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Back in Belleville

After spending two weeks in California, I'm finally resting at home and working somewhat hard at the Belleville News-Democrat.

The Knight Ridder visual journalism workshop and the Society of News Design's annual workshop, both in San Jose, both were useful for me. It's always good to get fresh ideas to recharge my creativity, and it's good to know that what I'm doing generally is on the right track. I had the privilege of meeting Buck Ryan, the University of Kentucky professor who developed the Maestro Concept, a method of encouraging reporters, photographers, graphic artists, editors and page designers to work together to plan newspaper story telling.

The use of graphics to convey information is increasing. I know that creates concern for reporters, some of whom are convinced that a long story is the best way to tell a story. The reality is that more and more newspaper readers are skimmers, and you are lucky if a reader gets past the first three or four paragraphs of a story. That's why it's imporant to have infographics and strong visuals so people can get the facts quickly.

I'm hoping our staff will embrace story planning as the way to go.

The second week of my trip was a vacation with stops in Monterey, Carmel, San Francisco and Yosemite National Park. I had never been to California before, and I feel privileged to have seen those parts of the world. Point Lobos State Reserve's rocky shoreline is absolutely gorgeous, and the Carmel Mission provided great moments of peace after a long week of newspaper design workshops. As for Yosemite, words cannot describe the power of seeing such landmarks as El Capitan and Half Dome. I found myself spending lots of time trying to capture the right mood in photographing Half Dome. I don't know whether I succeeded; I know I didn't quite match the power of Ansel Adams' famous photographs of the park, but I gave it my best shot. I hope to post some of those photos here or somewhere else on my Web site sometime in the near future.

Roger 0 comments 11:44 AM