Robert Hanashiro

SPORTS SHOOTER NEWSLETTER

Issue #102

6/30/2007

LEADING OFF

To Stop A Thief

By Robert Hanashiro

There is no worse feeling than getting ripped off.

Whether it's watching a bad movie or a getting a bad meal or buying something that isn't what was advertised.

But the worst feeling has to be when someone invades your space and rips off your property. What does it say about our society when there are so many miscreants (aka: thieves) out there think it's just fine to take something that doesn't belong to them?

In the past several months, I've had almost a dozen friends and colleagues that have had equipment stolen Šout of their office, at a stadium and worst of all, out of their car.

Obviously there is no way to prevent the "professional criminal" from taking what they want. The "pro" can be in and out of your car in seconds, no matter what preventative measures you take

But there are a few things that we can do to discourage the "casual thief" from taking a lens, a laptop or a camera.

YEAH I KNOW IT'S ONLY COMMON SENSE
Well if we know it, then why don't we practice it ALL the time? We get careless. We're in a hurry. And worse yet, we just forget.

There are a few pretty simple things to keep the casual thief from taking something of yours ... the first being: Remember to do them!

Develop a routine to keep your equipment safe. Make it simple at first and then add a thing or two along the way.

For instance: Leaving equipment or bags exposed so a would-be thief can see it from the street. Don't leave gear exposed on the seat of your car. Make it your first habit to put your bags and cases OUT OF SIGHT. Whether that's in the trunk or hidden under some common items everyone has in their backseat (stacks of newspapers, a Thomas Guide, a spare jacket, whatever) or getting a nice retractable cover for your SUV's cargo area. The primary mission here: Out of sight, means out of sight of a thief.

I know it's a pain, but taking your camera bag or roller with you when you drop by Chili's for a quick meal on the way home from a game is by far the safest bet. If the possibility of getting your gear ripped off isn't motivation enough to take your gear with you, maybe thinking about the SCREAMING your boss does when you report it stolen is.

And lastly, the most common reason why gear is stolen out of a car: YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER TO LOCK ALL THE DOORS!

A funny story: A friend recently told me that he had a small pouch on the front passenger seat of his car when he stopped at a self-serve gas station to fill up. His habit was not only to fill his SUV's gas tank, but to also fill his gas tank as well ---the mini-mart sold Nathan's hot dogs. You got it Š while he was in getting a 'dog, someone was getting his speedlite and powerpack because he neglected to lock the doors!

BE AWARE, BE SMART
This goes hand-in-hand with the above suggestions. I know the following statement goes counter to what we're suppose to think and it's not P.C. but Šconsider EVERYONE around you a potential thief.

When you get to an arena what do you do right after park your car? Get out, pop the trunk and sort through your bags looking for the gear you'll need for the shoot? Yep, that's what I usually do. Many times, especially in public and event parking lots, thieves are waiting and watchingŠlooking for what people have in their trunks.

So if you think ahead, before you leave for the assignment, take out the gear you know you're going to need in advance so you don't have to expose the rest of it to a potential thief.

A story about a paranoid friend: I have another photographer friend whose car has been broken into a several times in the past couple of years. Now if he forgets to put his bag next to him in the car before arriving at an assignment, he'll park, remove the gear from the trunk, get back in the car and drive around and park somewhere else. This prevents a "spotter" from seeing what he has in his trunk.

Here is another inconvenience, but could prevent you from getting something stolen: Consider disabling the inside trunk release. I had a friend recently do the what she thought was the smart thing while covering a music festival: She left the equipment she did not need for a shoot sitting unseen in the trunk of her car. However thieves broke into her car and had easy access to what she thought was her hidden gear Š via the little switch by the driver's side door that opened the trunk. (Note: Some cars have a "valet mode" which temporarily disables the inside trunk release with a simple turn of a key.)

THE BUDDY SYSTEM
Come on admit it, we all leave gear laying around at arenas and stadiums. Whether it's on the baseline of an basketball game, the end zones of a football game or in the photo workrooms, we all leave gear out from time to time. Some more than others.

It seems after every big-time event in the last few years there is a post on the SportsShooter.com message board about some poor soul that is missing gear. A 400mm out of the Rose Bowl workroom, laptops stolen during a baseball playoff game or a pouch with compact flash cards taken out of the back pocket of a camping chair used on the baseline of a basketball game.

We all love to schmooze and I guess that's part of being a photographer covering a sports event. We want to chat, go stand in the media buffet line or simply hit the can before the opening tip-off. Having someone, an assistant, colleague or fellow photographer take turns standing guard over the gear laying out at an event is the safest thing to do and I've volunteered many times to do this.

Like many of my suggestions, this is a pain. It's inconvenient and as one of my colleges at USA TODAY would say: "It's cutting into my schmooze time!" If you can't be bothered to watch the gear or have someone else do it Š then see above and prevent your boss from potentially screaming at you and just take your gear with you.

(I don't know about you, but I'd rather ask a friend to watch my gear than walk into a Dodger Stadium men's room with a 400mm lens hangin' off my shoulder.)

SPEND A LITTLE $$$
Of course you can take the approach that one unnamed major news service does when it wants to solve a problem: Throw a bunch of money at it.

There are a few things a photographer can buy Š some inexpensive, some not so Š to secure their equipment. Here is a list of a few suggestions:
- A Pelican Case is a great way to secure your equipment in your car's trunk or back of an SUV. I have a Pelican 1650 case (interior dimensions: 28.50" x 17.37" x 10.50") chained in the cargo area of my SUV and it's large enough that even my Think Tank roller or backpack will fit into it.
http://pelican.com/cases_detail.php?Case=1650

- A Pacsafe is another great way to secure a camera bag, backpack or roller in your vehicle. This is a really versatile way to lock up your gear in the back seat or trunk and then if you need a way to secure gear at an arena or stadium, take the Pacsafe with you. I always have a Pacsafe with me when I'm on the road so I can secure gear in a hotel room or the trunk of a rental car.
http://www.pacsafe.com/

- If you're handy, go to a hardware store and buy a "u bolt" or two to secure to the trunk lid and the frame of the car. This will give you a place to thread a chain with a padlock to limit how far the trunk will open.

(Note: I don't know about you, but I hate key padlocks. I don't want to chance losing or forgetting the key to a padlock that is securing my gear. So I always dump those crappy little key locks that come with some equipment cases and bags and I replace them with decent quality combination locks. Also if you use my Pelican Case idea in the trunk or cargo area of your vehicle, use the padlock upside down Š it's easier to get at to dial in the combination.)

- Have the rear windows of your vehicle tinted dark to make it difficult for the "casual passerby" (aka potential thief) to see what's inside. If you have an SUV, most have an optional retractable cover that will hide what's in the cargo area. I had a retractable cover installed in my Honda SUV recently and it was about $160. (A very cheap alternative is use large collapsible window shades as a cargo area cover.)

- And lastly, you can spend lots of $$$ and have a state-of-the-art (obnoxious) "anti-theft system" installed. The sky's the limit on the amount of money you can spend on an alarm system ---from the basic horn-blaring-when-a-door-or-window-is-disturbed to satellite tracking, paging systems --- and there is some comfort in knowing you have it, but most of people that have had gear taken from their vehicle said they had alarms!

Most of you veteran shooters by now have moved on to some other story in this issue, but hopefully some students or other newbies have learned a thing or two.

But with so much gear "walking away" just a little common sense, an inconvenience or two and maybe spending a couple of bucks will keep your boss from yelling at you because you had to tell him you got RIPPED OFF.

* * *

Sports Shooter #102 features a behind the scenes look at coverage of politics in Iowa as we head toward the Presidential elections next year. Eric Thayer picked up and moved from New York to cover President candidates as they try to woe voters in the upcoming Iowa caucuses.

Kim Komenich contributes a thought provoking and insightful look at photojournalism --- where it's been and where it's headed. This is must reading for all of us.

Todd Korol writes a hands-on report on the Leica M8 in our semi-regular equipment feature, "Photographer's Toy Box" and we have regular columns from Paul Myers and Nick Layman.

Lastly Š I announce some details on the upcoming Sports Shooter Academy Boot Camp.

What I'm reading and listening to: On my nightstand I have James Lee Burke's new Dave Robicheaux novel "The Tim Roof Blow Down", Michael Connelly's "Chasing The Dime" and Sally Jenkins' wonderful book on the untold story of Carlisle Indian School "The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation". And on iTunes I have "Instant Karma: The Campaign To Save Darfur" (various artist) on heavy rotation.

I hope you enjoy and are inspired by Sports Shooter issue #102.

(Robert Hanashiro has edited and published the Sports Shooter Newsletter since 1998. Back issues can be read at the Sports Shooter Archives: http://www.sportsshooter.com/archive.html.)

* * *

Covering The Big One Š In Iowa.
By Eric Thayer

The plan was to move to Iowa to cover the big one, the Presidential race.

Michal Czerwonka, Keith Bedford, and I all decided, after many late-night conversations at random New York City bars, that this was where we should come, on the advice of a mentor in the city. Keith knew another photographer Joshua Lott who wanted to do the same thing. We figured this was the story we should all do together. We also picked up an intern, Pratt student Allison Joyce, along the way.

Czerwonka had just left Life magazine when it folded, Keith was holding down a very successful career as a New York City freelancer (and is still doing so, spending the majority of his time in NYC), and Josh was doing the same in Chicago. I was working at Contact Press Images, while making my way as a freelancer for Reuters.

While at Contact I was lucky enough to work with campaign photos from the archives of photographers like David Burnett, Charles Ommanney, Kenneth Jarecke, and others whose takes and experience spanned the last 30 years of the American political process. At the same time I was making my own images of candidates in New York, the whole time wanting to be a part of the political process in the slides, prints and negatives I had seen at Contact.

So we end up in small towns in "The Tall Corn State". In a nation of more than 300 million people, and one wonders how our highest political office, the president, is designated using a process that begins in a state of a little less than three million people. It seems as if whole point of Iowa for the candidates is to come here and be seen mingling with the people, to win over their hearts, because if a candidate is salt of the earth and grounded enough to get along with anyone, then surely they can lead us all.

Somehow the candidates understand the importance, they move from small town to small town, campaign stop after campaign stop. The speeches are the same, the questions are always pretty much the same, the answers the same, the jokes the same.

Watching them at these moments, we just want to get something honest, something unscripted, though at this point we are mostly kept out of the back rooms, but hopeful that it will happen at some point. It would be great to have something spontaneous. There are photo ops, which is comical out here in the middle of Iowa.

However, beyond the photos of the candidates, it's the people we meet here who make it worthwhile. At first we came home to a house with the bare minimum of furniture, utensils, etc., and our neighbor kept bringing us things she either had around the house or found at garage sales for us. She lent us her chaise lounge from her patio furniture set, and I think it will make a very nice bed for one of our photographer friends coming through town. We feel so welcome. When we moved in our landlords brought us cookies in Tupperware with a very nice note saying "welcome to your new home." The Wal-Mart Supercenter has become very important in our lives, much more important that I would care to admit.

We were talking to a campaign photographer for one of the candidates, and telling them about what we were doing, and after we told them, they said, "so you guys are all competing with each other?" and it occurred to us that we are trying to do something different. We all travel together if we can and if one of us gets a call, we shoot that assignment. If we get two calls, we pass the other one to another photographer. We all encourage each other and push each other. When these guys are shooting, it makes me want to work that much harder.

We show each other our work after events, just to see how the others are seeing. We are influenced by each other and we support each other. It's not about competition, it's about what we can do for each other. It is about what we can give each other, how we can all grow as photographers and as people, and how we can help each other out to do the same. The journey and with whom you do it is so much better sometimes than the images you make. Personally, it would be incredibly lonely and meaningless without Mike, Josh and Allison (and Keith when he gets here).

We wouldn't be able to survive without Google Maps, power inverters, borrowed wireless Internet connections, gas station convenience stores, etc. Every outlet in our hotel room is taken charging camera batteries, cell phones and computers. Eventually we unplug all the lights to maximize our space and leave only the television going because of CNN, working on images and a bottle of Cuervo in the dark.

We constantly answer the same questions, but it never gets old. People in some diner or dive bar in some tiny town you'll probably never remember the name of sees a table full of cameras and asks the obligatory, "Are you all photographers?" Yet at the same time we begin to wonder whether the candidates are aware of our presence. Some acknowledge us and talk to us. The others know we are there, but seem to keep that wall up. We start a series of essays amongst ourselves, one is just candidates looking at us. We develop nicknames for the candidates, based on either physical attributes or mannerisms.

Others are definitely aware of us. Following a caravan, we were harassed by a state trooper, who insisted we had to keep a buffer of half a mile between us and the candidate's motorcade, a strange order out here in the middle of Iowa. We're just photographers, we tried to explain, as their people kept us from a meeting at a farm somewhere near a town called Spencer that was "closed to the press", sort of a bizarre concept considering we were the only press for miles around. A little bit of big politics out here in the middle of Iowa. Rules like these seemed particularly out of place here, but we'll play along, it's too early to fight.

Maybe it's not the place. If winning this election meant spending months campaigning in Alaska in the middle of the winter you can bet that the candidates would all be up there, carloads full of campaign people dressed in the heaviest North Face and Patagonia they could find, still jamming their fingers like mad onto the keypads of their Blackberrys.

But then again, so would we.

I don't know about the other guys, but I feel like I am getting back to some kind of purity in my shooting. New York was an amazing experience, and I was very lucky to have what I had while I was there. Out here I feel like I'm remembering what it was like when I first looked through a camera, when I still had something to say, and the camera was more an extension of my soul, rather than a tool I used to do a job, even though I always tried to do it how I saw it, now it's more about what I feel, rather than what I see.

Traveling on some road in between an Edwards stop between Manchester and Iowa City, a deer ran out into the road. I looked up as I heard Josh and Mike react, only to see the deer hit the front of the car and flip up in the air. I closed my eyes thinking that she was coming through the windshield but she didn't.

We pulled over, got out of the car and watched as man in a red truck stopped to pull her from the highway, still writhing and trying to run away. He dragged her over to the grass beside the road, and came back to check on us, asking if we were ok. "Her back legs are broke, you might want to call the sheriff to come out here and shoot her." He looked himself over, "I got blood all over me." A tiny piece of hair was still in the edge of the hood.

Josh and I walked over to her, lying in the grass, bleeding and breathing heavy, her tongue out, legs twisted. She looked up at us, lay her head down in the tall grass around her, breathed a few more times, and died.

I had never seen a deer that close before, and seeing her like this made it all sink in that I wasn't in New York anymore, that I was out here. Watching her die got to me, I think it got to all of us.

Driving back, a guy on the radio announced, "Iowa, we have a huge caucus." It's past sunset, and we're heading back to Des Moines. Tomorrow we wake up and do it all over again.

(Eric Thayer is a graduate of Brooks Institute of Photography. He is a freelance photographer based (usually) in New York. You can view a sample of his work on his SportsShooter.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=2761.)

* * *

Sports Shooter Academy Boot Camp: November 2 - 3, 2007
By Robert Hanashiro, Sports Shooter

With the newspapers and the publishing industry scrambling to increase its incorporation of "rich media" into their on-line outlets, I have been thinking of ways to include multimedia into the Sports Shooter Academy format.

Apple Computers has approached me about holding a workshop where they could conduct an intensive, hands-on training session that will immerse participants in visual storytelling utilizing "rich media".

On November 2 - 3, 2007 in Southern California, the Sports Shooter Academy Boot Camp will combine Apple's rich media training with what past SSA workshops have done best: Shoot real sports.

This two-day workshop will allow participants to spend one full day learning techniques in gathering and editing audio and combine it with photographs to produce multimedia presentations suitable for various digital platforms. Apple will be providing workstations for participants to use during the multimedia training at the Boot Camp.

Day Two of The Boot Camp, participants will have sports events to cover during the day under the guidance of the workshop faculty. In the evening the faculty will work with participants in editing their work and offering critiques. Apple personnel will be available to help those Boot Camp participants that want to produce a multimedia presentation from the material captured during the day's shooting.

Awards and prizes will be given out for the best photographs and best multimedia presentations.

The Sports Shooter Academy Boot Camp is intended for both students and working professionals that want to jump into rich media, improve their sports photography and get tips on visual storytelling, picture stories and help with generating ideas.

SSA Boot Camp will be based in Southern California, near the Orange County-John Wayne Airport.

More details about this cool workshop and where you can download the application form will be announced in the next week. If you have any questions about the Sports Shooter Academy Boot Camp or want to get on a list to have an application form directly sent to you, email me at: bert@sportsshooter.com.

In addition to Apple Computers supporting the Sports Shooter Academy Boot Camp, other companies involved include:
- Canon, USA (which will provide loaner equipment for participants to use during Day Two including their latest digital SLRs and long lenses)
- Think Tank Photo
- Samy's Camera

Apple multimedia cirriculum outline:
Rich Media Publishing
Your story in any medium

As the publishing industry transforms itself, nimble organizations are using rich media to increase their reach, a strategy that's paying off. In this hands-on workshop, you'll see how easy it is to create an engaging experience. With iTunes, the iPod, and Apple TV; people and organizations can deliver their story in many more ways, reaching millions of people around the world via podcasts, broadcasts, DVDs, the web, mobile phones, and more.

Join Apple in this hands-on workshop, led by Apple Certified Pro Trainers, and learn how to combine digital photos, audio, and video using Final Cut Studio; create a universal master to deliver your project in any format; record sound to amplify your story; and deliver a rich media experience to many devices.

Hands-on Multimedia Workshop Topics:
Preparing to create a rich media podcast
- Equipment and setup
- Planning your project
(file formats, settings, resolution, etc.)
- Gathering and capturing content
(audio, photos, video)

Selecting and editing your image content
- Introduction to Aperture
- Comparing and selecting your images
- Metadata and image processing
- Exporting images for use in a rich media (on-line galleries, podcast, etc.)

Assembling your content to tell the story
- Introduction to Final Cut Pro
- Importing video, audio, and graphics
- Working in the Timeline
- Editing, transitions, and color correction
- Exporting your project

Editing and sweetening your audio
- Introduction to SoundTrack Pro
- Basic sound editing
- Repairing common audio problems
- Producing, mixing and special effects

Delivering your project in multiple formats
- Introduction to Compressor
- Creating Export Presets
- Exporting to multiple formats with ease
(audio, video, and podcasts)

Telling Stories with Sound
Audio for Rich Media Technique

Integrating audio with other media to create richer, more dynamic journalistic features on news websites and ...Read more: http://www.apple.com/pro/techniques/richmedia/

(Note: For more information about the Sports Shooter Academy and other, previous Sports Shooter educational programs, check out this link: http://www.sportsshooter.com/workshops.html. For fun, instructional and cool videos produced from previous workshops, check the "Special Features" area of ss.com: http://www.sportsshooter.com/special_feature/index.html and Robert Hanashiro's ss.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/bert.)

* * *

The Shift

By Kim Komenich
©Copyright 2007, Kim Komenich

Are you ready for the "shift"?

There could be a time in the near future when you show up at work and discover that you no longer work for a newspaper that produces a Web site. As you punch the clock, you might find you now work for a Web company that publishes a newspaper a few times a week.

I'm as much a romantic about newspapers as the next 25-year veteran, but think about it -- the concept of paying a guy to drive a logging truck into the woods (at $3 a gallon) to cut down a tree and drive the log to a paper mill (at $3 a gallon), then pay some other guy to drive a train or truck full of newsprint out of state to a newspaper's printing plant (at $3 a gallon), then to pay some other guys to drive big trucks full of printed newspapers (at $3 a gallon) to a distribution point where some other guys (some driving cars at $3 a gallon and some on foot or bicycle) deliver the newspaper to the reader -- wouldn't get you much venture capital for your 2007 startup.

People love their newspapers and magazines, but the idea of printing every bit of the day's news on paper might soon gain a reputation as one of the most costly and environmentally unfriendly business models around.

So it makes sense that there's a "shift" under way. This shift is as important to this generation of journalists as the invention of hot type and the halftone process were to the journalists at the turn of the previous century.

From Atoms to Bits

The idea of journalism's "shift" has its roots in the "Negroponte shift," a term coined in the 1990s to refer to MIT Media Lab Founding Director Nicholas Negroponte's observation that things that had traditionally gone through wires (telephone communication, for example) were now going through the air, and things that had traditionally gone through the air (like television) were arriving in our homes through a wire. Negroponte's theory about the ongoing shift from wired to wireless was part of his greater assertion that we are rapidly moving from "atoms to bits."

Newspapers and magazines are the leading supplier of news-atoms.

Negroponte's "shift" and his other theories about how we communicate are collected in his 1995 book Being Digital. A collection of his Wired Magazine columns can be found at http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired

Journalists, the test pilots of communication technology, went digital early -- first with words, then, as technology advanced, with progressively more complex bitmapped artwork, then with photos, finally with moving pictures. The publishing world's word-art-photo-movie progression dates back to the moveable type days and continues through the current era's text-to-bitmap-to-vector graphics advances.

AM and FM
Is there a patch of uncharted territory to be discovered somewhere between the web offset press and the World Wide Web, where 21st century town-crier storytelling can thrive? And could this hybrid be attractive enough to advertisers and useful enough to readers that it would continue to support the Fourth Estate in the manner to which it has become accustomed?

As we consider newspapering's shift from dots on paper to pixels on plasma, it's helpful to consider radio. National Public Radio represents the thoughtful, compelling "think piece" style of journalism we associate with the Sunday paper (Weekend Edition Sunday even has the Sunday Puzzle). AM radio news, on the other hand, deals with news by the hour (or by the minute, as need be) to get breaking information to listeners.

We know that if we want information about the big picture, we'll turn to NPR, and if it's about traffic jams or crime or sports or city hall tit-for-tat, we'll turn to AM.

In the near future, I think, the printed page will become more valuable to readers in the FM sense -- it will be reserved for the news that needs to be embraced and kept at hand. Newspaper Web sites are already taking on the AM radio role of delivering breaking information to readers as stories develop. On June 2 at the National Press Photographers Association's 2007 Photojournalism Summit, Digital Journalist http://www.digitaljournalist.org founder Dirck Halstead said it's quite possible that some daily newspapers will soon go to a three-day-per week schedule.

What if it comes to the point where we're no longer publishing a broadsheet newspaper, but a twice- or thrice-weekly tabloid or magazine that contains no daily news?

From Synthesis to Selection...to Synthesis?

Soon after its invention in 1839, photography was the next new thing in a world dominated by painted imagery. In the introduction to his 1966 book "The Photographer's Eye", New York Museum of Modern Art Photography Curator John Szarkowski wrote that "the invention of photography provided a radically new picture making process -- a process based not on synthesis, but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made -- constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes -- but photographs, as the man on the street put it, were taken."

The camera represented a technological threat to those with a stake in the status quo. Fine-art photographers, many of whom were painters, "repurposed" the sharp-focus cameras of the day in order to create soft-focus, romanticized, "painterly" renditions of their subjects, and soon the "pictorialist" school was born. To get the desired effects they would purposely choose uncorrected lenses, place softening materials over their lens or perform similar tricks in the darkroom.

After the turn of the 20th century, at about the same time as the rise of the modern art movement, some photographers began to celebrate the camera's ability to portray the world in precise detail and the "straight" photography movement was born. The "Photo Secession" marked a fork in the road where realism and pictorialism went separate ways.

There's a modern-day secession movement under way today, and as journalists we're all participating in it. Nearly a generation ago, with the invention of Apple Script, the QuickTime movie and early non-linear editing programs, photographers began to gain the ability to put pictures in motion on an interactive computer screen. Newspapers and magazines were not early adopters. They invested in "repurposing" emerging digital photographic technologies to find faster and more economical ways to generate still images with the goal of putting dots on paper.

To extend Szarkowski's idea to the present day, I think we're moving from selection back to synthesis. Today's journalist is (or soon will be) a "field producer" who is trusted as the person on location who will decide how the story will best be told (be it in stills and words, or stills only, or words only, or audio and stills, or audio only, or video -- the possibilities are endless). This journalist then sets about to tell the story by applying the curiosity, empathy and originality learned in their core skill as a photographer, reporter or videographer to the new tools in their bag.

Multimediashooter.com founder Richard Koci-Hernandez http://www.multimediashooter.com likens the equipment and storytelling choices we make to the painter's use of the brushes and palette.

So today, nearly 170 years after the invention of photography, are we back to synthesis? As we sit down to edit with Photoshop, Final Cut and Flash, our images and audio and video clips are there waiting for us--on the canvas.

Repurpose This
Since the invention of the World Wide Web in 1992, newspapers have tried just about everything to "look interactive". The truth of the matter is that a newspaper can't be interactive. It can be random access, but it can't be interactive. Good picture editors and page designers have used the concepts of juxtaposition and the "third effect" to play words, pictures, captions and graphics off each other in ways that heighten the effect of the storytelling.

Where we've fallen short is in thinking that the "repurposing" of our print stories for the Web is Web storytelling. We've only scratched the surface.

The first steps most newspapers took in the early days on the Web were limited by bandwidth and the inability of existing technologies to deliver Web multimedia to their readers. In the mid-90s it made sense to "repurpose" a few stills in a non-interactive virtual file cabinet connected by links because nobody could download them anyway. Sadly, the "file cabinet" and its separate drawers for pictures, video, audio and words is still the predominant way newspapers tell stories on the Web.

Slide shows are a good entry point for timeline-based newspaper Web site storytelling. However, in all but a few beautiful cases, slide shows are not optimal web storytelling.

The AM/FM radio analogy works here. Magnum in Motion http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com succeeds because Magnum's got a fat library and an agency full of photographers who go deep. Magnum is in an excellent position to produce great "FM" slideshows.

Same-day newspaper Web slide shows are fun, but they are too often filled with mediocre, redundant images that are being used to cover the lengthy audio. Sometimes they do not reach the journalistic standards the newspaper sets for itself in other areas.

Newspaper Web storytelling will begin to head down a slippery (and familiar) slope when the editors in the morning meeting begin to assign the slide shows. Multimedia is based on complex situational choices which need to be made in the field. If the situation has enough "decisive sequences" for a slide show, then it's time to shoot a slide show. Just don't lower your (or your paper's) standards.

And why do you think Ken Burns uses the Ken Burns effect? It's because all of the people in his pictures are dead! He has no choice. He only gets to work with nouns. In the field, our world is full of verbs. Life is rich with the sounds and movements of the living, walking, talking paradoxes we get to meet every day. As Burns' live subjects show us, the best tool for some situations will be video.

Core Competency
Learning multimedia is a lot like learning music. You have to get your "chops" on one instrument. All but the rare prodigy would become frustrated if they tried to learn the piano, the saxophone and the double bass at the same time. Once musicians begin to succeed in the technical aspects of an instrument and gain confidence, they can begin to make the necessary connection between heart and mind and find their "sound."

Photojournalists begin learning multimedia with their core competency in decisive moment-based still photography, and then apply their stills "chops" and original point of view to video, which is hungry for the "decisive sequence." In addition, thanks to the "theater of the mind" possible through written and audio interviews, the photojournalist for the first time gets to time-trip and include the past, the future and abstract concepts where one perfect word might be worth a thousand pictures.

Here's the best part -- the other media we use will inform the way we shoot our stills. The sequence anticipation necessary for good video shooting will lead us to appreciate the anticipatory, peak and consequential moments that are available to us when we are shooting stills.

From Space to Time

I first heard the idea that journalism is moving from "space" (the printed page) to "time" (Web-based timeline and interactive multimedia) during a speech by San Jose Mercury News Director of Photography Geri Migielicz at the 2006 Missouri Photo Workshop in Moberly, Missouri. It helps explain the coming shift in American photojournalism.

In fact, I chose "From Space to Time: Interviews with Multimedia Photojournalism Pioneers" as the working title of video interviews I conducted while working on my master's degree at the University of Missouri. (I hope to have them ready for release as a short educational film in mid-August. See http://www.spacetotime.com for details.)

In the film, multimedia pioneers Dirck Halstead, Brian Storm, Andrew DeVigal, Sandra Eisert, Rick Smolan, David Leeson, Richard Koci-Hernandez, Rich Beckman, Terry Schwadron, Hal Buell, Tom Kennedy and others discuss their role in the development of Web-based multimedia journalism and offer advice on what they think makes for good Web storytelling. Next month Sportsshooter and Digital Journalist will be posting some of the clips and written excerpts from the interviews.

A Different Set of Lenses
There remains the problem of how to decide which tool to use when gathering multimedia and print assets. This is the professional leap of faith that is required to feel comfortable in the "shift."

In the movie, MediaStorm Founder and CEO Brian Storm http://www.mediastorm.org talks about the concept of trust. "Editors don't have a problem trusting photographers in the field when it comes to choosing between a wide angle or a telephoto (lens)," Storm said in Portland on June 2. "Now they'll have to get comfortable letting photographers decide whether it's video or audio, or audio and stills."

How will the "shift" take hold? Editors will need to trust journalists to be "field producers" who assess each story situation for its print and multimedia possibilities. In addition, the newspaper will need to establish a print and Web infrastructure flexible enough for the stories to be told in the medium for which it they are best suited.

In the coming years photojournalists are in a unique position to help recast the foundation of American journalism. If we learn the technology and begin to make never-before made connections between storytelling media, newspapers will survive and even thrive as their communities' trusted town crier.

There has never been a better time for the photographer's vision to help a newspaper survive. Be a visionary. Create for the Web. Take no prisoners.

(Kim Komenich is a 1987 Pulitzer Prize recipient for photos of the "Fall of Ferdinand Marcos" he made for Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. He is currently an Ochberg Fellow at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. He is a 2006 recipient of the Military Reporters and Editors Photography Award for his work in Iraq in 2005. He received the 2005 Clifton C. Edom Education Award from the National Press Photographers Association. He was a 1993-94 John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University Email: kim@kimkom.com)

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PREACHING TO THE CHOIR: Four Ways of Saying It
By Paul Myers

I.
Yesterday

"Go, go and see."

Yesterday was the first time in over a year that I breathed in the air. I felt it push into my lungs, capillaries bursting, remembering what they knew all along, the involuntary repetitions taking over once the voluntary delusion had subsided. I had mistaken my last drowning gasps for life giving breaths; indeed, my eyes gouged out to see more clearly.

And today, today I walked quietly. The blue light of the latest afternoon light before evening held me. Eyes open wide, soaking in the movements and gestures, the interactions.

It is because she said, "Go, go and see."

II.
Die

Let your weary soul rest. You are the walking dead and you don't even know it. Can't you smell the putrid decay oozing through your pores, your ethic? Your cancer is the very camera you use.

Die.

Expand through the ages without this body, this form, without the weight of this history. The eternal is possible in every moment and in every communion. The camera is only one communion with humanity. Rejoice in the pluralism of this life. Rejoice in your freedom.

III.
Happy Together

Seeing the waves flow in and out, smelling the ocean on the breeze, hearing the crashing waves, feeling the sand between toes, tasting memories foretold. The coast consumes my senses. An hour before sunset and the light burns deep.

It could have been any day but it was today. Two birds fly together just over the breaking waves, gliding together with the rolling contour where water meets earth. Dipping close to the green surf and then floating over the breaks they hold on, together.

Another pair, two dogs, retrievers, joins the chase.

These two hairy, slobbering beasts are complete with that silly dumb grin that plagues retrievers. They lead one another down the beach, playfully following the birds, teasing and daring each other to keep up the chase, happy, together.

The birds make a lazy arcing turn to glide back up the coast and past the dogs. The dogs, they stop, look at one another and turn to chase the birds back up the beach.

The birds never close to being caught.
The dogs never close to catching them.

The dogs in it for the chase, together.
The birds in it for the chase, together.

IV.
Instructions

1. Everything counts.

2. All students are potentially genius. The instructor's duty is to call students to cultivate their personal genius.

3. Each instructor is arriving at the course from a unique perspective influenced by the totality of the relations over the course of life through the seeking of a question they are asking, "What is visual storytelling."

4. As educators we must educate ourselves. The ends of our task are manifest on a daily basis through our means comprised of lectures, demonstrations, discussions and critiques. There is a tenuous thread weaving method and theory together that is directly affected by the ways we instruct our students. Whether or not we recognize this thread the outcome is affected, as is the ability of our students to succeed as visual journalists. As such, we ask the question we are often heard asking our students, "Where do you imagine yourself working in five years?" But ours would have a different twist as we are facilitating the end for the student rather than following their path, "Where do we imagine our students working forty-five years from now?" For this appears to be the key question, that which is at the base of every assignment, that which is running through every conversation we have inside or outside of our classrooms, that which guides our research and our findings. Newspapers, magazines, web based media, television stations, non-profits, photographer-operated studios, photo agencies, are among the media where I imagine the need for visual journalists in the future. But this is a limited scope, dependent on my understanding of the market and where it might go. This is an area over which I have no control and of which I can only imagine. This is fantasy, an area of the unreal that is of no real use to educators. Another question that might be of more use to instructors of visual journalism is, "What is a visual storyteller?" This is a question concerning the flexibility of mastery and allows for changes in technology and mediums over time. Visual storytelling is a path we have the opportunity to show our students during the course of our own lifelong journey becoming visual storytellers.

a. Thank you for your letter and kind words. I hope all is well in Illinois with your work and your life, your family and friends. I am glad to hear that there are still fireflies lighting up the dusk. They amaze me with their light so conspicuous, out there for all to see. Today it is hot here, hot and muggy except for a cool breeze blown off the ocean warning me not to confuse here with there, this coastal town for your Midwestern metropolis. I miss Illinois; my memories are strong, even lyrical in their sweet resentment for all I was and all I became because of Illinois. I am glad you are working there and more so for your question in relation to your experience. Somehow this shared origin lends certain validity to your inquiry in that it is my inquiry as well. Thank you for asking, "why (I) shifted from shooting to teaching."

At the risk of sounding absurd, delusional, schizophrenic, in a state of denial, I begin by telling you in all honesty, sincerity and self-reflection that there never was a shift from "shooting" to "teaching." Shooting or photography, as I will refer to the act of exposing a light sensitive p*** to light through equipment called the camera for the purpose of manipulating time and space in light resulting in the production of a representation, is synonymous with teaching. "Yeah, yeah," you say, "stop kidding yourself, the two are not the same and you know it. " "That is just an easy answer out of your situation." But I am not under a delusion for certainly these visions cannot be disproved and I am not under an illusion because these visions are of this world, in everyday life, everyday light revealing Human Beings existing as individuals between Birth and Death. This occurs just as I exist with them between my own Birth and Death that I will never experience though they are the only two non-"events" that define me as an individual. All that is between this Birth that threw me into a certain world and the impossibility of Death that is the utmost possibility of my Being is the potentiality for me to live my life, a life in which I choose the possibilities every step of the way. This makes my life my life in the face of the alternative that is to ignore the responsibility of living my own life dying towards my own death and living a "they-life." The they-life is one where I look at a painting and like it because "everyone" likes it; I buy my car because "I've got to have one;" or, I take pictures in a certain style because "that's what wins awards." No, though it is hard because every step of the way I must ask myself why I am doing what I am doing, something that I do not do all the time, but I practice as much as possible, the decisions I make are mine along the way. This is what led me to "teach." Such is the daily practice being a photographer. I am grateful for you asking these questions because what I just wrote, this existentialism, is based on language used by Martin Heidegger in his inquiry as to the meaning of the question, "What is Being?" As a photographer these questions have arose again and again but only now, for the first time, is there the language-at-hand to express these feelings and ideas that arise from the practice of photography. For this I am grateful.

Photography and photojournalism have always been closely linked in my thoughts and actions. In fact, I use the terms interchangeably, which causes problems at times, problems I am willing to accept because they are specifically my problems, those that define me as a photographer and a photojournalist. It has been a constant struggle, a daily struggle over the past 13 years to Be a photographer. A photographer is a visual storyteller and a visual storyteller is, for lack of a better definition, "a process of becoming." That is, a visual storyteller is a lifelong journey. The struggle has been to photograph, to use the camera in a way that it produces the mistakes that are my limitations using the camera in a consistent manner. This means that I have struggled to fail to use the camera the way it is "supposed" to be used every time I pick up the camera. I have cultivated my failures in such a way as to perfect the process of failing in a consistency of inconsistency, a slight distortion of my sight, in order to "see." This might take the form of a certain p*** of focus, an exposure "technique," or a shake in the exposure particular to my finger as first noticed on a frigid day in October, the first day of practice for high school football playoffs in Freeport when it was 30 degrees, the coldest weather I had ever experienced before it hit the teens that very night leading into the progression of winter over the next six months. But this shake is something I have cultivated even as it changes in relation with all the time I spent this year writing and typing which has surely affected my finger as much as my posture and sense of sight. This cultivation of failure is similar to learning how to shoot in certain types of light to express the beauty and radiance of the light in ways no one else is aware. ¶Light is. I love light. I have long affairs with certain light, returning over and over again. There is a certain light that always reminds me of people in Guatemala: when I see the light, I feel the community with me. And the same with Chiapas or Texas and especially Santa Cruz or Freeport. Which brings me to fireflies, thunderstorms, the humidity, and long shadows purple in the winter. Light is precious. Seeing light, seeing light as a photographer, seeing people in light, light shared through layers of life, memories written in light, the light is the community, the communities over time and space which is a testimony to my life decisions; yes, most certainly this light carries these memories in ever-widening communities as light touches light-life caressing life-in light.

My first duty as a photographer, as a visual storyteller, is to the people I am photographing in the light which they are. This means leaving behind my aspirations and giving myself over to their light. This means not taking photographs I knew I was expected to take, a picture which has "worked" in this situation before, a picture devoid of fury, an "easy read," obvious or "safe." These are the pictures that editors congratulate you for taking because they were "understood" and everyone always wants to understand photographs at first glance lest they appear stupid. Yes, the ego response gets in the way of taking more than a couple of seconds looking and actively inhabiting the photograph for five minutes or ten years, each time returning to the photograph with new eyes for their new eye experiences and learning from the photographs over time in relation to their relations. And so for refusing to make photographs that other people expected me to make, "they-pictures," I was in constant struggle with editors, publications, clients, family, and friends. Most of the time these disputes occurred when money was involved. They thought that because they were paying me that I would make photos that other people make. And this kept me searching for pictures that were "true" to my relation with subjects through the camera in all the light that presented itself at the time.

For most of my time photographing I worked with a specific group of people who gave me the space in publication to display the images that I wished to show (more or less) on stories about people in their everyday lives in their everyday light struggling to survive. In these lives I found my life. And this group of people was a dysfunctional family, those who comprised the magazine, because we were working on this together and many of us doing so in the name of humanity. A very noble cause which we continue to address with the highest respect and most devout belief that there is no need for someone, any one, to suffer at the hands of another. But it did not last, the magazine, not for me. I needed to go so I pushed them away out of my frustration. Living in Santa Barbara working at Brooks I photograph my stories, the everyday stories that I want to tell. I tell stories with pictures because I must. I am drawn to do so by the light, by a gesture, by a mood or a "moment," by humanity. ¶Granted this opportunity to teach people beginning down this path of visual storytelling, I have encountered immense pleasure in the process. The is especially true in regards to working with photographers on asking certain questions as visual storytellers, questions which are not the industry standard. Photography is a sharing and a communicating, as is teaching. The lines are blurred. When I walk into a classroom, I teach the way I photograph: no easy answers. No "they-class." I aim to communicate information about photojournalism in class the same way that a photograph communicates to an audience. This is a shared process where the subject, the photographer and the audience only learn so much as they feel. Yes, this is emotive knowledge. It only occurs in the interaction, in the relation, as does the creative process. "Teaching" is giving me opportunities I never imagined I would have. It has allowed me to photograph in ways I only hoped possible. I have only just begun this journey as a visual storyteller. I do not have a complete answer to your question but the more I search, the more I inquire, the farther I live down this path, this glorious path of light.

5. The Project of Mastery is the process of unveiling origins that leads first to comprehension and then later to Mastery through the addition of new knowledge to the field by the Master.

6. The visual storyteller is aware of positivist, objective truth as well as the multiplicity of truth. The visual storyteller improvises and is a life-long learner, understanding the differences between the subject, the photographer and the audience as well as their interconnectedness. The visual storyteller accompanies the subject through life as the subject's life experiences and the storyteller's coincide and become one in various moments. The visual storyteller has a passionate commitment to communicating visual stories.

7. The thread stringing a visual storytelling course together is a progression from one thought to the next enacted through the completion of the assignments. Every assignment in this class concerns storytelling and culminates in the picture story. The picture story is a multiple image assignment that is comprised of single images. Again, this is a single image storytelling class in which every assignment is critiqued in specific ways illuminating the students to a variety of possibilities for editing and critiquing images. All of these strategies are made clear for the students through the single image assignments to provide some of the many tools necessary in the process of encountering, photographing and editing the picture story. As such, this course is a review of all previous materials in the core curriculum.

8. There are grumblings and suspicions by students enrolled in this class. This is a normal course of events for this course and is expected behavior that should not alarm instructors. This is a difficult course for students because they are forced to realize the boundaries of their ignorance through attempting assignments and failing to meet their personal expectations for improvement. Indeed, the learning curve, though just as steep as in every class, is particularly difficult for the student to realize having seen the materials before, maybe two or three times, and still unable to attain the images which they hope to photograph. They are not as proficient as previously thought and there is the beginning of an awareness that visual storytelling is a lifelong learning process. This is a realization that some students of visual storytelling embrace and others resist. Those who resist the most lash out the most at the instructors, administration and institution; other students realize that there is no easy answer and begin to search for an easy way out in the form of another program or goal inside or outside of visual storytelling; other students simply give up and drop out of the program; other students dig in their heels and keep at the task, the signs of which are manifest much later in the form of internships, workshops, fellowships, grants, awards and jobs. Furthermore, this class is difficult for instructors due to the close attention that must be paid to the subtleties of the student work. Much as a miner searches for the mother lode or a farmer awaits the hour window when a cow is at the optimal moment of heat for successful insemination, the instructor of visual journalism requires patience and scrutinizing attention to detail to ensure not only success but also survival. Student work must be mined in the moment of critique to encounter the best possible strategy for the course of the class depending on the particular class's level of understanding and visual competency. Pre-planned answers and strategies will break down at some point during instruction and are rendered useless by the class that either underachieves or exceeds the expectations of the instructor. This phenomenon where the subject determines the outcome of the work is also referred to as the counter-disciplinarity of the subject. The instructor teaching must walk into class prepared with strategies employed by photojournalists and jazz musicians: the score is written, you have practiced your scales for years and years, now, in this moment, you perform variations on the theme based in part on what the audience demands, today. Tomorrow is too late: no, this is not for the weak, the timid or unprepared.

a. Thanks for voicing your concerns. I am sorry that you feel this way about the course and my commitment to the course and students. I have a particular way of approaching photographic education that I continue to explain in class through lectures and critiques that I will continue to unveil until the last minute we are in class. Yes, this class is incomplete, thus far, and will be completed on the last day. I provided a "road map" of where we are going on the first day of class with my lecture. Please refer to your class notes on this subject as well as to the outline of "assignments due" which is a skeletal reference list, at best. The "life in balance" talk I gave was not the traditional talk of how most people comprehend what it means for life to be in balance. To summarize the point of that story, "Life in balance: when you make a goal, there are consequences; so, decide what goal you will set for yourself this session and accept the consequences." This goes as well for my grading, which I also explained the first day of class. A photograph that is ready for publication i.e., one that is toned, captioned, sized, with

a "journalistically interesting" subject merits a "C." A "B" photograph is one in which all the prior standards are met as well as going the "extra yard." An "A" photograph is a photograph that enters your portfolio by meeting the aforementioned standards as well as being an "award winning" photograph. To me, this standard of excellence is that which you are paying for here in addition to the technical and visual storytelling skills. Please forgive me for keeping the class longer than usual today this was necessary do to the class activity on Monday and is not the norm. As for my office hours, I do inform the class that I am extremely busy putting the final touches on completing my course work at UCSB and I do graduate this coming weekend. This means that starting next weekend I will be in the office on a regular basis once again. Thanks for taking the time to voice your concerns about my performance as an instructor and as a communicator of the course goals. I will take this into consideration as we go forward this session. If you have further concerns about these issues or feel that I did not fully answer your questions, please reply at your convenience. Thanks again for the cookies today in class.

9. There is a small cache of stock visual examples for this course because the examples should be constantly taken from current publications as they appear in media for each class depending on what needs visual ingestion on the particular day of instruction. For example, if you are teaching two sections concurrently the course content might vary from the morning to the afternoon depending on the class and if the morning class is not responding it may be the case that you prepared and presented materials intended for the afternoon class which in turn was later amazed by your lecture. This is a visual storytelling course. A visual storytelling course is constructed with a fluid formula. It relies on the work of the students, both photos and discussions, to make the class complete much in the same way a photograph is completed with an audience. Listen to the comments and work of the students in the class and the course will flourish.

10. The assignments for this course are difficult. If you have not photographed all the assignments you might want to do so as soon as possible to understand the "point" of each assignment. Each of us will understand and teach the point of the assignment based on our experiences as photojournalists. However, there is an underlying point to each of the assignments that is best conveyed during the class critiques of assignments. The point, as I am able to communicate it to you at this moment, includes but is not to be ever limited to:

a. Features: journalistic interest, moments, emotions, compositions (color, form, light, spatial), captions.
i. Show me don't tell me. What are you afraid of? What do you feel when you are watching? Show me don't tell me. Make me feel. Make whoever your audience happens to be, feel. These photographs we make, we make them about other people. The stories we witness as they unfold in front of us are other people's stories. Treat them with respect. Take yourself out of the picture. This is not about you; this is about your subjects. Work hard and long on toning your photographs. They must look great if you want anyone to look at them. I would say you should spend at least an hour toning each photograph before you submit it for grading. Where are the moments? Where are the interactions? What are you afraid of? Show us what the world means to you, the little jokes you have with your friendsŠtry to put them into photographs. What makes you laugh? What makes you cry? What makes you wake up in the morning? Show me don't tell me.
ii. Yes, is the answer to all three of the above. However, I do not think students are even ready by the time they get to XX's class to learn shortcuts as we see in his frustration with their toning skills.
I think the more they practice, the more they will fail towards success. I also know that though speed is the name of the game for wire photographers, it is also assumed that you know how to get a good tone in a photograph when you are hired. This includes not only proficiency with tools in Photoshop as well as third party plug-in software, but also the "eye" that sees the difference between a good and bad photograph which is an acquired taste. For example, two of the best eyes for color I know both worked at one-hour photo stores for years adjusting colors and contrasts during their developmental stages as photojournalists. Another spends hours toning every photograph in his extended picture packages that appear in the paper and on the web in addition to the time he spends learning tricks from the prepress guys. It takes a while to learn these skills and so "an hour" is a general amount of time I wrote down as code for students to "spend more time toning the photograph than they imagined possible in order to make a photograph with better colors and contrasts than they imagined possible." Our students do not have the eye by the time they reach this class to see the difference between a well toned and a poorly toned photograph. Practice makes perfect. Thanks for your response and I look forward to continuing this dialog.

b. General or Spot News: journalistic interest, composition, captions, moments, access.
i. This week you were confronted with the problem of making photographs in several situations, two concerning the issue of traffic congestion in the Southern Central Coast and one in either a spot news or general news setting. The first thing I must tell you is to shoot more in every situation. Make a picture; now, make a better picture: make a picture; now, make a better picture: etc. Persistence will open up many more opportunities to make photographs when you are confronted by the problems of light, geometry and humanity in any situation. News is current, actual, and happening in real time. A photojournalist is the author of the rough draft of history, the first take, recording events that are important to a broader audience and sharing these photographs with the public. In many ways, a photojournalist is a public servant, providing information about a community to the community so that they might act upon it. This is a reason to search out "journalistically interesting" situations. Situations that are important to a community are those which challenge a community and which celebrate a community. Most of the time these are not grand events, these are everyday community events. Open yourself up to the possibilities of the community. Technically, we must work on making the images visually appealing. This is a major part of your job. When working on a digital image, whether taken from scanned film or digital capture, the basics of setting a black point and correcting color casts in the photograph are the minimum for color correction. This is not optional. If you still have questions about this and you are not asking in class, please come to my office hours and we will tone images. Keep shooting. Make a picture; now, make a better picture. Only through trial and error, making photographs, editing your take and making better photographs will you become photojournalists.

c. Person at Work: journalistic interest, interactions, compositions, captions, access.
i. There were many interesting interactions between people in your work. Some chose to turn in a person working alone: remember, this was not the assignment. For those who did find people interacting with others, this is where you will find the gold. Interactions are golden. Once you tap into these living histories, look for the specific slices that most nearly tell the story that you are telling. You must play an active roll while photographing. This means that you must think about the ways in which your subject's actions and interactions relate to the story and be ready to make the photographs as the moments arise. Now, what is the value of work to your subject? Is this apparent in your photographs? Do we feel what it means to work in this situation when we look at your photographs? Is the work hard? Does the subject love the job or hate it? Take a stand. Show us with your photographs.

d. Group Portrait: journalistic interest, lighting, working with multiple subjects, compositions, captions, access.

i. Technically beautiful images. The light, the posing, etc. However, these fail as portraits. These are fashion photographs. The word portraiture implies a sense of narrative, a story that tells the audience something about the person in the photograph. The audience should walk away from a portrait feeling something about the person photographed. There is no story in these photographs. These photos tell me nothing about the woman or the scene in which she is photographed and, as the beautiful objects they are, tell me about the style and lighting chosen by the photographer based on where the photographer went to school, nothing more. What do you want to light in the world? This is a question of commercial photography. What do you want to say about the world? This is a question of visual journalism. These photographs are technically correct and completely devoid of content. You have achieved totally beautiful and totally hollow images in this exercise. The time is now to act as a portrait photographer. Now you must apply these techniques to tell the story of a human being if you are as serious as I believe you are about becoming a portrait photographer. What are you waiting for? If you want to talk about these photographs further, I will go through each image with you. If you want to talk about a theme for a series of portraits, I will be in the office tomorrow at 3pm. Keep up the good work,

ii. There are a few things you may want to consider with Dyna-Lites:
How will they alter the ambient light? This may or may not be an issue depending on how important the light of a scene is to your theories and practices, your praxis of storytelling. Many photographers, if they are setting up powerful strobes attempt to mimic the ambient light so that even in lit situations the ambient light is respected and even exalted in hope that the camera might see what our eyes and souls understand as truth. Will there be restraints with the physical space? In checkout there is a box containing Pocket Wizards. This is a radio slave unit. You plug the receiver into the power pack and put the transmitter on your camera and then you are cordless inside the space. I would consider checking out this item when you check out the lights so you can move in a manner as free as that of dancers while photographing. Lights are wonderful equipment; only, they are bulky and the amount of light is good but not great for large spaces. What is your methodology? What do you want to preserve or utilize of the ambient light in your storytelling? Is it possible to use a smaller strobe and do just as much to further your work? These are only a few of the questions to consider before deciding how you would like to tell the story. Journalists use lights in many situations to tell the story and this may be a case where you should use them to further your goals. Remember to go early to set up the lights; will they be in the way of your subjects? Will your subjects feel self-conscious of the flash?
In the end, it is up to you to convince the audience with your work whether or not you may use Dyna-Lites to tell the specific story at hand. Does the equipment further the cause or does the technique get in the way of the storytelling (Does the picture's focus become the technique rather than the people?)? I can hardly wait to see the photos. Have fun shooting tonight.

e. Issue News: journalistic interest, captions, compositions, moments, interactions, access.
i. Well, you may still need to learn the difference between candid moments and portraits, I don't know, it depends how open minded you are about life. See, in this photo they are reacting to someone or something outside the frame, not to one another. Yes, there is a shared laughter but it is not candid, it is between one another because of someone outside the frame. Are you walking with the person with whom they are interacting? Take yourself out of the picture and tune into truly candid moments. Being very close to your subjects means understanding the subtleties of truth and fiction: how long did you spend with these people? Portraits and documentary moments both have the potential for truth, but there is a huge difference between the purpose and execution. The first is set up, the set up as subtle as the subject responding to us rather than to one another. We attempt to not disturb the second, to record it for what it is. I guess this could be completely spontaneous, there are also cases of spontaneous combustion reported from time to time but more common are self-immolations.

f. Sports Feature: journalistic interest at an event, moments, emotions, compositions, captions, access to an event.
i. Thanks for submitting the work. I am always amazed by photography and you all reaffirmed this love for photography with the photographs you showed me in this set of work.
Photography, as John Sexton reminded us last Friday night is light writing. And you all showed me that you understand and are capable of making a photograph. Using shutter speeds and apertures to utilize the light you are presented with to make a photograph. As visual storytellers, as photojournalists, though we make photographs for ourselves, we are also making photographs for an audience, for others to see and understand the life experiences to which we bear witness. Those instances where we are granted special permission to document another person's life are not to be taken lightly. To photograph is a privilege that we must approach with utmost respect if we are to make meaningful storytelling images.

When you are working a situation, looking for the subtleties of the actions that will tell a story about the person you are photographing, when your presence is no longer the focus of the photograph, when you finally become a transparent force in the photograph and your subject's story comes across, then you will have made a meaningful photograph.

There are tools that documentary photographers use to make powerful storytelling images.
Interactions. Two or more people, their gestures, movements and expressions many times lead to a more complete understanding of a situation.   First, we have two people relating to each other and the life experience at hand meaning that built into the photo we have a confirmation that what is going on in the photograph is real and that others witnessed the event or the state of affairs as well. When we see how people interact with one another in the photograph there are many more possibilities for photographs than in photographs that we see one person and an object that relates to them. Many times this is the only photograph that we have the opportunity to make, a person with an object using a wide-angle lens. But it is the minimum. A person and an object do not relate any of the energy or urgency that two or more people interacting have the opportunity to make if the photographer opens up to the possibilities. This is a study that will lead you many places with your camera over the years.

Light. Yes, you mostly managed to use apertures and shutter speeds to achieve an equivalent exposure for your photographs. Now, we must take it a step further in our pursuit of light. How does the specific light of the situation add to the story we are trying to tell about the person/people involved in the issue? Golden hour light is not the best light for every situation. How will you see and use the light for each situation you encounter? This is the line of questioning that arises for one who is searching for an understanding of light. This too is a life long process for many people.

Moments.   I am sure you have heard us speak of moments time and time again. Why do we hold this word, this concept in such high regard? Moments are the magical spaces where time and space come together in the viewfinder for a split second (though when it happens it can feel like hours between the recognition of the moment and when the action is taken to depress the shutter release.). Moments are magical because no one notices moments unless they are actively searching for moments.   Many photojournalists search for moments. My definition of a moment has evolved through the years to where it is now comprised of three main elements: light, time and humanity. This is what I search for when I am out on the streets, covering an event, shooting a portrait in the studio, or at home sitting with my family for breakfast. If we do not search we will never see. Certain people dedicate their entire lives searching for moments. I believe that this is a decent way to live one's life.

These are a few of the issues, Interactions, Light and Moments that came up time and time again while I was looking at your photographs. These are the areas where I see room for your personal growth as photojournalists and as visual storytellers.

g. "Life in America:" Daily practice of photographing in the community.
i. Which also brings us to my thoughts behind the "Life in America" assignment. I give no minimum number of images necessary or maximum so that students will self-motivate and make photographs at the speed of life. This is about achieving quality in feature photography through quantity of failures. Once again, this assignment is about failing towards success.
ii. Little dogs tied to orange string,
Children with huge shopping bags and their mom with a tiny one, the sunset fades to blue; life size posters of cartoons, star wars, lord of the rings and matrix characters outside a store, girls admiring new tattoos, happy people laughing to one another, lonely ticket collector in the movie theater, "punk" kids sharing a laugh and a cigarette, another reading the newspaper, reflections in an ice cream shop window, old friends at the bookshop, teens making eyes waiting for the light to turn, smelly people, fleeting conversations, people anticipating home as they get up off the bench for the bus, homeless looking people talking to themselves, business looking people talking to themselves on their cell phones, everyone with imaginary friends, these are mine.

h. Photo Illustration: journalistically interesting, the headline, visual metaphors, Photoshop.
i. Thinking Photojournalism: What is the story? Taking the picture is the easy part, the joy, the affirmation of all the events and hard work that has transpired along the journey to arrive at this perspective, to take this photograph. The hard work resides in finding the ideas, the everyday stories of humanity that make for strong visual storytelling narratives. The questions are simple, clear and interested in the subject. Photographs are the answers that raise the questions in the hearts and minds of the audience, for the subject. In this class we will revisit certain assignments and attempt new assignments always asking the question, what is the story?
i. Picture Story: journalistically interesting, the headline, the enrollment conversation, access, editing, narrative structure, moments, interactions, emotions, compositions, captions, written storytelling.
i. I hope you can see beyond the face value of the comments and the grade you received and think about what you actually photographed of Bob's life. Where is the story Bob has to tell? To tell a story with multiple photographs, they must each convey a certain set of meanings through the critical selection and chance arrangement of symbols through the lens in relation to the subject. We must take our audience by the heart and mind and tiptoe through all the distractions of their lives so that they leave their worlds and enter the life of our subject. And once here we carry our audience down a path of answers our subject provided through their particular story so that the audience might reflect upon humanity and other complications of consciousness. What is Bob's story? Is the story about loneliness or is it about being homeless or is it about the aluminum can recycling industry or is it about free donuts and the inherent problem with using wooden planks for construction material because of the inconsistency of the pattern of knots that plague wooden structures? And if it is about any or all of these issues what story does Bob have to tell us therein? How does it make him feel? Does Bob have any friends or family? What are Bob's relationships? If he is in fact alone 95% of the day perhaps the 5% of the day when he is not alone is the place to start. Even if they are only fleeting moments once or twice a day, a month or a year, how deep are you going to go? What of the moment with someone that happens once in ten years? How did Bob arrive at this destination? Where does Bob encounter God? What does Bob hold sacred?

When we walk with people they open up to us on various levels at a pace we do not control. At a certain point, maybe after ten minutes but more likely than not after five or twenty years of being with someone we discover something new about them, totally unexpected and completely sacred. They open up their lives and permit us into some core aspect of their existence. This is a precious gift. This is what sustains me as a photojournalist, these relationships, investing into relationships such as these with the hope that I might share these stories of humanity that I am told so that others might see. I happen to share this through a camera's lens. And this medium has served me well; indeed, I have yet to encounter the limits of photography. And if you choose the camera over the paint brush, the pen, musical instruments, dance, pottery and every other creative medium imagined and unimagined then it is your duty to tell these stories of humanity with images, representations of life. I hope that through this process, this training and vigilance of vision over the years that you might learn to open your soul to your subject and to experience therein other undreamed of levels of understanding of all the complexities and wonders of a single human soul. And here, somewhere in the fog of existence a story is born.
j. Final portfolio: a polished version of the work completed during the course.

11. The course is an exercise in challenging students along their paths towards becoming visual storytellers by breaking the boundaries of their ignorance through constantly questioning their intentions and their execution of assignments. Hopefully they will know more about what they don't know to provide more areas of improvement than those which they were previously aware of before experiencing the class. The most valuable content of the course is in providing the setting for a student to become a visually critical thinker, a crucial component of becoming a visual storyteller. Break the formulas apart! They do more damage than good!

12. This course is in my head, it bursts through me like an image of little children running, excited and giggling, with irreverence at all that is and in the same moment with utmost love and respect for visual storytelling and for the students. This course should be in each of your heads, too. It takes time to learn what each of us have to offer to the course, at least four sessions teaching the course to begin to become comfortable with the lectures. This is a shooting course for the students, but it especially is for the instructors. The goal is to teach this course, to convey the knowledge to the students, in the same way that a photograph conveys knowledge to an audience. The photograph orders time, space and humanity through light providing the audience a space to reflect through the lens of their life experiences on the representation of the subject photographed and presented via media. The successful result of photographic meaning is in the raising of an emotion in the audience such as compassion, anger or joy at that which has happened in the life of the subject through the interrelation of the photographer, the camera, subject and audience. In a similar way, the instructor of visual storytelling creates a space for students to encounter method and theory through the classroom and course materials, discussions and critiques, providing the student with the opportunity to reflect, interact and create instances of visual storytelling because of the relationship of the instructor, the course materials, the student, and the student's photographs. Through this process students will come to the self-realization of the tools and thoughts involved in visual storytelling.

13. Why are we here? This is the question we should be asking ourselves before stepping in front of the class. When I am asked this question I am inevitably forced to respond first to a varying set of questions that arise and include: Do I love listening? Do I love teaching? Do I love photography? Do I love the single image and do I love the picture story? Do I love working with students? Do I love life? Do I love being a visual storyteller? And, always, what does it mean to be a visual storyteller?

(Paul Myers is a faculty member of the Visual Journalism Program at Brooks Institute of Photography in Ventura, CA. Prior to his arrival at Brooks, Myers worked for a variety of publications including newspapers in Freeport, IL and Marysville, CA. His SportsShooter.com member page: http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=2562)

* * *

THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'

The Path to a Audio Bliss, Not Being Ignorant Will Help You to a Merry Way

By Nick Layman

When I told my family I was getting into photography they bought my first film SLR it was Nikon N90. My grandpa bought it for me to start my career for $250. After dabbling in the darkroom it was time to go digital and I plopped down the thousands of dollars for the camera body and lens. When my grandpa asked how much that outfit cost I just told him the price of everything. His response was, "Mijo, that is a lot of money but it's a good investment."

Now enter this new realm of multimedia production with journalists carrying mics, audio recorders and still/video cameras. The new endeavors are getting pretty pricey to keep up with the times and some people are buying the most expensive audio and microphone set-ups to get the results from gathering audio.

The Old School Devices aka Analog
When I was starting out in my radio station days the studio had an old cut and splice reel-to-reel recorder for the reporters. A couple old school reporters still used razor blades and tape to edit their audio. The cut and splice method is the most extreme audio editing and almost absolute. At the radio station we had three types of recorders that would be issued to the staff. There was the DAT machine, MiniDisc and cassette recorder. Keep in mind that these analog machines need a quality sound card to prevent hissing and other audio malfunctions. Below you will find the pros and cons of each machine from my own experience.

DAT Machine
PROS: This thing is like the Nikon F5 it's a tank and indestructible with its all-metal frame. If you go to a community radio station chances are you will see the scuffs of being dropped and kicked across the ground. The great thing about these machines is they are just tough and durable. Dropped from a stuffed car to a reporter tripping over the mic cord and flinging the machine across the auditorium after a press conference, close to nothing will stop these machines from recording.

The sound quality is pristine and some machines have time coding on them if you are using a DAT deck for loading your audio into the computer. They have input/output source to feed the audio into the desired source for dumping audio.

Some DAT portable machines have two or more XLR inputs for microphones and it makes it very easy to record natural sound and the voice actualities. Also, some have phone inputs for recording phone interviews. This type of recorder is for in depth documentary work or the gear head that wants everything to sound pretty.

CONS: Most DAT machines are heavy and won't fit in a waist pack or backpack without adding a couple pounds to the waist. They are also very long in length and can put your personal waist weight limit to the extreme and POP a herniated disc.

The other draw back is carrying around tapes for the machine and they are found at most music stores but are becoming harder to find. This type of machine is meant for the photojournalist working at one place and on a long-term project.

Price: They also cost a little above $400 for a used one and I have seen some as high as $1200 for a new one.

Mini Disc
Remember when the different electronic companies tried to market the mini disc recorders as the new wave to listen to music and it was going to make our lives easier. People would carry their portable mini disc recorders around with a pouch of mini discs that held Barry Manilow, Blink 182 and Barry White for those special occasions with the lady friend.

PROS:
This petite little thing can fit in any shirt pocket or small little Velcro strap that can be put on an arm. Audio can be recorded with recorder input and the audio can be laid down on multiply tracks. A mini disc can fit up to 90 minutes of audio on one disc and they are the size of a palm. The buttons are fairly easy to navigate and most disc recorders have an instant recording start up.

A screen display shows the level input and an audio producer can make sure the levels aren't being over modulated or being to low. The screen will also display the recording time left on the disc and give battery life for user. For the most part these are very easy to use and a person can drop the batteries in and go.

They have now made HD Mini disc recorders that can record audio on a mini disc and make it easy to drag and drop audio into a storage device. This new feature cuts down on the real time play back into the computer.

CONS:
They are made of plastic and can't take a beating like the DAT machine and some of the parts are very delicate. The battery door is one of the delicate pieces and I lost the door in a Mojave Desert windstorm. If a person loses this part it will take weeks to get the door since its on backorder. Sometimes it will be on back order and not worth the wait to get the door.

When recording there can't be any battery failure or the audio will be lost. Back to the flimsy door issue if that flings open and ejects the batteries on to the floor you can kiss that beautiful interview good bye. I have seen some audio producers use gaffers tape to make sure there isn't a battery door malfunction. But I have also seen producers lose their audio because of this failure and they angrily inserted profane word 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 followed by a door slam. Don't worry folks it wasn't live or the FCC would have collected a lot of money from our station.

Maintenance is the key and making sure the heads are clean and the discs are properly writing the audio. Usually if I hear some weird noises and the device trying to write itself for more than five minutes there is some trouble in audio land. The mini discs are usually good for 200 uses then its time to use them as beverage coasters. But it also depends on the usage of the disc and overall care of the disc.

Price: You can find deals on mini disc recorders on Internet auction sites and a person can spend anywhere from $80 to $450 for a quality recorder. The $80 ones can be fairly used and expect to get low miles out of them.

Cassette Recorder
I will be honest and say the only time I used the cassette recorder was to play back some interviews a producer had gathered. But for the most part cassette recorders are hardly used but if you're the retro 80s journalist and want to play some Billy Idol on the way to your assignment before recording anything be my guest. The also have a phone jack to plug in for the option to record phone interviews.

I didn't really like the sound quality of the tapes and wasn't to impressed with the analog counter giving time codes. The drawback with these is the tape can get caught in the heads and not allow a proper recording. Also, the heads need to be cleaned if a person is constantly doing assignments.

Price: New $400 Used $299
Digital saved the multimedia star
Finally the audio producers dream has come true with the totally digital recording device. Many companies are making the SD and Compact Flash card recorders. I love the idea of coming in from an assignment and able to dump the audio files with a super quick USB cord. The above-mentioned recorders would take time because I would have to pour through the audio and find the sound bytes. Imagine an interview that lasted one hour that is one hour of audio dumping, so go make a sandwich; check the AP wire and follow up on story leads.

PROS: The ability to have digital audio at the tip of your hands is incredible and making the workflow time immensely decreases. There are different types of recorders that allow the different features, sizes and digital media storage. Some have the bells and whistles allowing people to have multiply mic inputs and being able to record on the fly. The one I own is very easy to use and has a fast start up time.

Many companies are making digital recorders and the audio producer can pick their favorite one after reviewing the different specs and making some test recordings.

You don't need a wicked sound card to input the audio it just transfers from your device to the computer. Thus, making it less frustrating by not getting distortion from dumping your audio from a recorder through a line in port. Also, different formats can be selected for the producers needs.

CONS: The market is flooded with the different digital recording devices its tough to find the right fit by just reading the companies website. Some are too big to fit into a waist bag and can take up a lot of room in the bag.
Some have slow start up times making it painful to hear beautiful sound opportunities disappear into the air.

Some recorders have their little quirks of recording to soft or to "hot," meaning to loud. Others have a small hiss in the background that many people wouldn't catch but a seasoned audio producer would hear. The Internet is full of reviews for these devices and proper research can yield a great purchase.

Price: $99 to $1000
It is very easy for a person to get into the audio gathering business and if a person is on a shoestring budget the devices you can pick up will be under $200 if you pick up a mic. If you have the money to drop on a recording device, shotgun and omni directional mic you can get the whole package for under $500.

Do your multimedia project a favor and please don't record on the back of the built-in mic and use headphones to monitor sound going into the machine you decide to buy.

(Nick Layman is a freelance journalist based out of Albuquerque, N.M. He works for different publications and the local NPR station. He specializes in multimedia productions with photos.)

* * *

PHOTOGRAPHER'S TOY BOX
Hands On With The New Leica M8
By Todd Korol

(Editors Note: One in an series of occasional articles on new, cool and interesting equipment.)

It's been awhile since Internet chat rooms have been buzzing with news of a new digital camera but the new Leica M8 has certainly created a stir when it was released. I had the opportunity of using the new Leica M8 for 2 weeks courtesy of "The Camera Store" in Calgary, Alberta. I was able to put the camera through its paces with everything from portraits to see how skin tones would look, high ISO settings, to some aerial work I was shooting for a book project and of course where the Leica is most home, some street shooting.

This review will focus on my impressions of working with Leica's new $5000 digital camera. Yikes, $5000 for a 10 mega-pixel rangefinder camera. I have always been a huge fan of Leica and their rangefinder system. I have two M6's in my stable, along with a 21mm, 28mm, 35mm and 50mm lenses. After years of use, the lenses work just like when they were new, maybe a little smoother. And my M6's work as flawlessly as the day I bought them. So I was excited to see how the M8 would measure up.

The first time I saw and felt the Leica M8 was at Photo Expo in New York. I didn't know weather to like it or not, as I only had about 2 minutes with it, but it continued to intrigued me. The first thing Leica users will notice is there is to thumb winding lever. Most Leica users I know automatically use this lever, not only for winding the film of course, but for steadying the camera in your hand while you are shooting. This really enables you to use the camera at slower shutter speeds, think 1/15, 1/8 and you still get razor sharp photos. Leica has compensated this with making the body of the M8 wider, so there is more to grip. After using the new camera for just a short time, I liked the wide body, and it felt just as comfortable in my hands as my M6.

The top of the Leica, like all Leica rangefinders, is very clean. The shutter speed dial is on the right, super easy to use and tops 1/8000 of a second. There is a small round digital display of how many frames you have left on your card on the top left. And last, a small lever switch that controls turning the camera on and off, setting the motor drive to single or continuous, or setting it to self timer. This is one of the minor shortfalls of the camera.

I feel, as well as other photographers who have posted their thoughts on the camera, that there should only be an on/off switch. I feel setting the motor drive should be controlled through the menu, as most operations of the Leica are, and certainly the self timer should not be on the top. One time the lever moved to the self timer and I went to take a photo, and of course was looking down at the camera trying to figure out why it didn't fire when it finally went off. Other than that, I love the top of the camera, no unnecessary dials or levers on the top, it has a pure Leica feel and look.

Using the back menu is very easy and intuitive to navigate through. On the right is a dial where you can toggle through photos you have shot, or magnify an image that has been taken. That is done very easily with a dial. When you turn it, it goes though various degrees of magnification, and then you can use the 4 buttons in the dial to move the image around very fast and easy.

On the left of the screen are buttons for various menus that are very easy to use, I would have however, have preferred two changes here. I would have liked the buttons to have been flush with the body of the camera, where they would make a slight indent for the buttons to be in the body. Instead, the buttons stick out of the body, and a few times I looked down to see some menu item on the screen because they have been set off rubbing against my body.

The other thing I would have changed is moving the button to view the image from the top of the menu to the bottom. Maybe because I am used to it on my Canon's, but it still seems to me more intuitive to view the image by pressing the bottom button. It certainly has screwed me up more than once, and especially when I was shooting with both my Canon's and the Leica M8.

The 2.5" screen on the back of the camera is simply fantastic. I found the screen very bright, and images look great on it. You can also easily tell if the photo is in focus or not. The screen basically ROCKS in all kinds of situations I have been in.

As Leica users know, focusing the camera is done through a rangefinder system. It is fast easy and precise. I love focusing with a rangefinder and Leica simply has the best rangefinder focusing system in the world. It is bright and the same as all the recent Leica rangefinder bodies.

All my lenses, except my 21mm for some reason, worked perfectly with the camera. Although, I have a friend who has an M8 and his 21mm worked flawlessly, something that needs a bit more exploring on my end. The camera has a magnification factor of x1.3, so basically any lens moves up, a 35 is a 50, a 50 is a 75mm.

The M8 uses the SD cards and has a small battery that at first I thought, ran down rather fast, perhaps getting only 200-250 photos off of it. But then you shoot much differently with a Lecia. Generally you shoot photos and get one or two frames of something and move on. Not 8 a second like my Canons. So you end up having a much wide selection of images from a shoot. However, if I had one, I would definitely have 2 or 3 batteries on hand. Both the card and the battery are accessed through the bottom of the camera by removing the bottom plate on the camera, just like loading film on all their rangefinder cameras.

Again, since Leica is going digital, this is where they could have made another change. I think it should have been a hinged door at the bottom of the camera. I have always worried about losing a bottom plate on assignment, a hinged door would have just been easier.

The whole time I shot with the camera I used Leica's DNG RAW files. I processed them in Adobe's new Photoshop CS3, and the files turned out really beautiful. Leica's ISO runs, 160, 320, 640, 1280 and 2500. The files at 160 are really stunning, and I personally think they rez up to 50 megs much better than Canon's 5D files, which I am a big fan of. I shot the cameras side by side and made 50 meg files from both cameras, and always, I thought the Leica files looked better, both on the computer screen and the prints I made from my Epson 4800 printer. Why make 50 meg files? Well that's what my photo agency Aurora Photos request for the archive, so I wanted to see how they would stand up going that big.

As digital camera users know, a lot of times the files have to be sharpened in Photoshop. But with Leica, the images are super sharp right out of the camera, and I was really amazed at how great the sharpness of the files are from corner to corner. I am sure that the great fixed focal length glass that leica makes helps a bunch. But having said that, the Leica files slowly loses their luster at higher ISOs. I found the images much noisier at 1280 ISO. I don't know if I would really want to use any from high ISO settings. I think that 640 is about as high as you can really go.

As many have probably heard on the internet rumor mill, the new Leica M8's have a magenta color cast problem in dark colors. I rarely noticed this since Leica has fixed the problem in their new cameras. (There was a problem with the very first production cameras and there was a firmware upgrade. Note: These are second hand facts, and do not come from Leica.) You also now get corrective filters for 2 of your lenses when you buy a camera. But in the 20 gigs of images I shot in 2 weeks, I didn't have any issues with this.

Metering, like all Leicas, is center weighted (check). I have always loved the meters on my M6's. I have always felt if you knew where to meter, the Leica meters were right on the money, and the new M8 is no different. Weather shooting in manual mode or automatic, which I shot a lot of, my exposures were always great. Now the color balance was a different story. While most times color was always what I expected, sometimes shooting the same scene, the color would just change. Shooting in RAW I could always go to where I thought the color was, but sometimes I did have to make a change, especially when you shoot in the Auto color mode.

Traveling home from an assignment recently I had time to sit and think about my time using Leica's new digital rangefinder. Leica shooters know that using a rangefinder is much different from regular SLRs. Your shooting style is looser, freer, more spontaneous, not to mention the added bonus of carrying a small non obtrusive LIGHT camera. The history of photojournalism shows us the huge impact that Leica cameras have made.

Will the new M8 stand up? I think so. Do I like the camera? No; love and lust more come to mind. I think the camera is great. I thought about the image noise at higher ISOs, but then thought back to shooting film. I just pushed Provia a stop to 200, then kept opening up the lens and slowing down the shutter speed until I ran out of light. That was one of the things I loved about the M6, shooting right on the edge, so many great photos from a big stable of photographers who shot like that; Alex Webb, David Alan Harvey, Bill Allard.

One of the things I have really missed these past couple of years since the new digital revolution is shooting assignments with my M6's. The turn around time for film is just too slow. This camera continues in Leicas tradition of making wonderful elegant tools for communicating with photography. No bells and whistles, the camera doesn't need them. You can strap on any lens since the 50's and go to work. History shows us you just need a couple of lenses and a body, it's not the camera, it's the eye. The camera is only a toolŠbut man, what a tool Leica has created.

(Todd Korol is a freelance photographer in Calgary, Alberta. He is a member of Aurora Photos and freelances for Time, Sports Illustrated and Reuters. You can view his work at his personal website: http://www.toddkorol.com/. He has the cover photograph of the current issue of Sports Illustrated: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/covers/issues/2007/0702.html.)

* * *

Summer Sports Shooter Special From Penn Camera

By Jeff Snyder

WOW! Summer is heating up with Canon's Mark III being released as well as the "rumored" announcement of a new camera from Nikon. If you watch the forums on many Internet sites daily, then you know about the buzz on the new products, as well as the criticisms too. It's simply amazing to me that certain Internet sites have become "The Gospel" so to speak, and the power they have over this industry is simply mind boggling. Causing phones to ring off the hook, emails to fill my in box, and Instant Messages to be 10 deep on my screenŠ.So, my message to all of you is this, keep reading the sites, continue to send emails, and feel free to IM me with questions (and orders!) anytimeŠThat's what I'm here for.

If for some reason you've been out of touch for the past few weeks (which in this day and age of connectivity I find unfathomable), here's what you have missed-

- Canon has begun to ship the EOS Mark III camera. YES, they are dribbling in. NO, we do not have any on the shelf to deliver TODAY. YES, I can add you to the "List". YES, I'll do the best I can to get you one before your wife has a baby, before you leave for that trip to the Antarctic, before your parents 50th anniversary, before YOUR team makes the playoffs, before "I have this special really cool assignment coming up soon", before the shutter in your Mark IIN rolls over 99999, before Vince and the boys of Entourage release "Medellin", and finally, before "I cannot do my job anymore, because I can't keep up" excuseŠ

Now, a word to the wise, for all of you that want one NOW, when a new (and hopefully exciting) product is announcedŠMake your purchase plans early, contact me early. So that in the future, your new baby will not have had their 3rd birthday before yours comes in.

Canon's Instant Rebate program on selected lenses ends on 07/16/07, order now to instantly save $$

- Nikon's D200 Instant Rebate of $100 continues too! Nikon's Coolpix P5000 has been written up lately as "THE CARRY ALL THE TIME" cameraŠTake a look! Just inŠNikon CoolPix S50's in Red at $249!

- Gary Fong's Lumisphere is now in stock! Get incredibly lit flash images with this fantastic diffuser.
- Lacie 80GB Rugged Portable Hard Drives, are on special at $129 (USB 2.0/FW400/FW800)ŠWhile supplies last.
- Olympus Voice Recorders are here, and ready to ship.
- Casio's XJS30 LCD projectors is so tiny, and so cool. It fits in my Think Tank Airport Check In case, and goes where I go, for immediate presentations! Price was just reduced too!
- Lexar's new FireWire 800 Compact Flash Card reader should be here any day.
- Think Tank's Urban Disguise cases are really coolŠSee them on our site.

Have a great summerŠand keep in mind, when the next really exciting, earth shattering Cameras or Lenses are mentioned on the net, place your order immediately!

(Jeff Snyder can be contacted at Penn Camera at: 1-800-347-5770 or FAX 301-210-7370; Email: jsnyder@penncamera.com; AOL Instant Messenger: JeffPennCamera. On the web: http://www.penncamera.com.)

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News On Gitzo, MultiMAX, Canon Rebates and More From Roberts Distributors

By Jody Grober

Greetings from Indy to one and allŠ

Sorry I missed those of you at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championship, but I was forced to go on vacationŠ.hate thatŠ

The new Lexar 300X cards are in stock and until the end of the month some of them are on rebateŠ

More of the new and redesigned Gitzo monopods and tripods are coming in. You can loosen all three legs with one motion, their leg locks never get over tightened and they now have G-lock with increases the stability as weight increases. And they are just so sexyŠ.

I have one Profoto kit left at a close out price:
501-006 - AcuteR 2400 with two heads and a case. Regularly $4010.00, I have one unit left at $2384.10.

Thanks to all for be so patient as we wait for the Think Tank Photo Airport Security cases to come in. It looks like it is going to late July for a lot of things, but no Securities until AugustŠ.bummer, but worth the waitŠ

Canon Rebates are running through July 16th ŠI hope to have some more information on the Mk III situation next week sometimeŠ.

As the Nikon D200 seems to be getting more and more rareŠ.we still have some factory refurbs in stockŠ

Thanks to everyone that helped our first month as an APPLE dealerŠ.we are looking forward to a bright and shiny APPLE futureŠ

PocketWizard MultiMAX are in stock Š finally!!!
http://www.robertsimaging.com/cmItemDetail.jsp?pid=3618

Great news from MacGroupUS: Mamiya has halted the every growing prices on medium format backs and announced the Mamiya ZD. It has super high quality file from a full frame 22 Mp imager at a price you can live with, yeah,
http://www.robertsimaging.com/cmItemDetail.jsp?pid=11789
also from MacGroup are the high resolution EIZO monitors and the all new Shootout backpacks and rolling backpacksŠ

That's all I have for this month and remember, make sure you always have some fun!

(Roberts Distributors is located in Indianapolis, IN. Jonathan "Jody" Grober can be emailed at: jgrober@robertsimaging.com. To place an order, call: 1-800-726-5544. You can check out Roberts' online product catalog at: http://www.robertsimaging.com.)

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Samy's Hot Summer Special: $30 Off Think Tank Products

By Louis Feldman

Some of the hottest camera accessories out there just got hotter: Samy's Camera is offering $30 - off on selected Think Tank Photo products!

To get this special offer for Sports Shooter readers, contact me directly ASAP via email: lfeldman@samys.com OR call 323-964-0323 and give me your name and mailing address and I will send you a card good for $30 off selected Think Tank Photo Products!

Other hot summer specials for Sports Shooter readers:
- Call us for great pricing on Epson's wide format inkjet printers: Stylus Pro 3800 and Stylus Pro 9800.
- And speaking of inkjet printers, call Samy's for special pricing also on Canon's line of professional-quality inkjet printers.
- We've noticed that Sports Shooter has increased its coverage of multimedia and we want to remind you that Samy's is your one-stop shopping location for all of your digital audio and digital video video needs. Sony, Canon, Sennheiser, Audio-Technica, Azden, Shure, Marantz, Edirol Š give us a call and we'll have one of our video and audio experts put you together with the gear you need to produce those cool multimedia presentations.

(Contact Samy's Camera in Los Angeles by calling 323-964-0323 Ext 200 and ask for an industrial sales representative. Also check out Samy's Specials on SportsShooter.com or Samy's web site at: http://www.samys.com.)

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Acknowledgements

As always, thanks to Special Advisors & Contributors: Deanna & Emma Hanashiro, Brad Mangin, Rod Mar, Trent Nelson, Jason Burfield, Grover Sanschagrin, Joe Gosen, Reed Hoffmann, Paul Myers, and Bob Deutsch.

Thanks this month to: Nick Layman, Todd Korol, Eric Thayer and Kim Komenich.

I welcome any comments, corrections, suggestions and contributions. Please e-mail me at bert@sportsshooter.com.

The Sports Shooter Archives as well as tons of cool resources and information can be accessed through the Internet at http://www.SportsShooter.com.

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Sports Shooter Newsletter Issue #102