Do you know the way to San Jose?

Asia Trip

2008-03-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

In Taipei, Taiwan for a story on the Taiwanese presidential elections and then traveling to Vietnam for some tech business stories for the Mercury News.

Hip Knitter

2008-02-21T16:13:00.000-08:00

Chloe Kestermont, a mohawk and tattoo wearing knitter represents the antithesis of the grandmother stereotype. Kestermont is a co-owner of the yarn store Purlescence in Sunnyvale. She's part of a group of yarn and fabric retailers who have become part of a trendy movement that involves and new, hip yarn stores knitters being online -- there's wireless Internet in shops -- and using fashionable eco-materials such as soy and bamboo. She plans to use soap bubbles at the Purlescence booth for the Stitches West trade show this week in Santa Clara. (LiPo Ching/Mercury News)

San Francisco Zoo Mauling

2008-01-22T18:33:00.000-08:00

Carlos Sousa, father of Carlos Edward Sousa Jr., mourns for his son in San Jose, on December 26, 2007. (LiPo Ching/Mercury News)

Hey Diddle Diddle...

2008-01-21T22:03:00.001-08:00

Cattle graze on the San Felipe Ranch which is owned by the Hewlett and Packard families. They have donated development rights to the 10 mile ranch located in the foothills of San Jose to the Nature Conservancy, a $40 million value.

CLICK HERE FOR MULTIMEDIA

CHINA: Parts 3 and 4

2007-09-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

Click on link to see multimedia presentation:
MAKING CHINA HOME

Click on link to see multimedia presentation:
CHINA LOVE

Gymnastics

2007-09-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

Just need to get something new on here...

China Stories

2007-06-20T00:57:00.000-07:00

CLICK on link to see MULTIMEDIA presentation:
http://mercurynewsphoto.com/china/

CLICK on PAGES to see larger version:

Day 1

Day 2

This is the two-day China story I shot for the San Jose Mercury News regarding China's environment and growth, and the clean tech opportunites it could present to Silicon Valley. It was challenging because we had a story about pollution (which is an old story) and we were basically stuck in Beijing and Shanghai, which have been cleaned up.

In China for the Mercury News

2007-05-27T01:47:00.000-07:00

A view of the smoggy Pudong skyline on the East bank of the Huangpu River is seen from the Bund on the west bank, in Shanghai, China on April 15, 2007. (LiPo Ching/San Jose Mercury News)

I was in China for three weeks in March and April to shoot for several Mercury News stories dealing with pollution, clean tech, online dating and American expat venture capitalists. More photos coming...

NPPA Clip Contest Winner

2007-05-27T01:14:00.000-07:00

"Surrounded by family, Diana May holds daughter Lauren at a memorial Saturday for her slain husband, East Palo Alto Police officer Richard May Jr., who was killed one year ago today. The memorial was held at the St. Francis of Assisi Church in East Palo Alto on January 6, 2007.

LiPo Ching, San Jose Mercury News, January 2007, General News, 3rd Place. National Press Photographers Association Regional Clip Contest, Region 10.

American Metal and Iron Fight Night

2007-05-26T01:47:00.001-07:00

About the only sport I like to watch is boxing, so I grabbed an opportunity to shoot James “Lights Out” Toney's attempt at a comeback in the heavyweight division at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, CA on May 24, 2007. This was the first live boxing match I've attended and wanted to get some experience shooting it. Nhat Meyer was the the photographer on the assignment for the Mercury News - see his excellent slideshow [Nhat's Slideshow]. Lots of fun... (Photos by LiPo Ching)

"Hard-hitting action returned to HP Pavilion at San Jose on Thursday, May 24, 2007 with the second night of the American Metal and Iron Fight Night at the Tank season. The successful boxing series hosted four inspired bouts before a crowd of 4,269, highlighted by James “Lights Out” Toney’s main event fight." (Excerpted from www.fightnightatthetank.com)

"Toney (70-6-3, 43 KOs) survived a strong showing by Danny Batchelder (25-5-1, 12 KOs) earning the split decision in the slow-paced fight. Toney, a seven-time World Champion and future first ballot Hall of Famer, struggled to control the bout against the gritty Batchelder as the two boxers looked cautious and tentative throughout the fight." (Excerpted from www.fightnightatthetank.com)

" [though] Toney won a 10-round split decision over Batchelder... in the process he exposed his ambition of becoming heavyweight champion as being nothing more than a pipe dream. When the scores were read - 98-92 and 97-93 for Toney and 96-94 for Batchelder - the crowd of 4,269 showered him with boos. But Toney (70-9-3) refused to acknowledge that his time had passed. "I'm not done," he said. "I just looked that way." (excerpted from Dylan Hernandez/Mercury News)

Some Multimedia Projects

2006-12-07T18:52:00.000-08:00

Some compiled links, relating to the Master's topic:

APPM (Associated Press Photo Managers) Link which features MercuryNewsPhoto.com on its Home page:
http://www.apphotomanagers.org/ NO LONGER FEATURES MERCURY NEWS ON HOME PAGE

Kenny Irby has posted our election stage, among several others, on his
Poynter site:
http://www.poynteronline.org/content/content_view.asp?id=113660

The following are some multimedia projects for which I had significant input as photographer, video editor, or audio:

Not multimedia, but one of my pictures from the Stanford game made it onto the LATimes.com "Week in Sports" pictures and another European photo site:

Los Angeles Times Week in Sports LINK DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE
Jyllands-Posten - Verden i fotos

UCLA @ Stanford
The Stanford Cardinal beat the third ranked UCLA Bruins 75-68 at Maples Pavilion.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2007/01/30/ucla-stanford/

The Golden Globes
Fun, fashion and famous couples, on the red carpet at the 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Hollywood, CA, on January 15, 2007. http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2007/01/15/the-red-carpet/

Drum Off
Jesus Garcia, the West Regional Winner and one of four finalists for the Guitar Center National Drum Off Competition, practices his routine for the final round of the competition.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2007/01/05/drum-off/

Restaurant O
Restaurant O Executive Chef and owner, Justin Perez, talks about several dishes from the restaurant.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/12/21/restaurant-o/

Manresa restaurant
Manresa chef and owner, David Kinch, talks about several dishes from the restaurant.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/12/13/manresa-restaurant/

Raiders vs. Houston
The Houston Texans beat the Oakland Raiders, 23-14, at McAfee Colesium on Sunday, Dec. 3, 2006.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/12/04/raiders-vs-houston/

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
Jerry Rice’s retirement ceremony during half-time at the Seahawks vs. 49ers game at Monster Park.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/11/19/jerry-jerry-jerry/

Seahawks @ 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers beat the Seattle Seahawks, 20-14, at Monster Park.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/11/19/seahawks-49ers/

Election Graphic
Interactive election graphic
I collected audio and covered Mayoral candidate Cindy Chavez
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/11/07/elections-2006/

Final Days
San Jose mayoral candidates on the final days of the campaign. Also, listen to what voters have to say.
Cindy Chavez - Photos and audio by LiPo Ching
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/11/03/final-days/

Day of the Dead Parade
Honoring the dead, participants also celebrate life
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/10/29/day-of-the-dead-parade/

ZeroOne Wildlife
Artist Karolina Sobecka projects her Wildlife ZeroOne project in downtown San Jose.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/08/08/zeroone-wildlife/

As a photo editor, I had some input or was consulted on these projects:

San Jose’s Homeless Connect
Project Homeless Connect, a proactive social service, provides health and housing assistance.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/12/06/san-joses-homeless-connect/

Wear a Hijab/Turban Day
Bay Area residents show their solidarity with all cultures and religions at Central Park in Fremont.[VIDEO]
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/11/13/wear-a-hijabturban-day/

Westfield San Francisco Centre
Fashionista field trip to glitzy complex near Union Square anchored by the biggest bloomindale’s in the West Coast.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/11/10/westfield-san-francisco-centre/

An Old West back yard theme park
Shaughnessy McGehee builds a replica of Frontier Village in his back yard. [VIDEO]
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/11/06/an-old-west-back-yard-theme-park/

Bay Area Heat Wave
Residents and businesses deal with soaring temperatures.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/24/bay-area-heat-wave/

Mumbai Train Bombing Vigil
Members of the India Community Center hold a vigil to support bombing victims.http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/16/mumbai-train-bombing-vigil/

Mission Accomplished
Stanford University graduates celebrate at their commencement ceremony on Sunday, June 18, 2006.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/18/mission-accomplished/

Latino Sports bar home to World Cup fans
Fans gathered at Futbol, Antojitos y Mas watched Mexico beat Iran 3-1
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/11/latino-sports-bar-home-to-mexico-world-cup-fans/

Weeks 9, 10 and 11

2006-08-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

Graham Rahal, background, tries to pass Joe D'Agostino in the turn one hairpin during the qualifying session for the San Jose Grand Prix Champ Car Atlantic Series on Friday, July 28, 2006. (LiPo Ching/San Jose Mercury News)

FIELD NOTES, 3 WEEKS: July 18-Aug 4

I'm still working on getting comfortable with the duel roles of shooting and editing. In terms of multimedia, I usually have been helping Gary Reyes with video editing. Gary still does the bulk of the editing, I just help finesse it bit. Usually I try to help him cover his voice over interviews with the visual content or B-roll and sometimes restructure the order of shots. I think once Gray gets more comfortable with the technical aspects of editing, he'll be doing most of it himself.

Bay Area Heat Wave
Yahoo Design Expo

Gary has been in an accelerated video learning mode. He's shooting almost everything in video and (as noted by Richard) has surpassed Karen in terms of video output.

Nhat Meyer has also started to shoot more video having two video stories.

His Youth Fair works nicely as a video -- it's fun and seeing movement helps in this situation.

There's definitely much more interest in video now. Jose Lepe also shot video for the first time last night. There's no real outward pressure, but the photographers who shoot video get a lot of praise for trying it, and as I said before, there's a good competitive spirit here (they are all very good at what they do). It's really interesting how the structure is very loose and each photographer will probably develop they're own video style, much like they have they're own shooting style. There's really no pressure to conform to a certain style or method of video storytelling.

Though, after Gary's Heat Wave Video, Richard asked me to help Gary minimize his use of talking head interviews. He said this is the time to break all the rules, and that we may not have a chance to experiment as much in the future.

Technical issues:
There was a focus problem with a still pulled from Gary's video that Geri pointed out. That seems to be a matter of getting more comfortable with the camera. The other issue is the issue of shooting video for print is that it's awkward to shoot horizontals with the camera.

San Jose Grand Prix July 28-30

This was a big event and we had: 4-5 photographers shooting stills (including me); Dai and Gary shooting video exclusively (Dai also help put together and audio slideshow); Richard editing and shooting some time lapse video; and Michael Malone editing stills. Richard also created a Flash stage which included a racing game.

I think the multimedia presentation was really outstanding - probably more compelling than the print presentation. There were some really fun pieces/stories/ideas such as a ride around the track and the time lapse, and the videos really had a visceral quality. This was the perfect event for multimedia and the Mercury News did a great job The production was really well organized. Richard had the videographers bring the footage to him in 10 minute chunks, and he did a great job editing them quickly each day. He would make a very good video editor - I like his eclectic style. Jim and Joanne also gathered audio and either Dai or Richard would put together the slide show.

Here are the complete list of multimedia pieces:

Grand Prix 2.0

Drivers Seat Day 1
On the Track Day 1
Sights and Sounds Day 1
Winners Day 1
Sights and Sounds Day 2
Grand Prix Day 2
Final Day of Grand Prix
Sights and Sounds Day 3
Time Lapse Day 3

I was at the Grand Prix for two days, though I also worked through the weekend, shooting a police racial profiling story on one of the days. For the Grand Prix, I primarily concentrated on shooting stills since this was a new situation for me.

I am getting to the point where I'll attempt to shoot some video. (I probably would have been comfortable shooting video at the race, especially if someone else was editing, but I think they wanted the experienced people in the key positions). I've decided that I'm going to shoot some video on the next assignment that seems appropriate for it. For me, the mental block is the journalism, but since we're allowed to make mistakes, that'll help me overcome the block. Also, I'm feeling a little more comfortable with shooting again.

Other Issues:

I did much less editing in the past three weeks due to volunteering for the Grand Prix. But there is one interesting issue that was brought up -- balancing the coverage on the Isreali-Lebanon/Hezbollah conflict. Sometimes the news is very overwhelming form the point-of-view of one side or the other that its hard to make a visual balance, yet that's what we're being asked to do.

Other notable multimedia - two slideshows that give you a great sense of the event or place:

Lous Donuts Closes
ZeroOne San Jose

Complete multimedia list for the three weeks:

July 18-22, Tues-Sat
Techie Bowlers Video
All-Stars Shine
Bay Area Heat Wave Video

July 23-29, Sun-Sat
Vegetable Love
Lous Donuts Closes
Heatwave
Grand Prix 2.0
ZeroOne
Drivers Seat Day 1
On the Track Day 1
Gilroy Garlic Festival
Sights and Sounds Day 1
Winners Day1
Sights and Sounds Day 2
Grand Prix Day 2

July 30-Aug, Sun-Sat
Final Day of Grand Prix
Sights and Sounds Day 3
Time Lapse Day 3
ZeroOne San Jose
Yahoo Design Expo (helped)
DJ Champions the Female Voice
Youth Fair
A Generation Reflects

Week 8

2006-07-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

FIELD NOTES

This week, 5 of the 6 multimedia pieces posted were video! Photographer Gary Reyes is making a concentrated effort to become comfortable with video and shot three of his assignments in video. For two of the those assignments, he pulled stills from the video, and in the other, he shot stills as backup, which I think he did because the situation was more visual and he preferred to have higher quality stills. Pauline Lubens also is continuing to work with video and produced a Menlo Park Art Marketplace story. She uses a “stills style”– steady frame, interesting compositions in a montage format, which is similar to the intro of her Hollister Biker’s piece.

Menlo Park Art
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/15/art-in-menlo-park-2/

Santa Cruz Beaches
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/13/rural-santa-cruz-beaches-to-become-state-park/

World Cup Fans
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/09/world-cup-fans/

Mumbai Vigil
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/16/mumbai-train-bombing-vigil/

In a discussion after the Santa Cruz beach story, Gary said, “Now my mind is racing before the shoot – which tool do I use – audio, video, stills – do I do a slideshow or video… it used to be use a camera and get the job done.” With the new tools and formats, the photographers, can choose a medium that offers the most compelling way to tell the story. But, at this point, Gary basically wants to get some video practice for the future when it may be critical to use. He doesn’t want to be in a situation where they ask for video and he has no experience doing it.

For the Cupfans story, Gary and Nhat Meyer, were able to export the video as a quicktime from iMovie and post it to the site using our Wordpress blog setup by themselves using the instruction sheet that Richard provided to everyone. I didn’t really have time to help much as I was solo on the editing shift that night. But the process was easy to pick up and on subsequent days, I went over export settings with Richard. For the Vigil story I was able to help Gary smooth out some of the video editing transitions, since there was another picture editor on shift. Gary had shot about 12 minutes of footage which was narrowed down to :45 second.

Karen Borchers was requested to shoot video at a small interview with Steve Westly, the democratic candidate for Governor that was defeated in the primary. Usually photographers are given a choice, but this was more of a favor to the writer of the story, who’s helped write and record narration for some of our more extensive political slideshows for Dai.

Other Multimedia Issues:

We sold our 1st Banner ad on mercurynewsphoto.com Someone in Advertising sold the ad on the site without realizing that had never done that before. Richard is trying to figure out how that will work. He said it’ll be unobtrusive.

When pulling stills from video, the imaging department has to process them slightly differently – I think they uses Noise Ninja to help reduce noise. I’ll have to find out more details.

All the photographers received more equipment: Sennheiser shotgun microphones with Beachtek boxes coming, wide angle adapters for the video camera, and new Edirol/Roland sound recorders.

Since we’re producing a good number of slideshows, Geri went over the picture story editing process checklist (from MPW and Fundamentals) with me, Elly and Maria Avila, the latest photo hire.

Work Issues:

The 2006 San Jose Grand Prix is coming up and we are discussing technical/style issues, logistics, and story ideas.

Had a discussion with Elly discussion about how to work more effectively with some of the more senior designers, who sometimes don’t consult us about photo usage.

Weeks 6 and 7

2006-07-08T18:28:00.000-07:00

OPEN FOR BUSINESS: San Jose’s Fair Swim Center provides cooling relief for Kaitlynn Lee, 3, center and her sister Rebecca Lee,1, lower left, on Thursday. Evelyn Guevara Morales, lower right also enjoys the popular pool built four years ago. (LiPo Ching/San Jose Mercury News.)

Another pool centerpiece… I’m now the official pool photographer.

FIELD NOTES 6/25/06 – 7/8/06

4 days of editing and 3 shooting assignments.

Interesting Issues:

The designers. There was one instance where a designer (Janet Kim) came up with a nice concept for the photography on a story about and organization sending gift baskets to U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Instead of a one or two picture illustration, she set up a three picture series that showed the story as a process, which I didn’t think of. On the flip side, For a 4th of July promo, a designer/editor enlarged the promo to the extant that it altered the normal masthead and made it seem like a news picture rather than a file photo. There was no caption or credit. Unfortunately I let it slip by, because the designer had a lot of experience and it really didn’t register as prominently on the computer monitor, than it did when it was printed and folded in half. But when I saw it the next day, I thought it seemed like it was shot the previous night in San Jose, and I knew that it wasn’t (it was file photo from Japan). So the next day, Geri, set us (the two photo editors on shift that day) straight – we’re responsible for all photos.

The July 4th fireworks paper, also had one other interesting issue, which was that two photographers were given the same assignment for two different locations. They were to shoot a pre-fireworks feature picture for the 1st edition and a fireworks picture on a later edition. I had the task of choosing the pictures and ended up using both from the same photographer, which was sort of tough to do.

Early in the week I noticed a PHOTO OF THE WEEK (from The Santa Clara International 2006 Swimming Grand Prix Series) post on our multimedia site:

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/20/photo-of-the-week/

Richard mentioned that when there’s a slow week of multimedia postings, it’s good to get some new visual content up this way – just so people can see the site is active. Meanwhile, Geri also commented on a missed opportunity to make a picture-only slideshow of the Swimming Grand Prix (June 22-25), which she thought would get a good amount of hits, compared to some of the others that were posted. I’m assuming they would be less relevant a day later (June 26), so it was skipped.

In the past two weeks, there were a good number of multimedia projects posted and I also got a chance to speak to Geri (on 7/5/06) briefly about some multimedia issues.

For now, there’s really no formal training planned for multimedia forms or production. Photographers will get to experiment for a while and there’s no requirement to do multimedia. Geri even said that some of our photographers will probably never do any multimedia – they’re completely focused on the process, execution and form of the still image. They’ve sent some 4 photographers to Platypus, but didn’t like that they were using some broadcast methods in their workflow (set-up situations for B-Roll). Geri’s more interested in looking for a more unique way of using multimedia. The other issue that was discussed was the possibility of using teams to produce longer-form and more in-depth projects. Sometimes audio or video requires a lot more focus and concentration that may take away from capturing the necessary still photos, and Geri would possibly consider using a team for a project. In another film analogy, Geri mentioned that a picture story is like the storyboards for a film.

For now, it seems like Geri offers both general or specific comments to help guide the photographers in multimedia. For example, one prominent issue in slideshows is the length of time the photos play. Geri stresses that the stronger and more relevant pictures should be given more time than the transitional or marginal pictures.

Here are some of the more interesting slideshows done in these past two weeks, and comments on relevant issues:

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/28/historic-decision/
Historic Decision
The San Jose City Council voted Wednesday to ask Mayor Ron Gonzales to resign.
June 28, 2006
Photographers: Dai Sugano, Jami Smith
Editors: Elly Oxman, Anne-Marie McReynolds
A well constructed story of the event using the audio from the participants. This felt like a complete story and had some drama. It’s a little bit of a mystery as to who’s speaking at first, but has a nice reveal. The mystery works in this case because of how it’s executed.

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/29/in-memoriam/
In Memoriam
A community says goodbye to UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Denice D. Denton.
Thursday June 29th
Karen Borchers/Anne-Marie McReynolds
Again, a nice representation of the event and the organization and presentation of speakers is clear. I like the larger titles that introduce the speakers.

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/01/bikers-roll/
Bikers Roll
Bikers roared into Hollister on Saturday for their annual gathering.
July 1, 2006
Pauline Lubens
Editors: Richard Koci Hernandez/Elly Oxman
Interesting to mix a video introduction with stills, which I thought worked because the video used interesting compositions and seemed like moving stills. I think I would have liked some sort of written intro explaining the story, which I believe was that the city cancelled the event but many of the bikers came anyway. This wasn’t explained in the piece. Also, in the paper, the still's quality from video was not high -- looked a bit soft and muddy, and I wonder if that has to do with shutter speed of the video.

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/04/heritage-sport-in-silicon-valley/
Heritage sport in Silicon Valley
Junior rodeo thrives in Woodside event
Pauline Lubens/Anne-Marie McReynolds
July 4, 2006
Solid piece on the event. What’s notable is a small sequence with a hat – adds some linear movement to the piece. Pauline said that often she'll do a voice herself introducing the people rather than the title on picture, but that in this case, she didn’t have the time to do that.

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/07/08/plug-and-play/
Plug and Play
Alternative fuel vehicles take to the road in the first-ever road Rally that runs a 117-mile course from Santa Clara to Sacramento.
Richard Koci- Hernandez
July 8, 2006
Following Geri’s ideas, this piece plays with form a bit, which is fun and effective and it’s also a good example of how letting some of the stronger pictures play longer than others really helps the pacing and feel of a story. I'll have to ask Richard how he did the car at the end was shot and edited.

http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/30/sea-mass/
Sea Mass
Father Joseph Duong Phan celebrates Mass onboard container ships.
June 30, 2006
Karen Borchers
What I like is that Karen intros the video with 2-3 sentences that set up and give context to what follows. Some of the pieces posted really needed this type of intro to give the images and voices more relevance. Again, I think Karen did a solid straightforward job with the video storytelling. It looks like there were some issues with video quality though – problems with compression?

Week 5

2006-06-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

From left, Alison Tucker, 10, John Jackson, 17, and Gary Miley 17, swim in the wave pool at Raging Waters in San Jose on June 21, 2006. (LiPo Ching/San Jose Mercury News) [hot summer weather for the 1A centerpiece]

FIELD NOTES

Editing shifts on Monday 6/19/06, Sunday 6/25/06, and Monday 6/26/06. Shooting shifts on Wednesday 6/21/06 and Thursday 6/22/06. So far, the shooting and editing shifts seem to be going smoothly. When it comes to photo editing, I find the designers and editors very helpful – sometimes they seem to know what works better than I do, so it’s a good learning experience. I was also assigned the hot weather 1A centerpiece… as one of the classic assignment photographers have to deal with.

This was a slower week for multimedia with only 4 postings, but the news that dominated the week was San Jose’s Mayor Ron Gonzales was charged with felony bribery and fraud charges in a garbage contract scandal. The same day he was arrested a staff slideshow was posted in a reverse timeline that featured key people related to the story (including several pictures I shot). The following day Karen Borchers shot video at the press conference given by the Supervising Deputy District Attorney Julius Finkelstein. She also caught Gonzales leaving City Hall in the morning where he tried to conduct business as usual.

Slideshow:
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/22/indicted-mayor/
Video:
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/23/prosecutor-accuses-mayor-aide/

For the DA’s press conference, Karen also shot stills. The video camera was mounted on a tripod and recorded without an operator and a separate audio recorder was taped to the podium and recorded without an operator where the DA was speaking. Karen ended up with 40:00 minutes of video, which was cut into a 2:12 piece. Again, Geri basically let Karen edit the piece herself, suggesting that Karen use an intro.

There were some audio issues from the video – the camera was too far away from the subject resulting in poor audio quality, so the audio from the audio recorder was used. Karen decided to use video of the DA speaking even though it didn’t sync with the audio she used. I appreciate the experimentation, though I'm not quite sure that it worked. I assume there were two factors for it's use:
1) The Time/Deadline Factor -- it's a lot of work and she just didn’t have time to try to sync
2) iMovie is too basic to easily perform that function
In retrospect, it might have helped to stylize that footage so that people wouldn’t think the lost sync was a mistake.

The other issue is that Mercury News online linked to streaming video of the event:

EMAIL: re. Karen Borchers shooting the Press conference on DV

From: Keith, Randall
Sent: Friday, June 23, 2006 8:48 AM
To: Keith, Randall; BA EDIT
Cc: METRO EDITORS; PHOTO EDS
Subject: RE: norcal stories upcoming...

in addition....we think channel 11 will stream the press conference
live...we don't like to do it, but we should link to that stream.

katharine is getting the link from our channel 11 friends...

Randall Keith
Online Editorial Director
San Jose Mercury News
750 Ridder Park Drive
San Jose, CA 95190
408-271-3747
www.mercurynews.com

So while this may not have been a great example of, or situation for, using video, I think it illustrates that the photo department is very open to experimenting and letting photographers practice with little pressure -- which is a great policy. Since Karen also used her still camera for this, I think the focus was getting the still photo and video was considered a bonus if it was used. I think it’s going to be interesting to follow Karen’s work in video – she’s done some very good work and seems to be really passionate about doing as much as she can.

Richard was at the NPPA Summit, so the staff here had to compress and post the video themselves. Apparently, the 2-minute video was compressed to 6 MB and had excellent quality without Sorensen Squeeze, which surprised Richard, who is trying to duplicate that workflow. As the most prolific videographer, Karen was given a copy of Squeeze after this piece.

MERCURY NEWS AT THE NPPA SUMMIT

Richard Koci-Hernandez led 1 workshop in audio and 2 workshops in video for the still photojournalism program at the NPPA 60th Anniversary Photojournalism Summit, June 23 – June 25, 2006.

From the NPPA website:
Richard Koci-Hernandez, San Jose Mercury News
Koci-Hernandez made the switch from newspaper still shooter to full time web-based videographer. He will lead a workshop on embracing the change, what to expect, and the new tools for the job.

Richard said the workshops ran more like a discussion – what the Mercury News is doing with audio and video for the web. He emphasized that he wasn’t an expert, but that he could share his experience of what he learned in the past year.

Attendees for the video workshops were from Midwest to East Coast and participants included: Roanoke, Charlotte News & Observer, Naples, Washington Post, NY Times, Dallas Morning News and other Texas Papers, and Apple Computer (which might feature the Mercury News as a pro user on their website). Journalism schools also wanted to know what to teach for the new industry trends.

Many of the participants have already shot video for web. Some have been contracting out to video cameramen. But they’re not shooting HD yet. They were primarily interested in the Mercury News experience of using High Definition (HD) video to pull printable stills, which also lets and/or encourages the still photojournalists shoot video. Many of the Directors of Photography wanted detailed information about the workflow and what the commitment in staff and money – what they would need to buy and what are the costs.

Richard stressed that they needed a commitment to give their staff the time and leeway to complete the pieces. He also noted that it’s worth exploring even if its just one person on the staff wants to shoot video. It’s better to get as much experience as you can now so that you can retain more control when video becomes a “mandate” from the publishers.

Interestingly, he noted that many participants don’t want to do video, audio or slideshows - that there seemed to be a lot of resistance. They said they didn’t come into the business to do TV and seemed a little bit afraid.

What Richard stressed was that HDV was a new tool that can build upon the strengths they have as still shooters. Richard approaches video the same way he would shoot stills - stand in the same place, shoot at the same angles, looking for the same light. What’s most important is still capturing the moment.

“It was horrible when I had to shoot still, Video (DV) and Audio” – he felt it was too hard to juggle all three. With HDV, you have all these tools in one piece of equipment.

Richard noted that new technology has always made shooting stills easier:
1) In sporting events, motor drives are a necessity: photographers now routinely use 5fps, 10 fps. If 30fps was available they would use it… which is essentially the frame rate of video.
2) Autofocus was considered cheating – that the sports shooter was valued for ability to focus. Autofocus has made it easier for many photographers to shoot sports.
3) Even roll film might have been considered cheating at the time by the single film sheet shooters.

The bottom line for the professional journalist is to find a way to make Dot Com and Print happy, and HDV seems to offer a practical solution. It’s currently the golden age of what’s possible and there’s an opportunity to merge (or converge) knowledge in broadcast and print – the Web equalizes us and we should come together & share approaches. Space for storytelling in print is gone but there’s unlimited space on the web to tell stories. Some of the issues to pursue would be broadcast ethics and how to get money, people, and training to make the most of the opportunities available.

What started this HD evolution for Richard was when David Leeson, of the Dallas Morning News, held up an HD camera at the APME conference in October 2005 said that this is the future (after shooting video in Iraq?). Since then Leeson shot Katrina stories with HD video and used Genuine Fractals software to turn 6 MB stills into 75 MB files for a coffee table book. In 2006 Richard might speak at that same conference to talk about the Mercury News experience of Leeson’s statement.

Meanwhile, Richard has been getting many calls from people (such as PDN) wanting to see more examples of stills pulled from HDV. More of the staff are becoming interested in video (mostly because it’s a talented and competitive (in a supportive way) group of people) and starting to train themselves. It’ll be interesting to see what gets produced as the Summer progresses.

Week 4

2006-06-19T00:47:00.000-07:00

Ismeralda Ramirez, 5, poses for a picture for her mother, after the kindergarden promotion ceremony at the Anne Darling Elementary School in San Jose on Wednesday, June 14, 2006. A coalition of colleges in Silicon Valley are participating in a pilot program to encourage students to start thinking about college early and create a "college going culture" at some of the region's poorest local schools. (LiPo Ching/San Jose Mercury News)
[a different set of pictures were used for the paper]

FIELD NOTES

This week, I trained on the editing desk for three days with Akili Ramsess, the Deputy Director of Photography/Print, and Elly Oxman, the new editor. I also shot for two days. On Sunday (6/18/06), I worked solo as an editor from 2-10pm, for Monday’s paper. Multimedia issues were postponed as I was trying to reach the level where I could fulfill the duties of a picture editor.

Some information that I gleaned from various conversations:

1) There have been multimedia efforts on daily assignments that were abandoned because they didn’t work. There were two instances in which video was shot but not used. So far, only 4 photographers have completed video pieces: Gary Reyes, Dai Sugano, Karen Borchers and Richard Hernandez.

2) Richard once compared the amount of time it took to complete an assignment with a still camera versus the time it took to complete a comparable with a video camera, from which stills were pulled from the footage. Richard stated that it took an equal amount of time to complete the assignments, having shot about 12 minutes worth of video footage.

3) One photographer seemed to indicate that photographers are sometimes producing multimedia just to show that they can (I’m assuming among other reasons). There’s a bit of competitive spirit. If a photographer only has one assignment and it’s early enough in their shift, they may attempt to produce a multimedia piece. I’m not sure the subject really merited an audio slideshow. But it is utilizing a photographer on his down time.

4) Since mercurynewsphoto.com is blog based, each multimedia piece can also act like a forum. For example the Madonna slideshow inspired a lot of comments.

I was credited with my first slideshow as editor on Gary Reyes’ MISSION ACCOMPLISHED slideshow on Stanford University’s Graduation. In this case, I viewed Gary’s take and helped choose the final pictures. But Gary completed the audio edit and ordered the pictures in the slideshow himself. I was able to suggest a simple switch in image order, but didn’t have much influence in really shaping the piece. Elly, who’s credited as the editor of three slideshows this week has mentioned that she’s had the a similar experience with some of the slideshows (she had a bit more input with GAME FACES). Again, I think this is an issue of not having enough editing staff, rather than the preferred method of operation. It seems that the photographers have much more downtime to experiment with multimedia than the editors have. I think the experimentation works fine at this phase, but it will be interesting to see if the process and product will evolve.

Mercurynewsphoto.com slideshows from June 10, 2006 – June 18, 2006:

Two of the slideshows had no audio. Most of the photographers collected ambient audio and interviews and combined them with the pictures to get a sense of the event and of some of the people who attended. Sometimes the slideshow had a linear timeline, and other times it was more a collage of people -- though even the collages strived to create a beginning and end.

Lubens' was the only photographer who used a voiceover (TAKING THE PLUNGE and COACH). Since her COACH story was one of the more involved stories, it helped to have the narrator bridge gaps that couldn't be clearly told through pictures. The one issue to consider is that it might have felt smoother and possibly more satisfying if the narrator had been introduced.

COACH: http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/17/coach/
PLUNGE: http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/10/taking-the-plunge/

The slideshow that works best for me is WICKETS AND OVERS, about a local Cricket league.
WICKETS: http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/16/wickets-and-overs/
There's a simple but effective angle to the story (it's an introduction to Cricket rather than "here are some people who play cricket") and the structure that Meyer uses works well. I was really engaged by introduction where the team members are trying to figure out a name for their Cricket team. Meyer is also the only photographer to use a more obvious portrait to identify the speaker, who also uses a conventional audio ID. The speaker then goes on to describe the game -- the photos are an effective illustration of the audio. The last third brings in ambient audio of the game. The classic Hollywood three act structure. It's less impressionistic, but it's solid and engaging.

Though the single portrait and Audio ID may be a standard convention I think it may be necessary for most of the slideshows that are being created now at the Mercury News. I do think there's room for experimenting as in Hernandez's "Seasons" videos, but I would argue that the majority of the slideshows need a bit sharper structure.

LISTING:

Mission Accomplished
Stanford University graduates celebrate at their commencement ceremony on Sunday, June 18, 2006.
By Gary Reyes/LiPo Ching

Coach
Dave Kocina been coaching Little League for 28 years.
By Pauline Lubens /Elly Oxman

Vertical Challenge Helicopter Air Show
At San Carlos Airport in San Carlos Saturday June 17, 2006.
By Patrick Tehan

Wickets and overs
The first junior national cricket tournament to be played in the United States debuts June 22 in Silicon Valley.
By Nhat Meyer/Elly Oxman

Game faces
The Mercury News recognizes 12 high school athletes who delivered the spring’s most compelling performances.
By Staff/Elly Oxman

Shining Bright
A glimpse at the spirit of Mathson Middle School, a San Jose school making remarkable strides.
By Gary Reyes

East Palo Alto High School Graduation
Civil Rights pioneer speaks to graduating seniors Monday, June 12, 2006.
By Jim Gensheimer/Akili Ramsess

Live 105’s 13th annual BFD concert
23 bands in 12 hours at the Shoreline Amphitheatre on Saturday, June 10, 2006.
By Jim Gensheimer

Latino Sports bar home to World Cup fans
Fans gathered at Futbol, Antojitos y Mas watched Mexico beat Iran 3-1.
By Gary Reyes

Gay Pride Festival
Voices at the San Jose Gay Pride Festival on Saturday June 10, 2006.  By Dai Sugano

Taking The Plunge
Disabled children and adults had a chance to try scuba diving and snorkeling at “Scuba Discovery” at Los Gatos Aquatic Center on Saturday June 10, 2006.
By Pauline Lubens /Richard Hernandez

Week 3

2006-06-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

District Attorney Candidate Judge Dolores Carr pins a campaign button on the former Santa Clara County DA, Leo Himmelsbach, left, as they wait for the election returns for the Santa Clara County District Attorney race with her supporters at the Britannia Arms of Almaden, on Tuesday night, June 6, 2006. (LiPo Ching/San Jose Mercury News)

FIELD NOTES

I continued training on the editing desk for two days, and shot the rest of the week. The important issues for me now are getting a basic understanding of how the newsroom works: the processes of meetings, budgets, systems; terms like nutgraphs, booking, lineups sheets, etc.; and how each section (1A, Metro, Sports, Entertainment, etc.) plans their content. I mentioned to Rick at the end of the Photo Desk management class that it would be good to devote a couple of classes to these issues – as a grad student, I didn’t have to take the reporting class, so I possibly missed learning about these things in school. In terms of shooting, I was just working on getting the rust out of my system and getting used to the Canon cameras. On a practical level, I’m continuing to learn Final Cut though I didn’t get a chance to work on any multimedia stories.

The most significant event of the week was the California Primary Elections, on June 6th, 2006, for which the paper devoted a special section. Most all of the photo staff was involved in shooting some aspect of the elections from the state to the local level. I was assigned to Judge Dolores Carr, one of the District Attorney candidates. The section was laid out before I went to shoot, so I knew what the picture requirements were.

The election coverage also included some multimedia pieces, including a video called:
Primary election day: In San Jose, the race for mayor was in the spotlight, but light turnout gave voters plenty of room to decide.
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/06/primary-election-day/

For multimedia, Geri requested that Richard shoot some video for mercurynewsphoto.com. Based on discussions with Richard after the completed piece was posted, here are some of the issues and processes:

The finished piece needed to be posted by 5pm, to target the after-work night peak in webpage hits on mercurynews.com (hits also peak in the morning before work)

Richard planned his schedule to shoot from 8a-12pm. His subjects included:
1) 3 candidates voting – quick shots
2) A polling station – spent a bit more time for a time-lapse/audio interview bit

After shooting:
1) Digitized 30 minutes of footage
2) Geri watched all 30 minutes of footage, then played with the footage for
another 30 minutes after which she consulted with Richard. According to Richard, Geri isn’t usually as involved with other multimedia pieces, but since this was a bigger and time sensitive story, Geri wanted to supervise the direction as well as get more video training herself as she is in the process of learning video editing.

Not wanting to copy broadcast news, Richard’s inclination was to go more abstract/impressionistic/abstruse, Geri “brought it back to a more journalistic direction.” She wanted to be more evenhanded to all the candidates, which follows the policy of the paper. So even though Richard didn’t shoot all the candidates, they brought in stills of the other people.

It’s also important to note that Richard had no preconceived story or direction from Geri for the video before going out to shoot. One of the clever elements in the piece was the snippets of actual candidate phone calls that Richard recorded from his home phone. I thought the opening time lapse sequence worked well, and was a good example of Richard's multimedia style. The approach to the second part of the piece was more straightforward and I think it tried to accomplish more than it was able -- but I believe this was due to the scope of the subject and the time constraints. In this particular case, it might have been nice to just stay with a smaller, impressionistic take.

Technical issues:
30 minutes of footage was digitized into 5 GB. The final piece was edited down to 2 minutes at 1.3 GB. It was then compressed into a 640x480 movie in 11MB.

According to Richard, aside from this particular case, no one is ever required to produce multimedia, and it’s not even offered as an option on the photo request pull-down menu. Sometimes a reporter or photo editor might suggest a doing multimedia on a story, but it’s never required. Though this week that seems to be changing. The circumstances of Joanne Ho-Young Lee’s Piano Competition preview multimedia piece straddled the request/assignment line (http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/08/piano-competition/) This particular shoot was not even going to be published in the paper. The published story during the final competition was going to refer to the multimedia piece, which was just a preview to the final competition.

Another trend is that sometimes photo editors will see enough pictures in a take to suggest a simple slideshow, even without recorded audio, such as Jim Gensheimer’s Strikeforce (http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/07/strikeforce/). With Soundslides, this process is relatively easy and sometimes the photo editors will do this for the photographers.

This past week, there were about 9 multimedia pieces posted on Mercury News (http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/). Here are my impressions.

AIDS: A Look Back (an interactive retrospective) http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/AIDS_timeline/main.html
Richard designed the Flash show using the graphics from the newspaper and posted a slideshow from photographer Pat Tehan. The retrospective photos are nice and Pat’s Photos are beautiful. The interactivity of the stage design works well but the only issue I might have is that the stage doesn't quite fit on a my computer screen. Again, I think it’s an issue of time and having a fulltime graphics designer assigned to web projects.

Besides Richard, Karen Borchers published a video called Raging Grannies
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/02/raging-grannies/
I thought this story worked well in video -- a nice, short snippet that captured the essence of the feisty protesters. In a conversation with Karen, she said that she didn’t have any formal trained in video but had always had a movie or video camera that she used personally.

One of the more impressive slideshow pieces was Dai Sugano’s TICKET TO NOVEMBER
http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/06/08/ticket-to-november/.
I think the audio narrative from the reporter really helps the viewer lock onto this 8 minute (!) story and the pictures are excellent.

The caveat to the following critique is that one has to realize that many of these slideshows were done as practice and to gain familiarity with the tools and computer interface. I’ve found that many of the audio slideshows that use interviews are a bit confusing to follow, especially when the captions are hidden and the pictures go too fast. I think time for title cards and captions are necessary. The Slideshows interface has some good and bad points. I like that you can start and stop easily and that you can drag the slide to individual pictures, but I don’t like that the captions cover the pictures. For these slideshows I had to view them 2-3 times to fully appreciate the story and pictures. I had to watch the pictures using the slider/pause with captions on, then watch to listen for audio… then maybe once more to really absorb it. It’s probably not the ideal way to view these. Some of the slideshows are also probably not great subjects for an audio slideshow, but again, they were produced more to help the photographer become comfortable with the tools.

The First Two Weeks

2006-06-02T22:59:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 2, 2006

This report comes after finishing my second week at the San Jose Mercury News. At this point, I’m still mostly trying to orient myself to the newsroom while being trained for the editing desk. As per the original intention, I’m working/training as a photographer and editor and I’ve had both a shooting assignment and one features editing shift. Since the Mercury News photo department is making a big foray into Multimedia, there’s also a bit of training/learning with audio and video shooting and editing. So we’re anticipating that it will take a little bit longer for me to get up to speed.

So far, people seem optimistic about the MediaNews/Dean Singleton takeover. In a meeting with Singleton and in a recent New York Times article, Singleton seems to indicate that the Mercury News will be his multimedia laboratory:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/22/business/media/22singleton.html

“Mr. Singleton intends to make a showcase of The San Jose Mercury News, in the heart of Silicon Valley, as a kind of laboratory for how to meld print with the Web. He is so excited about the prospects that he plans to buy a home in the Bay Area, while keeping his primary residence in Denver. ‘All the issues we're dealing with as an industry happened first in San Jose and are more dramatic in San Jose,’ he said in an interview. ‘And if you begin to find solutions to the dramatic changes that are going on there, you've found them for all newspapers.’”

Still, people seem to be leaving every day for other papers, though just as many people are being hired. In our department, they recently hired a photographer as well as fellow Mizzou grad, Elly Oxman, as a photo editor.

I also spent a bit of time talking with Richard Koci Hernandez, the Deputy Director of Photography/Multimedia, and learned a bit about how the Mercury News is approaching their multimedia. Right now, multimedia is being treated as a new frontier. In conversations with Richard and Geri Migielicz, the Director of Photography, there seems to be a willingness to try new things without worrying about success of failure. Basically learning as you go – this same sentiment was reiterated by Nancy Andrews, the D.P. at the Detroit Free Press in a conversation about 7 months ago. Both photo departments seem to be letting the photographers learn and develop their own style and methods of multimedia presentations, rather than following the models of film and television, though I’m sure they’ll adapt some of their methods and tools.

Some details and comments about their approach:

The photography website (mercurynewsphoto.com) is basically independent of the Newspapers online site (mercurynews.com). Richard and Dai Sugano, set up the site for the department from an independent web hosting service that was paid for through the department budget. In an interesting aside, in two recent regional photojournalism contests, mercurynewsphoto.com won 1st place awards for multimedia or online journalism. In the Best of the West, they also placed 3rd place. And in the other contest, they placed ahead of mercurynews.com, which came in 2nd place.

Since their computer illustrator/Flash expert recently left for the New York Times, Richard has become the self-taught Flash expert, designing the more complicated, interactive pieces and well as setting up and administering the site. They recently updated their website design using the Wordpress blogging software, which is popular with the general public. For audio slideshows they use a program called Soundslides, which is similar to the slide show system at MSNBC.com. (Richard said they were designed by the same person.) Richard is basically trying to set up the site so that photographers and editors can easily post the slideshows themselves, without having to learn complicated computer coding. Again, similar to MSNBC.com, where the templates were all preset, and the multimedia producers, concentrated mostly on content.

Though many slideshows are produced, video is still relatively new and sparsely used. All photographers are now issued a Sony HDR-HC1 HDV (High Definition) video camera, that has adopted the HDV1080i specification, utilizing 1080 effective scanning lines within the HDV standards, recording pictures at the image bit rate of about 25 Mbps. The HDV format has about two times the horizontal resolution of a standard TV resulting in about 4 times the amount of pixels providing high quality images. This format records HD on the DV tape format. Ironically, just prior to starting the internship I spoke to Jeff Kimes, the Director of Post-Production at Aardvark Post, who said they hate posting TV shows using the HDV format, which is firewire based, and not up to the same standards as other formats.

The Mercury News is using HD because they can also pull stills for printing in the newspaper, which they’ve done several times. Staff photographer Karen Borchers shot an assignment completely on video, from which stills were extracted and printed in the paper. She didn’t touch her still camera for the assignment: http://www.mercurynewsphoto.com/2006/05/19/28th-annual-kiwanis-special-games/

They had some issues in the beginning with video compression and streaming, but through trial and error -- and just asking around the multimedia industry – Richard learned that a program called Sorensen Squeeze is what everyone uses to process video for the web.

The photographers are still using consumer level post-production tools from Apple’s iLife suite. iMovie HD for video editing and Garageband for sound editing. That will probably change soon as Richard has begun ordering Final Cut Express HD for the photographers (aside -- Avid’s low end mac-based edit system still doesn’t work for HD yet.) The issue here is that Final Cut is a bit more complex to learn. People will reach varying levels of competency. Also, there have been conversations about trying to edit in camera as you shoot, because it’s just too hard to get pieces ready under deadlines.

I feel that even though photojournalists will develop their own standards for multimedia storytelling, they may consider borrowing some of the methods from tv and video – specialized duties. Some people might be able to do it all well, but many may not be able to surpass a certain level. For example, in this Sunday’s AIDS: A Look Back presentation, issues of music were discussed. On a documentary, there would be a composer and sound designer/editor working on these issues. Will most of our multimedia presentations rely on canned music that may not have the nuances needed for sophisticated shows?

There may still be a need for graphics/flash experts, video editors, sound recordists and editors -- though trained with the photojournalist’s ethics. On the other hand, Richard is now playing with Final Cut Studio, including Soundtrack Pro and hopes to throw in some Adobe Aftereffects.

At the moment, I’m interested in working with video – hoping to make an easy transition into Final Cut from the Avid, and using my video shooting and directing experience in multimedia journalism. It might be a good niche to fill at the Mercury News. Since it’s summer, they have a bit more time and are working on a multimedia community story project. I may be able to work on that project, or I have an idea for another project, centered around fertility issues and sperm donors, which has always had some amount of controversy attached to it. There’s a sperm donor in the Northern CA area that has been in contact with a child he’s fathered. They’re planning to meet over the summer and seem to be willing to have their story photographed. I just started pursuing this, so we’ll see what happens.

Other miscellaneous notes:

1) Worked on some interesting photo layouts for their weekly “In-Depth” Section. Pictures would be changed according to layout.
2) The photographers and editors have been very helpful and I think it’s going to be a rewarding experience. Unlike the Bay City Times, this makes much more sense in the context of what we learned at the Missourian.
3) Geri seems to be a film fan, and open to experimenting with storytelling forms, having studied documentaries at Stanford.
4) They mentioned that there would be another job opening in the editing department and asked if I might be interested. Nothing concrete – they were just throwing it out there.