shots, notes and stray thoughts

im sure the ‘sex and the city’ crowd would disagree, but there one – and only one -truth in photojournalism these days: video is the new black!

at least, thats what all the smart people on the internet have been saying for years. still photography is apparently so 1820-2006 and now its all about multimedia. leave the still cameras at home, bring your video camera and grap a few frames to put in the paper.

at jyllands-posten we’re not quite there yet, even though the first video camera has landed in the photo department. now we have that freaky looking thing sitting in a corner starring at us, and ever time you walk by you’re reminded of whats to come.

occasionally, we do things for the tv section of jp.dk, but a few people (myself included) have also started editing stories in final cut and including audio and video. martin did a story on fighters and i did a thing on norwegian students featured elsewhere on this blog.

a while ago, danish photojournalist henrik kastenskov stopped by to have a chat with us interns on multimedia, its current state (in denmark and outside), possibilities, limitations and the prospect for the nearest future.

there’s a few obvious players out there trying to find their way in this brand new world. magnum jumped on the boat a few years back, even though thats mostly just slideshows with audio. then there is mediastorm. they have produced a lot of interesting pieces ranging from slideshows to mini documentaries. henrik also pointed us to interactive narratives, a sort of index where you can submit your piece for others to see and rate.

from a newspaper point of view, there’s quite a few challenges.

• it takes forever to edit. part of it is probably lack of training and routine, but its just a slow process. and furthermore, from my experience, your just not given the time to do it, which means your stuck in the office late at night or on your off days putting it all together.
• time is money, as they say, and having the first point in mind, how does this make sense? well, right now it doesn’t.

still, it’s intersting following the development, as this stuff become more and more mature and advanced. my own guess is that one day, some of us will be send to the field recording material, only to send it home and have professionals in the other end editing. as it is right now, we’re all trying to do too many things at once. that wont work for sure.