to profile me a few days ago.(Shameless plug, sorry.) Thanks Geoffrey.
Geoffrey Hiller has created Verve to feature photos and interviews by the finest young image makers today. Verve is a reminder of the power of the still image.
While you’re checking out new work see the photo collective Aevum that includes fellow OU photogs Matt Eich and Yoon S. Byun.
Tags: inspiration, photography, photojournalism, school
Trapped - Mental Illness in America’s Prison
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under Uncategorized
My girlfriend, Jenn, posted her stunning magazine project that deals with mental illness in prison.
Jenn’s work is one of the strongest multimedia pieces I’ve seen in recent memory. From the featured project to the raw inmate interviews the pieces will leave you feeling for these men.
Of the project Jenn wrote on her blog:
My intention was to make a multimedia piece that made the viewer feel what I felt when I was there. There were days that I was extremely scared and others that I left thinking how much someone on the outside missed them. Some days, I had to remind myself that many of these men had done heinous things.
Great job Jenn. I’m so proud of you.
Tags: inspiration, multimedia, photojournalism, school, video
Snowbirds in Quartzsite launches.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under Uncategorized
My magazine project is complete. (This is when I’m told it’s safe to breathe again.)
One main multimedia piece. One photo gallery. One embedded map. One time-lapse. One website. All in the blur of one quarter.
It was the class of ones for me.
One step at a time, I wore the many hats that the class calls upon you to wear. I was the publisher who wrote the mission statement for my publication. I was the assignment editor who researched and wrote up the shooting assignments. I was the photojournalist out in the field shooting, which was the highlight even if it left me exhausted. After shooting came the tedious world of production and editing. Days spent hacking away at php files and hours cutting audio and video.
It’s a great(well somewhat great not fully satisfied with things, but who ever is?) feeling to see the end product and how all the hats eventually brought us to one uniform package. It’s no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but it’s a quarter I’ll never forget.
It doesn’t feel like I’m done yet, but hopefully tomorrow when we have our show and tell I’ll be able to look at everything my classmates and I accomplished and be proud of what we did.
Is it on caliber with the multimedia newspapers produce? Hopefully.
See what you think for yourself.
Tags: me, multimedia, photojournalism, Quartzsite, school, web
Redesigned my website.
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under Uncategorized
Spent all weekend buried deep in WordPress working on a redesign of my website.
Check it out here.
I’m hoping by using WordPress and a content management system to drive the photo galleries that I’ll actually update it more often now.
It’s not completely finished it yet, but it’s getting close. I need to get this blog integrated into the mix yet and finish up the multimedia page.
Everything look alright? I haven’t been able to try it on a PC yet. I’m a little fearful of the way it might render in Internet Explorer.
Any feedback would be great.
timg at timgruber dot com
Tags: me, multimedia, photojournalism, web
Welcome back MultimediaShooter
Posted by Tim Gruber | Filed under Uncategorized
MultimediaShooter is back in business and with new content to show for it. There’s a new podcast of Zach Wise, a former OU alum, who played a huge role in making Soul of Athens what it was and is now doing great things out at the Las Vegas Sun.
Welcome back Koci.
Tags: inspiration, multimedia, photojournalism
