Workshops and what-not

Post by Brad Luttrell

For one weekend, the entire city of Bowling Green was up for grabs.

Ten UK students, including myself, participated in a photojournalism/multimedia workshop two weekends ago and set out to document life in the Western Kentucky community. Diverse stories were not hard to find.

One student produced a story about the turnaround of a ghetto to the now colorful, family friendly area dubbed Little Mexico. Another told the story of a skateboard shop that some say saved their lives with a program that gives kids not only skateboards, but a safe place to use them. All participants covered a different Sunday morning worship services, finding multiple aspects of religion in the community.

The task was documenting all of these events not only through a lens, but a microphone as well.
A team of still photographers and multimedia producers, who capture audio and produce a slideshow, worked in pairs on each assignment.

Participants produced about a dozen multimedia pieces documenting the community in three days while working with Kernel Photo Adviser Jim Winn, Bowling Green Daily News Photographer Hunter Wilson and Midland Daily News Photographer Brett Marshall.

At the workshop, students learned the same programs that nationally known multimedia producers use every day. Everyone worked to not only become better photographers and producers, but also better visual storytellers.

All of the multimedia pieces are on display at the Kernel’s new Web site, (www.kernelmixedmedia.com), in the Mixed Media section.

Quotes

I’ve had a thing for Henri Cartier Bresson lately, and came across a Bresson quote that I like this morning on Jonathan Palmer’s blog and though I’d share.

“Manufactured” or staged photography does not concern me . And if I make a judgement it can only be on a psychological or sociological level. There are those who take photographs arranged beforehand and those who go out and discover the image and seize it. -Henri Cartier Bresson

Here’s another:

“As photojournalists we supply information to a world that is overwhelmed with preoccupations and full of people who need the company of images….We pass judgment on what we see, and this involves an enormous responsibility.”

Who is this Bresson person? Cartier Bresson is generally considered to be one of the fathers of modern photojournalism, he is one of the founding members of the agency Magnum, and is responsible for the phrase (and book) “the decisive moment”.