Tiffinbox

Exodus

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Larry Nighswander, a former image editor at the National Geographic magazine put it succinctly about selecting images for publication or general display. He said that the image(s) has to satisfy two out of the three following conditions: 1) Have editorial merit, 2) Be qualitatively superior and 3) Be created in an interesting and unique manner. Satisfying all three would make it a great image indeed.

The Phenomena of Displacement – India, a photo essay by Preeti Singh is a wonderful concept.

“Migration statistics show over sixty percent of all moves occurring at the (rural to rural) intra-district level. However, the steep increase in rural to urban migration in the past four decades is also staggering. Over 200 million people now live in the crowded cities of India.”

Well meaning as it may be, I am not sure that this photo project has been executed or displayed properly (on the website). For one, I am not able to emotionally connect with anyone of her subjects. People's faces are much farther away from our view, blurred or cropped off completely. The images all appear to have been shot with a wide-angle lens, more than an arm's length away from her subjects or behind the secure confines of a car. It's only in the image called “Joyride 1” that we get any sense of who these displace people might be.

I am led to believe the photographer travelled great distances to capture these images. But why only limit the gallery selection to 10 images? Is this a case of editing too tightly? It's not like there isn't enough space on the web to display a greater variety. Qualitatively, the black & white images are rather poor. They have a lot of digital noise (scanned improperly), which makes identifying and, to repeat this issue, connecting with people very difficult. I also get far less information from the photographs than I do from the accompanying captions. The images lack any sort of hook to have me better understand the plight of millions on the move.

This is a project with great potential. I truly hope it can be redone after addressing the failures in both the technical and methodological approaches offered to us.

While Singh's images certainly have editorial merit, in my opinion they fail to satisfy all of the conditions espoused by Nighswander. I am sure she has an explanation for this and Tiffinbox would love to hear from her.

Communication Arts Contests

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Via Stefanie Hsien Liang (Art Director at Hyphen Magazine)

COMMUNICATION ARTS PHOTOGRAPHY AND ILLUSTRATION COMPETITIONS

Now is the time to promote your talent to the creative community and potential clients worldwide by having your work selected for the largest
and most important juried competitions for illustration and photography.

Communication Arts invites you to enter your work in the 45th Annual Photography and Illustration competitions.

Selected, award-winning pieces will appear in Communication Arts magazine, in either the July Illustration Annual or August Photography Annual. More than 72,000 copies of each Annual will be distributed worldwide, assuring the selected entries important exposure to professionals in the fields of advertising and design.

The deadline for both competitions is March 15, 2004.

For submission guidelines, PDF entry forms and FAQs, click here.

War and Peace

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Via Auditi Guha (SAJA/Boston chapter coordinator)

Please join us for a screening of Anand Patwardhan's documentary “War and Peace: Nuclear Nationalism and its Antidote.”

When: Wed., February 25, 2004, 7:30 p.m.
Where: ASEAN Auditorium, Cabot Hall

A discussion with the filmmaker will follow the screening.

This is FREE and open to the public … and is TODAY!

For details on the film: www.patwardhan.com
Directions to Cabot

Sponsored by Comparative Religion, Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies, Peace and Justice, International Relations, Political
Science, History, Asian Studies, TASA, and the Office of the Provost

Iyer on Piano

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Yes, I am MAD about jazz and madder still when one of our own makes it onto the charts. If you haven't heard Vijay Iyer or Rudresh Mahanthappa, you are in for a treat.

For New Yorkers – Vijay Iyer's quartet will be performing at Sweet Rhythm next week, Fri-Sat March 5-6.

“We'll be playing music from “Blood Sutra,” instrumental versions of a couple of songs from “In What Language?”, and some new piano trio pieces too.”

The musicians are Vijay Iyer, piano – Rudresh Mahanthappa, alto saxophone – Stephan Crump, bass – Marcus Gilmore, drums.

Northern Short Course

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The NPPA sponsored Northern Short Course 2004 will be held March 11-13, 2004 at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Warwick, RI. It's the 23rd such gathering of photojournalists.That's three days of education and inspiration from some of the leading photojournalists in the country. The early-bird deadline for registration is February 28. So, jump to it.

Download the registration form here and enter the NSC 2004 photo contest here.

I'll be attending two out of the three days, and you can be sure that I will blog my impressions of the event on Tiffinbox. I have signed up to take a couple of location lighting workshops and a seminar on digital photography (workflow and business issues).

Writers Beyond Borders

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Via Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) in collaboration with the Poynter Institute for Media Studies is offering an e-learning class for writers. Here is the information:

REPORTING ACROSS CULTURES, WRITING ABOUT DIFFERENCES

This E-learning class is designed to help journalists in their coverage of different cultures, communities and individuals who are often missing or inaccurately portrayed in our news stories. Course runs April 5 to May 3, 2004. All participants must have an Internet connection and Internet explorer.

Sponsored by AAJA and News University, a project of The Poynter Institute for Media Studies and funded by the Knight Foundation.

Deadline is March 1, 2004.

To apply online, go here.

Testimonials:

“The readings were excellent and I have put them in a binder and will refer back to them again and again. The instructor was excellent and gave me some good tips about reporting. The E-mail function on the site allowed me to interact with other reporters.”

“Having never taken an E-learning course before, I liked the fact that I could log on to the course whenever and wherever I wanted.”

About the Asian American Journalists Association

The Asian American Journalists Association is a national, non-profit educational association based in San Francisco with 2,000 members. Asian American journalists founded AAJA to encourage young Asian Pacific Americans to enter the ranks of journalism, to work for fair and accurate coverage of Asian Pacific Americans, and to increase the number of Asian/Pacific Americans and news managers in the industry. For more information, visit www.aaja.org or call 415-346-2051.

Show Me The Money!

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Via Mediabistro.com and Editor&Publisher

“When you say a story is going to be published, it raises it to a whole different level.”

I think NYU‘s journalism program has the right attitude. It recognizes that students in its program will have a tough time if they don't have any experience writing for newspapers in the real world. Even working for a student paper doesn't appear to be enough, not that is any less “real.”

Well, with Live Wire, NYU's news service, articles by student writers actually get played out in publications across the country. Apparently Columbia University and Northwestern University both have a student wire service similar to NYU's.

“Christy Slewinski, a specialty sections editor at the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel who subscribes to Live Wire, was especially interested in the option to offer story ideas and have students write them. “

Sure, you won't get paid for it, but it's all about having a clutch of clips when you graduate. It's one way to avoid becoming a statistic in a tough job market.

I wonder if something like this could be established for student photojournalists.

War Photojournalism

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Continuing our discussion of photojournalism and war, here are two links that you should check out – a wonderful article by J. D. Lasica and a page that lists links to digital photojournalism during war time.

“Great storytelling requires time — time to understand what's going on, time to spend with your subject, not at the laptop transmitting but really making great pictures. We're still hindered by the production toolsets that are available. In the next few years we'll see a dramatic improvement in the way people can put stories together and package materials.” — Brian Storm, vice president of news and editorial photography at Corbis

Job: Writers with Chai

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Morningchai.com, a site targeted to the Ismaili Community, is looking for freelancers and students to write for them.  Journalists looking to establish themselves by having their work published will be considered first. However, morningchai.com is open to ideas on just about anything as long as it relates to the Ismaili Community.
 
The community is largely established in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, New York, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Los Angeles and Seattle. Our goal is to profile Ismaili high achievers – from 8 to 80 – as well as provide links to our readers to Ismaili's in the mainstream news.
 
If interested, please contact morningchai.com publisher Zahir Karim

Job: Photo Editing Internship @ Aurora

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Via Jose Azel

The daily operations at Aurora involve working with photographs taken by some of the best photojournalists in the world and marketing them to potential buyers. At one end of the process, Aurora's personnel interact with world-reknowned professional photographers to stay abreast of projects and developments while incorporating new material into Aurora's archive. At the other end, they work with national and international clients, both editorial and commercial, to carry out requests and fulfill research projects.

A large amount of material enters the agency as physical media which is scanned and archived in our database. Once the images are scanned, Aurora's workflow is almost entirely digital. Candidates must have strong computer skills, be able to multi-task in a high-pace environment and love photography.

The internship would afford a great opportunity for those pursuing a career in photojournalism, photography, or picture editing. Our internships are available year round and flexible to the interns' needs. It is a paid internship. Interested applicants should submit resume, references, and cover letter to jazel@auroraphotos.com . Portfolios accepted but not required. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

Several years ago, for about three months I worked at Aurora as an intern and it was indeed a great place to look at amazing and inspiring work all the time. It was a learning experience which has proved over time to be very valuable – I look back from where I am today, as a photo editor at ESPN.com and have to thank Jose and the rest of the gang for challenging my approach to photography. They will expect a lot from you too. If you are serious about photography – learning how the business aspect of it works in tandem with consistent creative output, this is a serious growth opportunity that is not to be missed.

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