On JOUR 3610

I am finally into the photojournalism classes, and I am in a ... satisfying ... relationship with the class. "Satisfying," for everyone's reference, hides somewhere between "Goddamn, I love this," and "Goddamn, this sucks." It's not an easy class, and it's not an unrewarding class. I take pictures, and I learn, though I'm constantly frustrated and unhappy with my own work.

At first, it was a little boring, going over the nuances of manual cameras, since I've been shooting manual for the last six or so years. I wouldn't miss the class for anything (aside from maybe a salsa performance in a few weeks, but more on that later) though, just because I do enjoy the professor and the non-technical material we cover in class, a.k.a. "ratholes." I'd really like to get more into the non-technical aspects of the craft: talking to people, finding stories (we have gone over a lot of this, but not to the extent which I would prefer), and I'd really like to discuss the concept of "finding a style." Every photographer I've ever talked to has mentioned this abstraction, and, being the son of an engineer who works with concrete facts and figures, I can only just say, "What the hell?"

I look forward to continuing through the series of classes, especially some of the stuff we'll supposedly do on slideshows and different presentation types. I'll hopefully be signed up for the new class next semester on using newer technology with media, but we'll just have to wait and see. My final (and not total, as we're only halfway through the semester) assessment of the course is that it's engaging, demanding, and totally worth it.