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The Medium
The Journalism School Question
Serena Renner, my friend and colleague at Meridian Collective wrote a blog post which echoes my own sentiments and concerns over the last year I’ve been out of school: whether to go to journalism school.
Back to The Facebook
I just spent some serious time on Facebook, something I rarely do. I made myself some fan pages and nabbed my own username: facebook.com/willparson.
I Won Some Awards at the County Fair
I’m pleased to announce I took home two awards and an honorable mention at the 2009 San Diego County Fair Photojournalism Exhibition. “Freegans” won second place in the photo essay category, and “PBR Rodeo” won third place in the same category. “High Tide at Scripps Beach,” seen above, received an honorable mention in the Documentary category.
SDNN Gets Hyper-Local
I have followed the rise of SDNN since their numerous “BETA” releases back in March. I watched with optimism as they professed their commitment to “hyper-local” coverage. I cringed and turned away when a torrent of courtesy photos, some straight from Flickr, told me that they were not interested in funding quality professional photojournalism. In the earlier days, with their front page often dominated by nationalstories from the Associated Press, I strongly questioned whether they really had a commitment to substantive local coverage. It remains to be seen how things will bear for the fledgling network.
SEO and a Horse’s Ass
Photoshelter has been sounding their big round SEO horn the last couple days, and I can’t believe I was letting myself go through life with a score of just 42 out of 100 points according to their SEO Grader. I downloaded their cookbook, followed their instructions, and I’m happy to say that my SEO score is now a manly and commanding 92 points. If my understanding of Search Engine Optimization is correct, you can now search for “Waxed Mustache” and my site is the first one listed.
San Diego News Network
Three days before the San Diego News Network’s site went live, the last printed edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer marked the end of 146 years of delivering news via smashed-up trees. Naturally, my questions abound for the new venture; how does it plan to succeed besides saving money on pulp, and what role will it assign to still photography?
So You Want to Start a Photo Collective
A couple of friends and I are starting a story collective. That’s right, a story collective – photos AND words. We believe this will set us apart from the myriad photo collectives that are popping up everywhere.
Keith Harmon Snow on Congo
Keith Harmon Snow is a writer, journalist and photographer who has a massive body of work spanning over a decade investigating war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and environmental disasters. He also swam across La Jolla Cove the other morning, recently traversed Mongolia with a bicycle, and somehow didn’t lose his voice after three hours [...]
Site Updates and Works in Progress
In the last couple days I’ve gone through my website at www.willparson.com and made some changes. This nothing unusual – I’m always tweaking my portfolios – so why am I making a post about it? Because I’m done wasting my time making ‘tweaks’ and am working on getting some new projects up and running. The [...]
Obama Irks the Media
The Associated Press is reporting that three major media outlets are refusing to distribute White-House provided photos of Obama on his first day because the media is traditionally allowed access to the Oval Office, and that the photos amount to a visual press release. It looks like the Chicago Tribune had no qualms, though, and [...]
