Photography Reflection

It's time for another one of these reflective posts. I actually have fun doing these because I can practise writing. You don't probably think it's that interesting, but I have to do it. The photography lecture was pretty straight forward; we learned about the history of photography, digital capture and upload, digital manipulation and some of the basic tips for capturing a good photo. This lecture actually made me think about how I am going to approach photography as a journalist.

In case you haven't noticed, I don't include photos of how journalism relates to me in my blog posts. I'm a hypocrite, because like everyone else, I expect all online news to include photos. I like articles to have at least one relevant photo to the written content. I believe that images give readers context for what they're reading. Most of the photos in the articles I read are screenshots from video games.

I don't include images in my posts mostly because I find it hard to find images that best suit this blog. At this stage, my approach to journalism is browsing reddit while in my underwear. However, that's not the only reason I don't take and upload photos.

Even though I can write a few decent paragraphs, I'm not used to photojournalism. I don't have the technology to take photos that are relevant to what I write about. I plan to invest in a smartphone with a better camera than my current one and a screen recording program for capturing online content.

If I'm going to become a journalist in any sense, I'm going to have to commit to photography to connect readers to my content. I think that if I produce my own images for articles, it would add more personality to what I write. Of course, for some writing projects I won't be able to produce photos. However, I will include relevant images when able. I'm going to write real articles soon instead of just reflecting on what I learn doing lectures.

I'm not going to be a world class photojournalist, nor do I want to become one. For this blog, I will probably be taking screenshots or linking movie trailers. However, I should be able to snap a few photos with my iPhone when the time arises.

Journalism is Hard

I've got three assignments due this week which are really getting in the way of spending my non-existant money on some really good games that have come out recently. I'm going to try and organise my thoughts while making another blog post at the same time. I've got two lectures to reflect on, I have to pitch three stories and I have to make and present a media diary. "Pitching the three stories" stands out to me the most. I'm going to be building on top of the assessment next month by writing three different types of stories. These story types are news, information and human interest. I've been emailing my tutor about how to exactly approach this assignments, so now I think I've got some ideas.

First off, the news story is the easiest. I decided that I would try and cover Supanova this year at the Gold Coast. I've never attended it, but my friends attest to how amazing it is. It's basically a geek subculture exhibition catering to those who enjoy anime, science fiction, comic books, videogames, cosplaying and anything geeky. The people behind it manage to bring together fans and the industry folk. I emailed the publicity organiser about getting journalistic privileges and possibly even an interview. However, I haven't heard back from them yet. If I were allowed to attend as a journalist, that would be amazing. Even more so since it would be the first time I've ever attended Supanova. I plan on attending anyway this year to check out everything that's got to do with videogames and my favorite tv shows. I might even enter a Magic: The Gathering tournament if I'm brave enough.

The next story I've put thought into is the information story. I only remembered today that soon the Australian senate is going to be looking at a bill essentially allowing an R18+ classification for videogames. It's surprising that for so long Australia has gone without an adult rating for videogames. For years games have either been refused classification and simply not been sold within Australia or have been altered to receive an MA15+ rating. I personally believe that censorship like this is completely ridiculous when compared to other forms of media. Today, I contacted two creators of websites that support an R18+ classification for videogames; Somebody think of the children and R18 Games. Hopefully, they'll get back to me soon and I can get the ball rolling.

The media use and production diary is starting to catch up on me. I've logged my media use and I'm ready to start but I don't know what I can do besides just presenting a graph and a pie chart of my media use. I don't know what to analyze besides just how much media I use compared to other students. I guess I'll just have to start it and see how I go. 

That's all I thought I would write about. I'll update the blog if theres any advances in my assignments.