Blake, Dorame, 2019 Spring Portfolio

Blake Dorame’s

Portfolio 2019

REFLECTION #1 From this year of newspaper I was able to learn more about design of a page, creativity, and what is needed to make a team work properly. For actual production skills I learned more about how a layout of pictures can draw a reader in a specific path of reading headers, to captions, to pictures in an order that you intent in order to create a story with very little text. An example being a main focus picture taking up a majority of a page so that the reader looks there first then will follow the corresponding caption or a picture that also fits the story of what the photo essay is trying to convey. For time management, I have learned that personally in order to get all my assignment done with time to touch up the final product, I must start with the lowest prioritized. By that I mean I need to get all of my small assignments out of the way first so they are done with quality because often little details and pictures are overlooked and half-assed when rushed but I do not want the same for my work. I do the small assignments because I know I hold my photo essay at a standard that I will work as hard as I need to to reach. After finishing the small tasks, I plan out when each photo will be taken, interviews held, and what days I will have to work on the final product. This is how I manage my time and it is unfortunate I figured it out after already working on five issues of the paper.

As the photo editor of the paper, I worked with a small team and I failed to establish myself as someone one assign my team work and really just authority. In the beginning of the year I just tried to work with my photographers as all equal positions because we are all just as important. Which is still what I would have wanted, but for my team I was often finding my photographer wasting time in class, waiting last minute, and making excuses. Needless to say, they still did some very great work, but not with all the effort, so I a leader I felt as if I could have made my team stellar if I have made some changes in the beginning of the year.

As far as journalism ethics go, I never ran into any problems because I was never reporting that often. Interviews were the only subject that had any temptations to skew a quote in order to make a situation sound better, or portray an event in a way that I would have liked.

As an editor of a prestigious paper I felt I had to keep up on the work, quality, and time that fellow editors had put into their papers. I was dedicated on getting the best photos that I had opportunity for. If there was an event or play I was photographing, I would go and take pictures of the play multiple times, even if it was the same shot or scene. I wanted to get the best quality photos. For production dedication, I would stay days before production day so I could finish early and then still have time to work on making it better.

The only hardship and regret I have is not making my team connected and well put together as I wanted. I felt as if we were all doing separate work and at the end when time was up we would all just throw in the work we had done. If I were returning I would want my team to have more collaboration together as well as with other editors.

REFLECTION #2 When actually putting everything together I ran into lots of problems. The first one being that I had photos from the actually play itself and then photos from backstage and what was being done to the set and makeup crew. I wanted to kind of seperate those photo so the reader could compare backstage to on stage but there was just not enough space for how many pictures it needed to tell that story so I had to ditch that idea. Next problem I had was crediting those in the photos. Usually in every photo essay I would credit the people in the caption so it would be easy, but this time I reserved the captions for the senior directors to tell all about the process of making a one act. So with nowhere to credit people, I had to use up dead space within a photo. I made mini captions that were just short enough to credit those in the photos and not take up a lot of space from the photo. In the end the final product was choppy to look at and read, it looked like there was a lot going on there but i’m still proud of that work because I still got to do what I wanted and was able to compromise around the problems.

What I consider to be the most significant piece of work I did this year was the May photo essay. Although it may not be the best designed or have the best photos, I still took a risk when I tried to do something different. I wanted to make that photo essay different from the rest to shed more light on the great work that this class of seniors did. I strayed away from the exact formula to try to tell a story with more depth. Although the final product isn’t what I have wanted it to be. It was still an attempt to do something creative with the photo essay and I hope that other editors and photo editor see that and try the same.

The May photo essay was all about the Senior Directed One Acts so my original plan for the photo essay was to focus on the senior and the process they went through to make the plays.

REFLECTION #3 I am proud of the photo from the Senior Directed One Act called “Horse Girls� because in that photo I think I accurately captured what was happening in that scene. You can see the emotion in every actor in that shot. The camera focused on the actor who was displaying the most emotion then in the background the conflict actor is framed in by the focus of the foreground and the other actor.

I am proud of this photo because it is a great action shot of a rare seen jousting competition. Also in the background there are the superstition mountains with snow just fallen from the week before. The snow is also very rarely seen in Arizona. I believe this is a great photo because it is a sight to be seen.

I am proud of this photo because of the color and class of their clothes along with the position of the musicians. I think the red dress and his blue shirt compliment each other when separated by the black stage.

TEAR SHEETS February Photo Essay

Photo Essay

Spotlight

March

April Photo Essay

Spotlight

May Photo Essay

Spotlight