Statistics
We looked inside some of the posts by jodieleighroberts and here's what we found interesting.
Average Info
Notes Per Post
0
Likes Per Post
0
Reblog Per Post
0
Reply Per Post
0
Time Between Posts
2 days
Number of Posts By Type
Photo
4
Quote
1
Text
12
Last Seen Tumblr Blogs
Fun Fact
130K people were victims of a chain letter scam that affected Tumblr in May 2011.
Quote
Be in control. This is very important. You are the professional.
John Herbert
0 notes
Text
Week 7, Additional reading.
Quotes give your article/feature substance. The adding of quotes excites the reader and sometimes can give your article more credibility. As expressing your personal views as a a journalist is a big no, adding other peoples opinions can spark up the readers own views and create debates keeping the attention on your article. "A good quote, like good writing, evokes images in the reader’s mind." [1]
In the article above written for the New York Times, by journalist Elisabeth Rosenthal, sheds light on a recent hospital feud in the US.
Elisabeth cleverly uses hyperbole to set the scene of her article by using language such as oozing and lacerations we as a readership know straight away which angle the article is coming from. Backing up the previous comment ' a good quote- evokes an image in the readers mind' brings us to identify the first quote in Rosenthal 's work. "it was great - they had good DVDs, the staff couldn't of been nicer" - this quote - even though it's very short- does back up the statement from rogers as it is a juxtaposition of the negativity in the title. This is a technique that will definitley be used in the future, it's such a simple yet effective way to add intimacy to your article. The next logical step is interviewing to get these hard hitting, debate starting quotes. Before you start interviewing somebody Herbert advises you need to do as much background research as possible. First decide what it is you want to know from the interview? Do you need a particular fact, date etc? There must be some key things that you wish to uncover such as names, background information and statistics- things like this that you can really set the scene.
John Herbert points out that you should make a list of the research you need to carry out, then decide why you want to know this information:
Is it critical to your story?
Is it secondary?
Is it interesting but optional?
The Interviewee
You may want to interview someone because they're the topic of interest. Their views, comments, story is what you need to make your article work.
“A good interview needs to be accessible, reliable, accountable and quotable” [2] Finding a good interviewee isn't always smooth sailing, problems may occur such as;
- lack of time - guilt, from the interviewee - anxiety - protection (shielding somebody) - ignorance - embarrassment - private (not wanting to share their personal problems/ catastrophes with the public) [3]
This is very helpful as it explains interviewing from both sides, usually we're just told what to do, how to do it and how to utilize the material collected however Herbert explains how imperative it is to look at the procedure from the interviewee's perspective. This is very helpful as we are able to connect with our interviewee and become more personal and more likely to be comfortable talking to you- especially if the topic is hard to talk about. The key points that one must follow is basic common sense, if you want to know something specific, ask it. Open ended questions are a journalists best friend, this keeps the conversation flowing, more information collected and deeper talk into your chosen question.
[1] Rogers, T. (2012). Getting 'good' quotes for news stories. Available: http://journalism.about.com/od/reporting/a/goodquotes.htm. [2] John Herbert. (2000). Interviewing for print. In: Herbert, J. Journalism in the digital age. Oxford: Focal Press. 244-245. [3] John Herbert. (2000). Interviewing for print. In: Herbert, J. Journalism in the digital age. Oxford: Focal Press. 246. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/health/as-hospital-costs-soar-single-stitch-tops-500.html?src=me&_r=0
0 notes
Text
Writing for Journalism, week 2
Professional etiquette and employability. Routes into Journalism;
By creating a blog you are able to get your name recognised and your work seen to by everybody- doors open. Give me more was selected for Looks top 20 fashion blogs. This in turn led me to the blog, showing that her routes into the fashion journalism industry has now started.
When creating a blog you need to make sure that yours is either brilliant in the specific field that your writing about or to make sure your name is EVERYWHERE. For example, getting your blog talked about on social media such as Facebook and Twitter- creating traffic for your blog- You never know who is going to look at it. Looking at this one example it shows a positive result which has come from starting a blog- especially in this case as her work is shown on a hugely popular online fashion magazine and this has enabled her to continue working in the fashion industry. Blog- http://holliefurniss.blogspot.co.uk Writing to editors. Before you pitch make sure you.. 1. Know the name of the magazine and area your pitching 2. What their readership is 3. What their house style is 4. What sort of articles they take and publish The more contacts you have, the better your chances and opportunities. The key is to build relationships with other journalists and PR people. Also build a portfolio of work that you can show people. When writing a feature to pitch you must take into account the following points- what is your focus going to be? You need to have a lead for your story- so what is the main point? The facts and information acquired and then finally how is your story going to end?
"First organize your thoughts, which will give you the focus for your story. Do this before you do your detailed research, otherwise you won't know what you're looking for. Then decide: - What's the story - What's the lead - What facts will go into the body of the story - What is the ending. The focus must be specific not general. The focus must make the readers more comfortable with the subject of the story, making it easy for them to see the word picture you are painting." [1] "The body, Having got all of your facts and written your lead (and possibly even thought of an ending), write the body of the story. That means tying it closely together. you write the story as a whole, not in parts. There has to be a smooth transition from the lead to the body, and from the various facts within the body of the story to the ending" [2] In a nutshell, Herbert explains that the body is the major part of your feature, this needs to be seamless. Therefore facts, quotes, and major points in this body need to be accurate, interesting and coherent. Otherwise consequences include loosing the focus and your reader. " The way to keep a story lively id therefore to have a series of major points with some kind of explanation, then a transition to another fact and so on. Interwoven throughout, of course, must be quotes from people you've spoken to about the story. Quotes give colour to the story and help the reader 'see' more clearly." [3] John Herbert- Key Points. "- Don't over-report, One good quote per point is enough. - Let them talk. Underwrite, rather than write too much. This way the piece moving and reader interested. - Remember: something specific is better than something abstract. - Break up a big idea into small ones; break up paragraphs. When writing the feature Herbert says; - Use 3 basic sentence constructions; Simple, Compound and Complex. - Be active in the use of verbs. - Avoid unnecessary words. - Write informally. - Write as you would talk to a friend. - Use words the reader can picture. " [4]
"Feature writing is a longer, more complex and more conversational type of writing the news. It tells about people, personalizes issues and explains dramatic trends in human, people terms. It takes news and expands, analyses, personalizes.” [5]
In writing a feature you have, somewhere near the top, to tell the reader why you are writing the story. You have to show the reader why this person or issue is worth talking about" [6] How to get into the industry. What qualities do newspaper editors look for?
To convince an editor that you are worth appointing you will need to be able to demonstrate:
*an interest in current affairs at all levels
*a lively interest in people, places and events
*an ability to write in a style which is easy to understand
*good spelling, grammar and punctuation
*an appreciation of the part newspapers play in the community and society
*a willingness to accept irregular hours and an ability to work under pressure to meet deadlines
*determination and persistence [7]
"However you seek to join the BBC, you'll find that competition is fierce. There are always far more applicants than posts. You need talent of course but you also need tenacity and an ability to distinguish yourself from other candidates." - [8] [8] Jonathan Baker. (2012). How to get into the BBC as a journalist.Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/blogcollegeofjournalism/posts/How-to-get-into-the-BBC-as-a-journalist. [7] The guardian- News and Media. (2013). Careers in journalism.Available: http://www.theguardian.com/workforus/careers-in-journalism-guardian-news-and-media. [4] [5] [6] John Herbert. (2000). Writing features for print. In: Herbert, J, Journalism in the digital age. Oxford: Focal Press. p186- 187 [3] John Herbert. (2000). Writing features for print. In: Herbert, J, Journalism in the digital age. Oxford: Focal Press. p185- 186 [2] John Herbert. (2000). Writing features for print. In: Herbert, J, Journalism in the digital age. Oxford: Focal Press. p184- 185 [1] John Herbert. (2000). Writing features for print. In: Herbert, J, Journalism in the digital age. Oxford: Focal Press. p182- 184 Sarah Marshall. (2013). How to: get started in journalism. Available: http://www.journalism.co.uk/skills/how-to-become-a-journalist/s7/a553933/. Last accessed 25th Sept 2013. http://holliefurniss.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2013-11-30T09:20:00-08:00&max-results=4#.UqB-ttJdVG0
0 notes
Text
Studium and Punctum
Paolo Roversi- Themes;
-Nudity -Ambiguity -Beauty -Glamour -Femininity and masculinity -Theatricality
The studium. To recognise this is to recognise the photographers intentions and to approve or disapprove. The Punctum. This is the element in the image that breaks or punctuates the studium. Chris Hondros- Photojournalist.
http://photoblog.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/04/21/6503987-in-memory-of-photojournalist-chris-hondros Studium- The background, war, destruction. - War Documentary. Punctum- The subject, male, jumping with gun- brings you back to reality, The studium is always coded the punctum isn't. Izima Kaoru- Photographer.
http://daisywarejarrett.com/tag/valerie/ Studium- 9 to 5 work ethic, roller diner Punctum- the roller blades, the character addressing a social issue, "the perfect way to die"
0 notes
Text
Writing for Journalism, Week 10
http://www.dafont.com/
Working with InDesign is a core skill needed in the journalism industry. The seminar consisted of working with the programme to create front covers of magazines. This in turn helps us to understand the layout, structure and meaning of what's on a front cover, why it is there and what the editors intentions are.
The fonts used were from a font data base, dafont.com. The selection of fonts are excellent as you can really explore and experiment with sans and sans seriff fonts.
The gradient tool was also very helpful. The text 'Isabel Marrant' stands out a lot more than it would if it were a plain block colour as the eye is immediately drawn to the colours. Also mixing it up by using different font and colours helps the layout to look less tired and boring and therefore more engaging for the potential readership.
Image references- http://marantphiles.com/category/about-the-designer/ http://www.isabelmarant.com/en/ http://www.gngcreative.com/newsletters/nl9.html
0 notes
Text
Constructed Photography, Semiotics Essay
Jodie Roberts Photographic Journalism The Afronauts
0 notes
Text
Same story different platform. Week 8
Haptics, this is the science of touch. If a magazine feels glossy the connotations of this are high-end, good quality, expensive making the magazine more appealing than paper. This is down to the haptics, people don't want to throw away high quality print, they keep it in case they want to read the story again. Most magazines we pick up on a daily basis show; +Ads +Cover +Glossy +striking +Image driven +features and news Online print doesn't have this luxury, people read hundreds of stories online every day. Therefore online has to be much more interactive and eye catching as the reader may just close that web page down and find another.
“Finally, the most important element of search engine optimisation is how many people link to your webpage. The best way to make that happen is to write fantastic, compelling unique content that people want to share and link to. No amount of SEO techniques can avoid the need for great journalism.” [1]
Page layout. The first page of a website or news story is the most active, therefore the attention must be kept on this page otherwise the reader is bound to loose interest and divert their attention to something else. The reader is also most likely to loose interest in the bottom right hand corner and is likely to turn the page. Keeping your reader engaged is crucial.
Nielsen. F shaped reading pattern. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/
Users won't read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner. Exhaustive reading is rare, especially when prospective customers are conducting their initial research to compile a shortlist of vendors. Yes, some people will read more, but most won't.
The first two paragraphs must state the most important information. There's some hope that users will actually read this material, though they'll probably read more of the first paragraph than the second.
Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-behavior. They'll read the third word on a line much less often than the first two words. (Jakob Nielson, April, 2009)
hyperlinks - in a new tab to ensure you don't loose your reader. interviewees- their websites companies- websites links connected with your subject. creates traffic and lets your blog create more activity, managing traffic. " To build a thriving blog, you also need to learn to drive traffic to it. Share your article on other social networks. Pinterest, Vine, Storify, Digg, Quora, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Care2 are just some of the many options for sharing your work." [2]
Hyperlinks are genius when it's comes to getting your work recognised, it takes 2 seconds for somebody to click on a link and be redirected. Social media is perfect! Like Clark and Vahab quoted Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest these are all thriving social media sites that are bout to gain traffic to your work. This allows you to advertise to a mass of people all at the same time, also it can be very specific as you can reach out to any types of demographic using social media because the beauty of it is... Everybody uses it!
Extra Notes: SEO, Search engine optimization is basically the keywords that relate to your writing- this will be the keywords people type to narrow down their search. Google analytics is an application that can show you visitors- how long they've stayed what SEO people used to view your work- It allows you to monitor your traffic. Subheading is a brilliant way to break up your writing, this helps enhance web usability resulting in people actually looking and want to read your content. This is the same for tagging and categorizing your work. Making your content very specific and easily accessible- People don't want to have to search through a maze to read your work, they'll eventually loose interest. [1] Bradshare & Rohumaa, (2011) ‘The Online Journalism Handbook, Pearson [2] Dorie Clark and Daniel Vahab, Forbes,2013) http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorieclark/2013/11/01/how-to-drive-more-traffic-to-your-blog/
Image Ref- http://www.thefashionspot.com/buzz-news/latest-news/304425-the-fashion-spots-10-best-articles-of-the-week-114/
0 notes
Text
Week 4, Writing For Journalism, Layouts.
Page furniture is an important part of the layout. It helps to navigate the page enabling the reader to stay on the specific page for longer ensuring either the feature, product or specific advertisements have been seen and read. "The headline is, alongside any large images, the most important element for attracting the reader’s attention. It has to convey information about the article in a very limited number of words and, unsurprisingly, must be considerably larger than the surrounding text to draw in the reader’s eye as he or she is leafing through a publication." [1] "Standfirst, the introduction is the hook that draws the reader into the rest of the article" [2]
Headline
Standfirst
Page numbers
Pull quotes
Text, typography
Illustrations and Images
Reading:
"Central to most modern magazine design is the gird -which has become almost synonymous with the professional approach. The purpose of the grid is to provide a basic template that will enable consistency across the magazine." [3] (Whittaker, 2008, p138)
Using the grid allows us to establish a specific layout which is easy to navigate as a reader. The boxes on the grid may be used to place certain text, pull quotes, block text and illustrations for the specific article. The layout can vary from magazine to magazine depending on house style, what feature they're covering or whether the page would be holding advertisements or not. Depending on the magazine the editor may always have an image in the top right and text on the left hand side or vice a versa. Because this technique is effective and easy to follow Whittaker explains that "it can also result in pages looking similar and thus a little dull.” [4]
[1] Jason Whittaker, Magazine Production, 2008 Routledge page 141 [2] Jason Whittaker, Magazine Production, 2008 Routledge page 89 [3] Jason Whittaker, Magazine Production, 2008 Routledge page 138 [4] Jason Whittaker, Magazine Production, 2008 Routledge page 140
0 notes
Text
Constructed Photography, Week 4
Visual Ideas.
dark shadows
dark side of somebody
shadows showing inner emotion
you showing one thing and dark shadow shows another
split emotions
fears coming out
0 notes
Text
Constructed Photography, week 8
Semiotics- Study of Signs. Sign- A combination of signifiers with a particular signified. Signifier- Physical form of a sign. or Denotation. Signified- The concept it represents. or Connotation. Semiotics are all based on your culture. Here in Britain a black cat is considered bad luck whereas in a different country they could be considered good luck. Interpretation of Signs.
•There is no one-to-one link between signifiers and signified. Signs have multiple meanings.
•Signs have a language that is arbitrary and autonomous. They construct reality they do not reproduce reality.
•Signs take the form of words, images, sounds or objects. These things have no intrinsic meaning. They become signs only when we invest them with meaning.
•Signs are dependent on social and cultural conventions.
•SYMBOLS are signs that represent an object by a cultural convention that must be learnt.
•ICONS are signs that have qualities which resemble those of the objects that they represent but also have some cultural associations.
•INDEXICAL signs are directly connected to the objects that they represent for example unedited photography or film.
•Introduction - Subject and Argument
“(Christina) takes what seems to be a playful look at the silly idea that Africans can build rockets and lures her readers into wondering why the idea seems so absurd.”
•Definitions - Theory
Signs – Signifiers & Signified – Codes - Myths
•Debate
Debate the introduction statement in the light of the theory. What are the signs in the pictures? What codes do they refer to? How do they combine to make a ‘myth’? Do they succeed in provoking the viewer into wondering why they seem absurd?
Write this essay in 300-500 words.
0 notes
Text
Constructed Photography, week 3
"Though acknowledged as trendsetters and visionaries within the fashion world, the creative contribution of stylists to the construction of the fashion image has gone largely unrecognised by the public at large." - Brett Rogers The Photographer's Gallery A stylist has the job of creating something like an image or a brand that people aspire to have and want. They show us what clothes to buy, when to buy them and how to wear them. In a way this is a very demanding job with fashion changing all of the time the stylist has to have a good eye at picking new emerging trends and making others desire them. This is the role of an editorial stylist. The most common perception of stylists is commercial styling. These are the roles that require working with the models dressing them( costume and wardrobe stylist), styling the hair (hair stylist), make-up stylist and making sure that the image works on the whole as this was a joint effort by a selection of stylists..This is done by drawing up a brief, a sketch/board of what the commercial or advertisement will look like. Finally show styling. This is usually the end result of all of the styling jobs as the other stylists are working to create a final piece ready to be used by the show stylist as their job is to work with the designed to show case the work.
0 notes
Text
Constructed Photography, week 2
Portraits and Fashion Photography; A portrait is a picture of somebody who knows they're being photographed (constructed.) A portrait is the questioning or exploration of identity through a literal representation of what somebody looks like. This image can have visual cues which can explain the persons personality, mood interests and emotions. ‘A portrait is the questioning or exploration of identity through a literal representation of what somebody looks like’ - Susan Bright Art Photography Now 2005. A fashion photograph is quite the opposite. Where a portrait is a bond between the subject and photographer making the photograph quite intimate a fashion photograph on the other hand is a collective of ideas shared through the photographers, designers, stylists, art directors ect. Making it a real team effort.
“The production of a fashion image is a collaborative effort between a team that includes stylists, art directors, assistants and the client.”-Susan Bright Art Photography Now 2005
Afghan Girl- Steven McCurry. - Portrait
Cara Delevigne - Nick Knight. Fashion Portrait,
“Within Fashion, the ordinary is made to appear extraordinary, and vice versa. Fashion photography is blatantly concerned with the constructed photograph. It is also concerned with what is exotic,dramatic, glamorous and different.”- Anandi Ramamurthy Photography: Critical Introduction 2000
Model: Rhian Ryan.
During this studio session I chose Rhian as my model. This is down to us being good friends and knowing that there wouldn't be any awkwardness. Also because this was a fashion based assignment I chose rhian purely because of what she was wearing that day. Her shoes really stood out for me and not to mention the hair. her style is very unique and I wanted to express this in my photography. A flaw in this fashion shoot was due to lack of time, I would of preferred to have a lot more time with this shoot as I had about 4 minutes to get my camera set up and make sure my model knew what I wanted her to do and this is why the results aren't as high quality as I'd hoped. This is down to the fact I couldn't experiment with my manual settings as much to find the right shot that I was looking for so i had to settle for my images being over exposed which will have to be changed in camera raw at a later stage. Next time I know what i'm doing in the studio therefore the set up should be a lot more efficient. Another point is that I can allow myself more time to assign to myself. That way i'm able to take more shots of my model which would give me such a range of shots to choose from to be my final image rather than thinking 'this one will do' .
0 notes