To be honest, shooting an event is not what I thought it would be. I don’t take a lot of pictures in general and I really wish I would take more when I go places. This assignment challenged me in ways I didn’t think it would. But it also helped me because a lot of times I don’t take pictures because I just never know what to take pictures of. Being able to look at it though a journalists lens kind of helped because I was look at why I was taking the pictures and it force me to take pictures and know what to take pictures of.
I have been to so many different campus events and have hardly taken pictures of any of them. When I went to the day of given I decided I wanted to make an effort to try to capture this event. The main photo I was going to use was a picture with all the students gathered around the booths and featured the mascots Rocky and Rocksy in the background. However, the lighting and the angle and general composition of the picture wasn’t very good and it wasn’t what I wanted. I ended up pieing the Student Body President in the Face, so I thought this would represent the event well. The day of giving for students is all about having fun giving back to the University. For giving just $1 in return, I got pie to the student Body President in the face and for $1 students could get different rewards across campus. I decided to use this picture to represent the event. Although in hindsight, I do not think this is the best picture I could have used, but it was the best one I took since I did not take that many.
Journalism is a lot more difficult than I made it out to be going into this semester. I defiantly don’t want to pursue a career as a journalist. As a spoken word poet, I am always finding new ways to tell stories with words and on stage. But I never really think about visual storytelling. I don’t take pictures how think about how pictures tell stories. I am looking forward to changing that more semester.
There are so many different mediums, formats and ways to tell a story visually. There is videos, gifs, memes, live streaming and more. Our world is expanding and way we connect and share what is happening is changing as well at a rapid pace.
There are so many different formats for visual storytelling and doesn’t just limit it to still photos. There is a lot to think about and understand when it comes to using photos to tell a story. Someone just taking a single photo of an event doesn’t necessarily make them a journalist, but I am not sure what makes someone a journalist these days. Everyone has a cellphone does that make everyone a journalist? Either way this semester has made re-think everything and realize that at least for the time being I am a journalist.