Welcome to my blog where I write about all things multimedia. From photography, audio and video through to information for clients looking to commission commercial, public or private sector multimedia productions all mixed in with some personal opinion pieces.
In 2009 I was commissioned by The Times to cover several appearances by Esther Rantzen as she tried to win the hearts of the people of Luton, in the hope of gaining a seat as a Member of Parliament for the Bedfordshire town.
Esther is a joy to photograph for no other reason than she just doesn’t seem to care or at least make an attempt at masking herself for the cameras.
Her actions and reactions are some of the most emotive I have ever witnessed, she is like a walking caricature…of herself.
Multimedia Roundup:
Every week I pick three multimedia pieces from around the world to share with readers.
There is a bit of a theme this week, as World Cup 2010 reaches the final stages, I thought it would be fitting to pick three multimedia slide shows that not only have the theme of football but when compared with one another reflect the diverse nature of any international event.
The first up dropped in my rss feed this morning – a thanks to Dr DJ Clark who wrote this post over on DSLR New Shooter about his recent project.
I’d never heard of The Twenty Ten project, but within seconds of reading I was impressed not only by the implementation of this ambitious project but the potential that this showed in allowing indigenous journalists and media gatherers to capture and tell the stories around an event as large as the World Cup.
It is vital that local’s are allowed the opportunity to get their teeth into the stories that effect their lives, however the fact is that the mainstream media will always bring a traveling circus along for the show – that, I believe, will never change. But through training (such as this project) and allowing for opportunity we will one day see a more diverse media, one that truly reflects the world we live in.
After ten minutes or so of flicking through the productions of Twenty Ten, I have to admit there wasn’t really any that jumped out at me, until I came across ‘In The Shadow of Green Point Stadium‘ by Samantha Reinders. From what I can gather from her website, Samanatha Reinders is a native South African who has a lot of experience in news photography and this certainly shows in her work. The imagery is beautiful.
Click to watch 'In the shadow of Green Point' by Samantha Reinders
Next up is a piece by fellow Brit Mike Lusmore, having briefly met Mike at an event in London, we used to work for the same news agency.
Mike has obviously used his local knowledge to pick a location and a story and run with it – simple. The imagery is spot on and does it’s job well in supporting the audio and the story (let’s face it pictures will never really do much more with a piece like this) and the audio is cracking. Brilliant piece – it puts a smile on my face every time I watch it, but that’s most likely the Bristolian accent
For the third and final piece this week I wanted to get something from the big news agencies/papers – ultimately to try and contrast the fact that the above two multimedia pieces have been created by freelancer’s.
Searching the websites of the usual suspects; AFP, Reuters etc… I had no luck. Plenty of world cup highlight galleries but no specific multimedia piece related to the world cup of any note.
I then came across ‘Shosholoza!’ by Christoph Balsiger/swissinfo.ch – this audio slideshow for me really encapsulates the feeling that the South African people are really enjoying hosting the event. I love the way the fans singing the Shosholoza merge with what I believe is a traditional English football chant.
There is no speaking throughout, only singing, chanting, hooting and plenty of happy, smiling people – the atmosphere feels electric.
The term ‘multimedia’ by it’s very nature implies that it is a combination of many different forms of ‘traditional’ media – text, audio, photography, video, graphics or animations.
A little bit of this, a little bit of that. What is Multimedia?
One of the first stories that I followed up when I went freelance in 2009 was the issues that the Muslim community in the Suffolk town of Newmarket were facing due to an exponential increase in the population.
