New Media Workshop

Shoot a photo essay, and choose the best 3-4 pictures that go together to tell a story. Use photoshop to clean them up, crop them, resize them, and upload them to your blog with appropriate formatting. Write accompanying text to go along with the photos. The goal is to use the pictures to tell a story in a more vivid way than would be possible with just text alone.

What topic should you choose? If you can find a photogenic subject that relates to local Hong Kong politics or the District Council elections, that is ideal. Will any of the political parties be holding events that you are able to attend? If not, you can choose a subject that relates to some kind of community issue in Hong Kong, and which you think may come up as a citizen concern for voters this Fall. Examples include: a controversial redevelopment project, environmental concerns, housing issues, etc. With the holidays this week and next, there could be a number of community activities.

DUE MONDAY 9AM.

It may be helpful for you to refer back to last week’s recommended resources and readings about good online photography.

Other Photoshop tutorials & references. For reminders about what we went over in class plus more detailed, advanced tips see these resources:

UC Berkeley Photoshop tutorial

Photoshop how-to’s from the J-lab:

• Preparing Images and Photos for the Web
• Checking and Changing Resolution
• Getting Familiar with Photoshop I
• Getting Familiar with Photoshop II
• Editing Photographs

Optional recommendation – at any time – for those who want to maximize photo skills: Take the online News University Course, Best of Photojournalism: What Makes a Winner.

DON’T FORGET YOUR ONGOING DC WATCH:
As explained last week: Keep an eye on the feeds and tags you have subscribed to about the district council election, and continue to update/add to them as needed. Post ONE PARAGRAPH (no need to be long) on your blog linking to and describing anything that comes up which you think is potentially relevant to our district council election coverage. (NOTE FOR THIS WEEK: If your photo essay is on the same topic as your DC watch post, you can combine them. It depends on what photos you get..)
Based on your new discoveries make one contribution (new item on the ideas list, a note about or an addition to an existing idea, etc.) to the story ideas or experts and interviewees page on the class wiki. (Feel free to help re-organize material your classmates have added into logical story clusters with headings.)