Multimedia Critique

For my second multimedia critique, I looked at Living Galapagos, a project that was carried out by the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The project aims to “examine the delicate balance between man and nature” of the Galapagos Islands.

The project already impresses by its mere scope. More than 30 people – professors, students and freelancers – contributed to it. Consequently, the final result is a presentation that offers an enormous amount of information. Structuring such a load of input is difficult, but I think that the makers of Living Galapagos did a great job in doing so. After a pre-loader and a short intro that describes the project in a nutshell, a map of the Galapagos Islands appears.At the bottom corner of the map are buttons for four different sections: stories, people, places and facts. In each category a number of pushpins appear on the map that represent the single chapters. Mousing over the pushpins opens a small preview window that gives an idea of the chapter behind it, and on click, a new “sheet” opens on top of the map with the presentation on it. In addition to the audio-slideshows, the presentation in the stories section also feature links to related information.
Technically, the project is flawless. An intuitive navigation, great audio and image quality and a simple but compelling design all contribute to the success of the presentation. This is a piece of multimedia journalism that the viewer should approach with a lot of time to enjoy the full extent of this project.

PixelPress

For my first website critique, I looked at PixelPress. I chose this website because it represents and stands not only for great photojournalistic work but also for using the internet to present photography in new, innovative ways that have not been possible before.

The home page of the website is structured very simple and clear. A raster of squares contains links to current projects featured on the website and to Fred Ritchins’ new book, After Photography. Tucked away in the upper left corner, making it a little hard to discover on first sight, are links to more projects featured on the site as well as a list of exhibitions available for booking, contributors to the site and the “about us” section. In my opinion, these links could be placed a little more central, as they are easy to overlook.

The single projects are presented in a variety of different ways, each inviting the user to interact with the presentation. The goal of this interactive approach is to encourage “an active dialogue between the author and reader and, also, the subject,” and in my view, this is largely successful. Skilled placement of links, great design and layout and a variety of hyperlinks that invite the reader to learn more about the subject matter characterize each presentation.

The whole website is HTML and CSS based, which drastically reduces loading times and gives the user a greater degree of control over the presentation. One minor flaw in my eyes is that most of the texts used for the layout are image files. Since the design of the shows is often supposed to build up with every click, the reloading of images sometimes results in optical disruptions that can be a little distracting. In one case, a missing image file even corrupts the presentation in that the user cannot read the entire text.

All in all however, PixelPress does a great job in trying out new ways of interactive presentation of photojournalism, and the response in the discussion forum and the comment sections of the projects are overwhelmingly positive. It is certainly a page one should visit when in the process of designing one’s own website.

The Eagles

Every time my friends and I went to spend the summer holidays on Elba, a small island in northern Italy, we would listen to the Eagles’ Hotel California when we drove our car off the ferry and onto that little paradise. This song embodies summer for me, and it is loaded to the brink with fond and melancholic memories. Whenever I hear that piece it takes me away to someplace completely else, more so than any other song. I guess I won’t exaggerate if I call it my absolute, all-time favorite.

So when I learned that the Eagles were coming to play in Columbia, it was clear that I had to get to that concert somehow. I just wanted to hear that song live once in my lifetime. However, with ticket prices starting at $90.00, the Eagles aren’t really meeting my budget. So what to do?

That’s where my current staff photography course at the Columbia Missourian comes in. A call from the editors and the little plastic ID card that we got with the three magic words on it (“working press corps”) can work miracles. And so, after I was officially admitted as a photographer for the Vox Magazine and the Columbia Missourian, I really did get to go to that concert.

Together with Clare, a fellow shooter at the Missourian, I went to the Mizzou Arena one and a half hours ahead of time. There was a huge crowd waiting at the gates, and most of the people were old enough to be my parents (or even grand-parents).

When the media personnel of the Arena finally picked us up to equip us with our press credentials, they told us that we were only allowed to be in the concert hall for the first three songs. After that, we would have to pack our gear and leave immediately. I asked them if they knew where Hotel California was on the set list, and they said that it would be the fifth song. However, if we walked really, really slow on our way out, we might get to hear the beginning of it. Then they escorted us to our stands on the floor.

Well, coming to think of it, “stands” might be an exaggeration. Rather, we were perched between the fence enclosing the sound booth and the back row of the floor seats in a small alley that was continuously frequented by latecomers making their way to their seats. In order to get above people’s heads and get a clear shot of the band, I had to climb on the fence and sit up there, holding as still as possible while balancing my camera with the heavy 300 mm lens on it.

During the three songs we were allowed to shoot, I spread out every single piece of equipment that I had as far as I could around me. The strobe, the cord, every lens and even the lens caps were placed strategically, so that it would take me a long, long time to gather my stuff together once the third song was finished.

The concert was mind blowing, and they had put together an incredible light show. After they started off with How Long, Don Henley welcomed the crowd and introduced the tour as “the Eagles’ assisted living tour,” harvesting cheers and laughter. They continued with I Don’t Want To Hear Anymore and Guilty Of The Crime, and then Bill Armstrong played his trumpet solo that lead up to Hotel California.

We had to get ready to leave now, and I clumsily started to scramble my stuff together, taking as much time as I could without making it look too obvious. I “accidentally” got tangled up in my flash cord and of course I had to rearrange my lenses a few times before I could close the camera bag. I successfully managed to kill enough time that the trumpet solo was finished, and when we turned around to make our (escorted) way out, they started playing it. Hotel California. I couldn’t believe that I was finally getting to hear that song live, from the hands and the mouths of the very geniuses who wrote it. The crowd went frantic, and the first riffs of the guitar sent a shudder down my back. I walked as slowly as possible behind our escort, all the while absorbing every tiny little bit of this bitter-sweet acoustic miracle.

Finally we reached the exit, and then there was no way of delaying it any longer. After letting a few more latecomers pass through the narrow stair case into the hall, we had to leave the arena. I didn’t get to hear the guitar solo at the end of the song anymore, at least not from inside the hall. But that didn’t really matter to me anymore. Hearing Hotel California live at last had shot me to cloud nine within seconds, and there was nothing that could bring me down from there.

San Francisco

Finally, I found a little time to post some of my San Francisco photographs. Having been there for only a few days, I don’t know if they do justice to the city’s incredible character and diversity, but I like some of them quite a lot.

I reached San Francisco on the night of Wednesday, March 4, 2009. Before my arrival, I booked a night in the Hostel in Fort Mason. It turned out to be one of the most amazing places. The next morning, I had a few hours to spare before the Fulbright Enrichment Seminar started, so I strolled down the beach along Marina Boulevard to the Golden Gate Bridge. John, a guy that I met in the hostel, joined me, and we had a hell of a time.

 

The old footbridge is just a few hundred yards away from the Bridge and there are dozens of starfish on its pillars. I’ve never seen so many at a time.

 

On the bridge head is an observation deck with telescopes, and it’s amazing how many people feed them with their hard-earned money when they could just walk on the bridge and see it “live”.

 

Just below the Bridge, at Fort Point, dozens of surfers wait for their wave in the ice cold water.

 

We later saw that woman riding her bike back down the hill to Marine Drive. Her skirt was ballooning in the fair wind like a brake parachute…

 

That fence just next to Redwood Highway secures the steep flank that drops from the bike path down to the sea.

 

The seminar was amazing. I met a lot of incredible people from all over the world, and we had a ton of fun. There was a lot of sitting around and listening to presentations, but it was pretty interesting. The guy in the picture is Damiano from Italy. He studies Journalism in New York. After the seminar was finished, we hung around in San Francisco for another day and explored China Town together with some other really amazing people.

 

Khurshid is a Fulbrighter from Bangladesh. Meeting him and the other Bangladeshis at the seminar kind of made me feel home sick… Shoshur bari zindabad!!!

 

I had a lot of fun with the hills in San Francisco…

 

 

Really. A lot of fun.

 

I didn’t get to ride the famous cable cars, but I rode the F Line. I just love the cars. They remind me of the Tram in Munich. Talking about home sickness…

 

The Hornblower Yacht in front of the Bay Bridge at Pier 3. On the last night of the seminar, Fulbright sponsored a boat cruise with dinner on the Bay. What an experience…

 

The skyline at night from the Bay. I know, it really is a touristy shot, but I just couldn’t resist…

 

And yes, we DID have a party…

 

That was really a magical moment, when the yacht turned around under the Bridge. Somehow, I felt like in a movie from the 1930s.

 

Friendships were made, birthdays were celebrated, plans were concocted, and then we had to get off the beautiful Hornblower Yacht and out into the San Francisco night…

 

photo by John Bowman

 

The next day, Ali from Turkey, Evisa from Latvia, Damiano (still from Italy), John (the guy I met in the hostel) and I strolled through China Town had lunch outside on the deck of a nice little restaurant. We paid $15.95 each for a five-course menu and got more food than we could have ever dreamed of. The taste was ok, but not really different from the standard Chinese food in the standard Chinese restaurant. Maybe we should have invested a little more and gone for authentic Chinese, but we were hungry and broke…

Although it looks like it, Damiano is not flashing his middle finger at me in the photo above. But he sure plays his beer bottle like a trumpet…

 

In some ways, China Town reminded me of Italy. The laundry hanging from the balconies, that is something you might as well see in some back alley in Florence or Verona.

 

And here it is: the world famous Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company in Ross Alley!!! Here’s an excerpt from their web site:

“A tiny old-world factory situated in Chinatown has produced thousands of Chinese Fortune Cookies a day since 1962.

In the dim light, watching three women deftly turn dough into fortune cookies you could be forgiven for thinking you had traveled back in time.”

Who wouldn’t agree?

 

Some little details…

 

This one’s on Broadway and Columbus. I don’t think it needs any explanation. I just love that cutline at the bottom…

 

After lunch, Evisa’s friend Magda, another Fulbrighter from Slovakia, joined us and while Damiano stayed back in China Town, we went up to Twin Peaks to enjoy the view over the city. That is, those of us with short hair enjoyed the view…

 

Finally Magda and Evisa found a way to enjoy it, too…

 

The moon lit our way back down from Twin Peaks…

 

…to the parking lot, where a group of Buddhist monks also fell for the beauty of the scenery.

 

Before having our last supper (in San Francisco) in an awesome Thai restaurant, we went to Dolores Park to have a last look at the skyline by night…

Multiple flash

So Anne and I went to the car park on Hitt Street last night to do our Multiple Flash assignment. After running into an endless series of problems, we finally managed a few good exposures. This is my select:

Charlie Hill (right) and Chris Williams (middle) fight for the ball while Nick Jacob secures the sideline during a bicycle polo game at the car park on Hitt Street on the evening of December 2nd, 2008.

Kingsley’s Crossing

Kingsley’s Crossing is the story of a young Cameroonian who decides to leave behind his country and escape to Europe in order to support his family back home. French photojournalist Olivier Jobard accompanies him during the whole journey, from the moment Kingsley decides to leave home, throughout the crazy journey across the African continent, the life-threatening boat ride across the Atlantic Ocean until he reaches Europe and starts his new life. It is a compelling story about despair, determination, hopes and dreams, but also about the shattering of these hopes and dreams. MediaStorm has published a multimedia version of this photo story, produced by Brian Storm and Eric Maierson, which can be seen here.

According to Brian Storm, Olivier Jobard originally did not plan to edit this story as a multimedia show, which is why there is no on-site audio. However, I believe that this adds to the power of the whole outcome, because he could (and did) concentrate fully on his photography.

Throughout the story, Jobard is extremely close to his subjects. He is not an observer anymore, but he becomes a participant in this perilous journey. He is with them during the whole trip, and neither sandstorms nor fear of robbers nor the dreadful, godforsaken nutshell the group tries to cross the Atlantic in can put him off joining them. He crosses the desert on the back of a truck, along with 35 other people. He sleeps with them under thorn bushes. He is with them when their boat capsizes at night and two people die in the waves, and he is with them when the boat is about to sink in the middle of the ocean and they are rescued literally in the last moment by the Spanish Coast Guard. Thus he is able to deliver photography that is unprecedentedly close to the human drama refugees go through every day. He captures not only the events that are happening in front of his lens. He captures the fear and the despair, the determination and the bravery of the people who are with him.

In this story, Jobard uses only available light and shoots wide-angle, probably even using only one lens. It seems that he tried to keep his gear as limited as possible, which makes sense on a journey as chaotic as this one. The use of available light results in some blurred pictures, especially those of the boat ride at night. These pictures are incredibly powerful and probably convey the desperate atmosphere a lot better than sharp pictures would. They carry a strong reminiscence of Robert Capa’s D-Day images.

Upon presenting the pictures to Brian Storm, president of MediaStorm, Storm recommended Jobard in absence of on-site audio to go and interview Kingsley, confronting him with the photographs of the journey. In this interview, Kingsley sits in front of a white background and recapitulates his whole story in vivid details. This interview is the basis for the film’s audio track. Together, Kingsley and Jobard lead us through the story, step by step, the one in words, the other in pictures. The combination of Kingsley’s voice and those incredible pictures brings the story to vivid life and endows it with an amazing emotional as well as informative power. Along with the few and very carefully used video sequences where you can actually see Kingsley talking, the film brings the viewer extremely close to the narrator.
In addition to the interview, African percussion music underlies large parts of the film and changes its rhythm and time according to the rhythm of the narration, thus emphasizing the very successful interplay of moments of tension and moments of quietness that make a story absorbing.

Jody Sugrue and Vincent Diga contributed elaborately animated graphics to the project. On these recurring maps of Africa, the viewer can follow Kingsley on his insane odyssey across the continent. His disheartening seesaw – traveling across the desert towards the European continent, turning around and moving away from it, once more turning around, being already in viewing distance of the Spanish coast only to travel south again – could probably not be illustrated in a better way.

The last scene of the film is the end of the interview, where Jobard asks Kingsley if he wants to say anything else. Kingsley contemplates for an instant and then says no. The camera stays on him, and he is obviously very agitated. He buries his face in his hands, then silently stands up and leaves the frame. This unusual but powerful ending reflects the feeling that the viewer is left behind with after seeing this incredible story: speechlessness.

All in all, it can be said that Kingsley’s Crossing is an outstanding example of the successful combination of different media. It absorbs the viewer until the very end and leaves a permanent impression. It is concerned journalistic work at its highest level, triggering every kind of reaction from people of all social backgrounds – refugees as well as visual anthropologists – as can be seen in the comments on this film. It creates awareness and thus has the power to contribute substantially to a change of the refugees’ situation. It is – like most of the other films on MediaStorm – a groundbreaking piece of work that demonstrates us where photojournalism is bound to go in future.

Blending

Last night, I was at Harpo’s with a bunch of friends, and we popped into the weekly Trivia contest. So I tried the popping flash thing a little bit. This is my select:

22-year old Stasia Bevard, a senior arts student at the University of Missouri in Columbia works part-time as a waitress at Harpo’s on 10th Street. Her working there was no accident. “I used to come here a lot, [so] I decided I might as well work here,” she says.

Fill & Balance

This is my select for the Fill & Balance assignment. Due to the absence of the Great Yellow Star and due to lack of creativity on my side, the winner is of course… BALANCE!!!

Chris Bennett, a mechanic at the Big O Tires garage on 204 E. Broadway, takes a cigarette break while waiting for his co-worker Zack to bring him some parts. Bennett, a Columbia native, has been working for Big O Tire for eight years. “I enjoy dealing with the different customers. They give me a challenge working on their automobiles,” he says.

Presentation on Audio Interviewing

Here you can get the handout for my presentation on audio interviewing in class tomorrow. The (very useful) paper “Sound in the Story” that my presentation is based on can be found here.

Painting With Light, the Final…

Jason, Christine and I went out to the Rock Bridge State Park on Tuesday night to “paint” the Silos at Devil’s Ice Box. This is what we came back with:

Since Cat couldn’t be with us the first time, we went out again on Wednesday to try something different. Here’s the outcome: