Posted: August 2, 2011 | Author: Brandon Goodwin | Filed under: Blog | Tags: google, networking, photography, photojournalism, photos, plus, sharing, social media, social networking learning |
One Kentucky Kernel alumni said he was tired of people on Google+ talking about how great Google+ is. So I lead with this disclaimer: this isn’t about how awesome Google+ is, but my experience with it so far.
But I digress.
Google+ opened up the twitter world relationship I had with photographers and photojournalists and placed it in a more open and long-form version.
I mean now I could be immediately introduced to new photography. And boy have I.
I follow landscape photographers, portrait shooters, art photographers and I even followed some HDR nerds. While some turned out to be bad ideas, and some aren’t posting their photography (like me), some are really inspiring me at least to appreciate their styles.
Something more than that happened, though. Its the changed the way I see through my own viewfinder, and my photography this summer has dramatically improved.
They (yes, those ominous beings that no one can identify) say that people need to take a break in order to learn.
I’m doing that this summer with photography, and I know when I step back into the arena at my student paper in the coming weeks, I’ll be ready to take on any challenge.
P.S. – I actually did write a blog about how awesome Google+ is. Here’s that blog post for the Oklahoman Intern blog.
Here are some of the photographers that caused this transformation
Dave Beckerman
Trey Ratcliff
Pedro Tavares
Alex Koloskov
Victor Bezrukov
Posted: August 2, 2011 | Author: Brandon Goodwin | Filed under: Blog, Storytelling | Tags: Facebook, google, journalism, social media, social networking, Storify, story, storytelling, structure, technique, twitter, workflow, writing, YouTube |
I’ve read blogs and books that experiment with story structure and storytelling techniques. When I ran into Storify not too long ago, I knew it would change storytelling for me. It gave my writing new pathways into alternative narratives and plot structure.
If you are a hard news journalist, you know how severely formulaic your pieces can become if you let complacency seep into your routine.
Here is an example of a great storify piece from UPI on the debt debate.
Storify example of UPI's story on the debt debate
Storify is a social media and information tool that drags Snippets of information – like tweets, blog posts, articles, photos and videos- into a storyline.
It’s not a new concept, but Storify let’s the user create an annotated piece of virtual nonfiction by allowing a writer to provide evidence like a broadcast journalist would.
What I mean is that Storify presents written evidence in a visual storytelling way. An “author” (or really a social media editor) can be an integral role in a story, or let the information completely dominate the piece and speak for itself.
I haven’t used the service yet, but I see the potential, and I’m biting at the bit for a good story to come along to fully see its potential.
Brandon Goodwin 