SJSU NPPA Fall Speaker Series Lineup

Another thing that has kept me busy this semester has been the SJSU NPPA student chapter. I am pleased to post our list of guest speakers for the semester (full list of events to come).

Tuesday, Sept. 19 - BBQ with new SJSU photojournalism professor, Dr. Michael Cheers. Cheers is a former professor of photojournalism and magazine journalism at the University of Mississippi. The BBQ starts at 5 p.m. at the 7th Street BBQ Pits on the SJSU Campus.

Thursday, Sept. 28 - Shmuel Thaler, staff photographer of Santa Cruz Sentinel and president of the California Press Photographers Association. Nhat Meyer, staff photographers with San Jose Mercury News. They will talk on ethics in the digital darkroom age.

Tuesday, Oct. 10 - Michael Grecco, Los Angeles freelance photographer from editorial to advertising. (co-sponsored by Canon)

Thursday, Oct. 26 - Frederic Neema, San Francisco freelance photographer. The bussiness of photojournalism.

Thursday, Nov. 9 - Marcio Sanchez and Jeff Chiu, staff photographers with Associated Press.

Thursday, Nov. 30 - Brad Mangin, freelance sports photographer.

Where: SJSU Journalism building Dwight Bentel Hall room 133
When: All meetings start at 6 p.m. with exception of the 9/19 BBQ
RSVP: none
Cost: none
Parking: 7th and San Carlos Streets

Here are links to a map of campus (DBH is located in C2) as well as directions to the campus.

For more information you can email sjsunppa@gmail.com or post a reply here.

See you there!

AIRing it all out

PBS launches a new journalistically inclined series that adds to their already impressive roster. The weekly half-hour program chronicles contemporary investigative journalism making headlines.











They even interview the newsmakers behind the stories, offering students like myself and news-junkies a glimpse into the thought process behind the stories.

Not just the 'what', but the 'why.' I like that.

Unlike similar documentary case-studies, this show promises to focus on the news making headlines today.

We won't be regaled with tales of Watergate, trust-busting, or Ralph Nader's battle with the Chevrolet Corvair. AIR promises contemporary pieces on like Abu Ghraib, Enron, FEMA's preparedness for Hurricane Katrina and the BALCO sports doping scandal.

According to a press release:

AIR will cast a wide net, including reports in the fields of government and the judicial system, business and investment, public safety, law enforcement, immigration, national security, elections, education, health and medicine, sports and more. In detailing the impact of each investigation, AIR will tackle broader issues - Is the public better protected now? Was the corruption stopped? Did the Congressman resign? Has the environment improved? And in some cases: Why has nothing been done?

The series began airing on PBS stations on September 1. Locally in the Bay Area (that's local as in for me) KQED is airing the shows. Air dates and episode synopsis are available on the Web site.

Filed under:

• journalism
• ethics
• j-school

So this is where I've been for three days this summer

During the last weekend of July, myself, Daniel Esch and Neal Water convened on the second annual San Jose Grand Prix with our cameras in tow. We were there to create a multimedia package compleate with slideshows and video for The Spartan Daily website.

Our goal was to hit the ground running with the so-called new-media that is becoming the stand rather than the curiosity of the photographers toolbox these days.

Take a look!

We're off to a great start if I do say so myself. Start your engines indeed.

Stay tuned.

Filed under:

• multimedia
• journalism
• j-school
• newmedia
• multimedia
• personal

I'm deep? Who knew

Turns out I'm deeper than I thought. Or so says a friend (I think I suprised her).

I was talking to fellow SJSU photographer Ashley last week and we got on the topic of finding our callings and how we know.

When I offered up:

For the longest time I nvr knew what was next for me. I was one of those kids that shrugged his shoulders and panicked when the teacher would assign some hw on what we wanted 2 be when we grew up. Grow up? F*** that... but I guess we gotta grow up sometime.

She responded with:

Hey nice moment...i'm jealous... So tell me the master plan I am dying to know?

I didn't see her e-mail until I came home from The Spartan Daily at around 2 a.m. When I saw it, I just started writing:

The master plan? It's simple. You ever been in love Ash? Or at least crazy about someone. You know that feeling when you don't care what you do, as long as you can sit across from that person and make them laugh.

That's the master plan. When you find something that makes you feel like you can't sleep until you're doing it. That's how I feel with photography. Like I know that this is what I want to do, and if I don't give it a shot, then one day down the line, I'm going to wake up and wish I did. What's the point of that.

I almost went down the money and security road, but I realized something. I gotta go after what I love. It's like a sappy movie, I'm running in the rain throwing pebbles at the window of photo, b/c I don't wanna wonder what-if for the rest of my life.

I may fail, but I can't let that fear stop me. I've come so far, I gotta see it through.

That's the master plan. So... what do you want to do Ash? Forget the money and the security... just think... if you can do anything...
what do you wanna do?

Ok, enough sappyness, let's back back to serious matters.

So come on then, hit the comments and tell me what do you wanna do?

Filed under:

• personal
• photojournalism

Moving pictures and I don't mean flip-books

For months I've been looking for the perfect means for uploading my video work onto the blog. I'd been putting it off, constantly moving the task to the back burner whenever other things came along.

But now the time has come. Last Friday I helped a friend edit together a teaser trailer for his band. After four hours of fine tuning I asked him where he planned on hosting the results. He shrugged his shouldered and offered up YouTube.

Having done some piliminary research on the subject I immediately shoed the idea away.

What many don't realize is YouTube claims ownership of whatever you upload as part of their terms of use agreement, as does the other majors: Yahoo, Google, Break...

After some research I reached a dead end. Every service claimed ownership. Then I remembered bookmarking Blip.tv a few months ago.

Blip fit the bill. Not only do they not claim ownership of your videos (well that's half true, more in a second) but they have many options for presenting your videos on outside sites and have a wealth of organization and uploading tools. And the part I love, no annoying bugs! Sweet!

So that half truth: they claim the right to use your video in promoting their service, but where they differ is they don't claim the right to sell your work for profit. On top of that, you are allowed to remove your videos at anytime and even request that they be removed from the Blip servers.

In my mind, it's the perfect solution.

Take a look at my first upload. It's the teaser trailer I edited for my friend's band.



While you're looking at that (can I interest you in a beverage?), I'm gonna go tinker some more. Oh yes, there will be more.

Filed under:

• personal
• multimedia