Media Organization Critique

For my EPJ class, we have to critique a media organization's Web site. I chose NBC news.

ABC News

I looked at the ABC news Web site for my critique on a media organization. As with all news Web sites, it has a lot going on. As a reader, it is sometimes hard to figure out where to start if you don’t have something to grab your attention right away. I did like that they had a big picture to the left of the site that went through three major stories of that day. That is something that will grab the readers attention. I also liked how at the top on a little bar they had ‘must reads.’ For the reader that is in a rush and just wants to see major headlines without searching through the whole Web site to find them, this is a nice thing to have. I also find it useful to have a toolbar at the top that lists all the different sections so you can click and it will directly go to it on the page. This is something we discussed in class and might be helpful on my Web site.

The content is very much updated and understandable. The links are easy to find but I hate how you have to click the back button. I wish things would open in a new page and I could just x out of them instead of hitting the back button. I feel the site is as organized as a news Web site can be. There is a lot of information and stories to read but with a media organization this big, it’s hard to just cut things out. The colors seem to go together well. There are no funky or odd colors. The colors are soothing to the eyes.

Portrait Assigment

For our next assignment in Advanced Techniques we had to find a portrait of someone that reveals something about their character. I found this portrait from photographer Michael Mueller. I think it is of Joaquin Phoenix (sorry if I spelt it wrong or it is the wrong person but that is who it looks like to me. The name of the person isn't listed.) It just looks like he has something deeper going on that we don't know about.

I couldn't copy the picture to post on here so I will post the link. It is the fifth picture from the left.

http://www.mullerphoto.com/portfolio/13506/

Tungsten and daylight settings

In doing this assignment, I noticed that it had been about three weeks since I had actually used my camera for an assignment.  When I first started shooting, I didn’t think to check my ISO.  I realized when my photos weren’t really turning out how they should that I didn’t change my ISO from the meter calibration that I did in the studio.  I did go back and shoot again some of the pictures with a different ISO setting and it seemed to work better.   I haven’t extensively used my camera for an assignment since I got done with my internship a few weeks back and I wish I would have used it between these times because I seemed to forget to change settings, etc. on my camera.  It was only after I took the photo, I realized to change settings.  I just think I need to get back into photography mode of shooting.

            I shot the beginning of some of my shoot with 100 ISO.  This was because I hadn’t changed the setting and I had a low f-stop setting.  After a few shots, I changed my ISO to 400 and worked around an f-stops of 8-11 depending on how the light was.  In shadowed places, I used a lower f-stop and if it was really bright I used higher but most of my photos were in that 8-11 range.  My shutter speed stayed around 1/125.  For the first photos I took it was slower around a 1/30 but that was slower than I wanted.

            When I did the meter calibration, I did it the way we were supposed to but didn’t get the results I thought I should have.  I had my ISO setting at 100 and the tungsten setting on but my camera wouldn’t go below f 5.6.  When we did the demonstration in class, the demonstrator’s camera went below that.  My photos just showed up darker that I thought they should be.

            I learned of course to check your camera settings all the time before each photo which I knew before but for some unknown reason forgot in the beginning of this assignment. I thought the tungsten setting created a different effect on some of my photos that I liked better than when I took them on the daylight setting.  I hadn’t used tungsten before so that was something new I learned.

           

LIfe as a Captain

Hello all. It has been quite some time since I last posted.  I have been working on a photography project on Captain Jan McCrary.  He is a captain at fire station 1 here in Columbia, Missouri.  I spent a little over a month at the station.  I got to go on several calls with the department and do some behind the scenes stuff that not everyone sees.  I am posting my final cut of photos. Enjoy!

Spring Break is almost here.

Spring Break is upon us and I am excited to have a week off!  This semester has been hectic and hard working for the Missourian and also having classes and other obligations.  I am working over break decorating cakes and on Thursday I will go up to see Erich.  I am excited to see him.  I miss him terribly when I'm here at school.  I have lots of photo stuff to complete too.  Photo class and the Missourian take up huge amounts of my time  I feel like I am constantly going and never have time to do anything.  Tonight I am working my final GA shift of the month from 6-10 pm so I am hoping to get a lot of catch-up work done.

My most recent article was on Emily Younghouse whose mother is battling cancer.  I was really excited to do her story and her family has been wonderful.  She was excited about the story too which made the story turn out better.  I bought copies of the Sunday paper yesterday because that was the day my story was in the paper.  I looked at the sports section and there was a big 12 story from basketball and i was getting ready to turn to the inside pages to find my story but my story was on the front page along with the big 12 stuff.  It was the only other article on the page so that made me super excited.   Here is a link to my article .

Story on metaphysics

Here is a story I did on Stephens swimming coach Laura Wacker.  She is the director of the School of Metaphysics here in Columbia.  I learned a lot from doing this story and enjoyed learning about something I was not familiar with.

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/02/18/finding-your-purpose-life/

My first published article!

Here it is.
Just go to the link

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/02/02/bond-unlike-others/