I'm working with Adobe Lightroom 2 at the moment and seeing how I can integrate it into my workflow. Not only for editing but also for archiving images.
My first impressions are positive. It's quite an intuitive tool to use and it's great to have some extra firepower for editing and adjusting an image over iPhoto. For instance, I really like having a simple tool for dodging and burning.
The image above is of 15 year old Soso. He found a grenade-like explosive in the grounds of his school in Kirbali near Gori. It detonated soon after he removed it from his pocket.
The Halo Trust is clearing UXO from the area.
Before the accident Soso enjoyed boxing.
Last weekend's devastating bushfires in Victoria are another example of how social media and online/multimedia journalism are shaping news consumption and distribution.
Bushfire Emergency is the special coverage produced by ABC online. In fact you could say Aunty is waging war on two online fronts. Click onto ABC News online and you'll see special coverage also devoted to floods in Queensland.
First impressions - perhaps a model for reporting disasters?
Bushfire Emergency opens with a flash slideshow loop of large photographs of the bushfires from contributors. It immediately arrests your attention. A horizontal menu bar also makes navigation quite easy. Scrolling down, the clean layout leads towards text stories plus audio and video clips from embedded players. Among them are some remarkable stories and heart wrenching interviews with survivors.
An interactive map at the bottom of the page embeds more information. One layer marks the death toll - orange pins over towns list the number of fatalities. Other layers let you click through to reports about individual towns and fire fronts.
ABC's Bushfire Emergency may not have full blown multimedia packages, perhaps that's to come, but the ABC's online efforts could well serve as a template or starting point for quickly pulling together media in a coherent way for reporting natural disasters as well as providing clear emergency services information.
#bushfires
On Sunday afternoon (European time), no sooner had I posted a tweet about checking ABC online for bushfire updates, my tweet had been re-tweeted (RT) by a fellow twitterer. Sure enough when I hit search on Tweetdeck #bushfires, and tracking of the word 'bushfires', were well and truly providing a river of human filtered information.
Flicking between ABC online and twitter not only provided a broad overview of the bushfires but link-rich tweets pointed towards stories, images and audio/video on other Australian news sites.
This rough but absolutely in the moment fire-frontline video from Fairfax photographer Nick Moir stood out. As did journalist Gary Hughes' account of his family's narrow escape. Twitter links also took me to some gripping audio clips of callers contacting Melbourne commercial radio station 3AW - a talkback station I've never tuned into.
A retweet from Andrew Davies @awrd of Radio National alerted me to how Melbourne's ABC 774 local radio station was using twitter for fire updates. 774 ABC Melbourne's twitter stream is delivering clear messages/updates/warnings from fire authorities and news reports. Again, another good model to take note of - 'old' media (and yes, the most agile of traditional mass media) harnessing the distribution of social media and helping a community.
Trying to keep my kit as light as possible for assignments is a never ending challenge. Especially when I know a job will require lugging everything in a backpack. For video work I use the Sony HVR Z1 which is quite bulky and that sadly means there's little room for packing a decent DSLR camera. In recent years I've relied on compact point and shoot cameras to take photos for web stories. The problem is of course that most point and shoot cameras offer little in the way of manual controls and working in low light is always going to present problems. So, enter the Canon PowerShot G10 - a camera that goes some way to bridge the gap between DSLR's and compacts.
At a little over US$400.00, it's a camera that will give you quite a bit of bang for your buck.
I'll be updating my Flickr account with photos I've shot from the G10. I'd also be keen to hear from other G10-ers how they find working with the camera.
To learn about radio you have to listen to radio. I think I've learnt more about practical radio production through the crackle and hiss of this lightweight portable Sony transistor radio than from any book or course.
Sure you have to learn basic production techniques. But in my view, nothing helps develop your skills further than by listening to as much radio as you can and being an active listener - identifying and analysing different formats and techniques and then getting inspired to try something new in your own stories or programmes.
These days my iPod and podcasts compete with my little trannie radio, but I'm still an active listener by habit.
On my recent trip to South Africa to train community radio journalists/producers, none of the participants had mp3 players, but everyone had a mobile phone. And, quite a few had either late model N-Series Nokias, Samsungs or Sony-Ericsons. It was interesting to see music and audio files of comedy sketches being shared. Those who had built in cameras snapped photos, and some tuned into the radio with their built in receiver. One journalist even uses her phone to record audio interviews. Social media sites Facebook and Mxitwere also mentioned a lot. Mxit in particular is huge among young South Africans.
Multimedia-wise, the beauty of training in South Africa is that broadband internet is widely available. Downloading podcasts or audio materials for training examples is only a click away and fast. With around 90% of South Africans having access to a radio, community radio will continue to play a vital role in the SA media landscape. However in parallel, the proliferation of mobile phones, broadband internet and access to a 3G network could well make the mobile phone a handy little multimedia tool for training broadcast journalists. Mojos are already on the scene in South Africa too.
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