Akins PhotoJ Blog

Friday, August 30, 2013

Creating a student blog

Hello and welcome back to Akins Photojournalism class.

This year we will be using Blogger to publish and post many of our assignments on the Internet.

To accomplish this we have to set up an account. Please follow the instructions carefully. It's important that you do each step correctly and that you remember all the vital information so you can get back to your blog later.

Here's how:

What you will need:

· Internet access

· An e-mail account (preferably Google Mail or Yahoo Mail)

First – Create a Blogger account

Open an Internet browser such as Safari.

· Go to http://www.blogger.com/

· Click on the orange “Sign Up” box at the top right of your screen. If you have a Google Mail account this will be really easy.

Step One

· Enter your name

· Enter a display name – Do NOT use your full real name. To be safe, we will keep our blogs semi-anonymous

· Enter a password and WRITE IT DOWN

· Enter a cell phone number for verification

· Enter the word verification

· Click on the “accept terms box, and hit continue·

· If there are any problems, they will show up in red.

Fix the problems

· Once your account is created, you will see an option at the top that says "Create a Blog."

Step Two

· In the blog title box, enter “first name’s Photojournalism Blog” (Ex: Matt’s Photojournalism Blog)

· In the (URL) box, enter the same thing as the title, but with no spaces or apostrophe (Ex: mattsphotojournalismblog)

· Hit “Check Availability”

· If it is available, hit continue. If it is not, select one of the suggestions, and then hit continue.

· Select a template and hit continue·

- You did it!

Step 3

· Hit “Start Posting”

Type “Welcome to my blog” in the post subject line, and click “Publish Now.”

Click on “View Blog” to see the results.

IMPORTANT!!!

- Find the URL (web address) in the browser address bar.

- Select and copy the web address (URL) of your new blog (ex: mattsphotojournalismblog.blogspot.com)

Step 4

- Open your email account

- Send an email with the following info to:

For Mr. Doerr:

akins.journalism@gmail.com

For Ms. Fleming:
laura.fleming-holcomb@austinisd.org

Subject : My blog

Full Name: ____

Paste URL here: ______

User Name: ________

Password: _______ (Only provide this if you are setting up this account separate from your personal e-mail account and you are afraid you will forget this password. This would only be used in the event that you lose your password to your blog.)

Friday, August 23, 2013

First Photos -- Best and Worst

Today's assignments is pretty simple: It's time to look at your pictures. First, you are going to go find the ones you took and put them in your server folder. Then you will post on your brand new student blog.

Step 1 -- Connect to Server

Minimize all the screens you have open.
Click on the icon with the black camera called "Journalism Drive" that is on your desktop. The computer will start connecting to the server.
When the window pops up, where it says "Username", type photoj
For the password, type password
When a pop-up box appears, click the one called "PhotoJ"
Eventually the drive will mount and an icon will appear on your desktop.
Find your class period, i.e. 1st period, 3rd period, etc.
In that folder, you will find a bunch of folders. Find the one with your name on it. If there is a mistake or a misspelling, let me know and I will fix it.

Step 2 -- Find Your Photos

There you will see a folder titled "*FIRST DAY PHOTOS"

Open that folder - inside you will see a bunch of photos. It's best to look at them in slideshow fashion.

Find ONE that you really (and I mean really) like that you took - right click on that one and scroll down to "COPY" -

Then go to your period and find YOUR folder - Right click and "SAVE" that photo in your folder.

Go back to the "First Shoot" folder, do the same thing, but this time pick one you really don't think is that great that you took.

Step 3 -- Post your Best and Worst photos to your blog.

Then open your web browser and get to blogger - I hope you remember how!!! But if you don't ask a friend or me to help you.

Then connect to blogger and log into your account.

Create a new post in your blog.

I would like you to post both photos on your blog with 1 paragraph (a paragraph in my class is AT LEAST 3 sentences) telling me why you liked or disliked the photo. What things about the photo made it a good or bad photo. Why did you pick that one? What things did you do that made it a good or bad photo?

Once everyone is done with this assignment, I will be posting an additional blog for you to start today. Also, I will be asking you to start doing some things at home. This will mostly be watching a video and answering some questions. I promise to make it short, but it is something we are being required to do by the administration. It won't kill your grade, I promise, but it will be factored into your grades. I will explain more next class.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Action preview assignment

Look at some great sports photography!!

This GoogleDoc is multiple pages long and it has all the information you need to complete the rest of the work today. So make sure you click the box on the bottom and watch all 20 pages full screen.

Now go to these websites and see some great sports photos:

http://espn.go.com/action/photos/

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/?eref=sihp

http://www.betterphoto.com/galleryTOCdynoSub.asp?cat=14

http://www.gettyimages.com/EditorialImages/Sport

for more choices.

Copy and paste photos from the above sites (DO NOT TAKE PHOTOS FROM THE GOOGLE DOCS PIECE I CREATED) to complete the 12 slide powerpoint presentation described below:

Make a PowerPoint with the following slides: Save it as "LastName_FirstName_sports" in your folder

Action

Slide 1 - A Large example of an excellent action shot.

Slide 2- A slide with a small version of the photo, and the following information:

1) Is it a money shot or a safety shot? How can you tell?