Quezon City Division Secondary Schools Press Conference (QC DSSPC), September 11, 16-18, 2014, FEU Diliman

Update as of September 18, 2023: If you’re a high school or grade school student in the Philippines who’s joining the photojournalism contest in the division, regional, or national press conference, I’m offering two free resources to you : A. 900-plus interactive exercises on English grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal analogy, etc (with around 200 megabytes total file size). The exercises have time limit and automatic scoring, with an average of 10 items per exercise. Examples of these interactive exercises are: Common English grammar errors: Exercise 01 (nouns - confusions of number); Phrasal Verbs: Expressions with Go; English Placement Test (45 items). B. 200-plus resources (JPG, PDF, MP4, etc.) on photography and photojournalism, with 600-plus megabytes total file size. For some examples of these resources, surf to the “Free photography e-books, cheat sheets” page. For the download links and more information about how to use the interactive exercises, please surf to my “Better English resources and exercises” blog. Please inform your journalism teacher/schoolpaper adviser or your parents about these resources before downloading them. If you have any question about downloading or using these free resources, please email me (after informing your journalism teacher/schoolpaper adviser or your parents). I’ll be able to reply to you within two to three days; if you don’t see my reply in your Inbox, check your Spam folder. Or, you can text me. Also, if you win in the photojournalism contest at whatever level (district, division, regional, or national), you can send me your prizewinning pictures, and I will feature them in a blog post. Atty. Gerry T. Galacio gtgalacio@yahoo.com 0927-798-3138

Wedding photography

Free cheat sheets on wedding photography from Digital Camera World: Great wedding photography; 9 classic pictures of the bride and groom

Bro. Robert Questadio and Sis. Ellenor Flores wedding,
July 29, 2006, Bethel Baptist Church, Quezon City

Some jitters before the big moment

Making sure the veil's right

Robert with parents and parents-in-law waiting for the processional

Pastor and Mrs. Gary Philipps

Bridesmaids galore

A picture of serenity

Sharing a secret at the altar

Free resource on street photography

From Eric Kim Street Photography, available as Word doc or PDF.

Karylle’s awful photo in Fruitas ad

Ever since Angel Locsin (the most beautiful woman in the universe) got into a relationship with Azkals star Phil Younghusband, I’ve turned my attentions elsewhere. Recently, I’ve become enamored with Karylle, singer-TV host and daughter of Zsa Zsa Padilla. During lunch breaks while waiting for our water tank to fill up, I would watch her ABS-CBN show. (When she’s not on a segment, I would switch the TV to Masterchef 3, Dog Whisperer,  and History shows like Storage Wars, Pawn Stars, and Kings of Restoration.)

Karylle looks so refreshing and young enough to be a college student. (She looks like the younger version of the second most beautiful woman in the universe I have referred to several times in my Salt and Light blog.) Karylle also seems to be very intelligent; one time, she mentioned the Barack Obama-Mitt Romney debates. On the negative side, her weight loss doesn’t suit her, and contact lenses make her look cross-eyed.

Last week, while at an Ever Gotesco branch, I walked by a Fruitas stand and I saw Karylle’s photo. The Fruitas ad showed her in a sleeveless, low cut, lavender green shirt. The photographer shot her from a high angle. Because the light source comes from the left (from Karylle’s vantage point, from her right), there are shadows on her face and body. Overall, her ad photo has dark tones.

My forte is photojournalism, not portraiture or advertising photography. But I think that the Fruitas ad photo fails to show Karylle’s beauty and in my opinion, will fail to attract customers for Fruitas. Karylle’s photo should have been shot in much lighter tones – to show her fair complexion and to entice people to buy Fruitas. If you remember my discussion on the elements of a photograph, light tones convey to the viewers a cheerful, open, and optimistic mood. The shadows in Karylle’s photo should have been avoided with front lighting. And a normal, eye level point of view should have been used instead of a high angle.

“Time is Nothing” (time lapse video of 25,000 miles across 17 countries in 290 seconds)

Photographer Kien Lam visited 17 countries in 343 days to create this time lapse video. He rode 19 planes, 58 buses, and 18 boats in his travels. He shot 6,237 pictures in all.

Background music is “Places and Faces” by his brother William (Metaphysika Sounds).

Visit the Around The World FAQ page.

Free ebook: Smashing Magazine 5th anniversary offer

This free ebook contains the best articles that have been published on Smashing Magazine in the last five years. It is available in PDF, ePUB and Mobipocket formats. Topics include:

• Thirty Usability Issues to Be Aware Of
• Ten Principles of Effective Web Design
• Clever JPEG Optimization Techniques
• Typographic Design Patterns and Best Practices
• Ten Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines
• Setting Up Photoshop for Web and iPhone Development
• The Ails of Typographic Anti-Aliasing
• Mastering Photoshop: Noise, Textures and Gradients
• Better User Experience With Storytelling
• The Beauty of Typography, Writing Systems and Calligraphy
• Web Designers, Don’t Do It Alone
• Making Your Mark on the Web Is Easier Than You Think
• Responsive Web Design: What It Is and How to Use It
• I Want to Be a Web Designer When I Grow Up
• Persuasion Triggers in Web Design
• What Font Should I Use?
• The Design Matrix: A Powerful Tool for Guiding Client Input
• Why User Experience Cannot Be Designed
• Dear Web Design Community, Where Have You Gone?
• Make Your Content Make a Difference
• Two Cats in a Sack: Designer-Developer Discord
• Print Loves Web

Sports Journalism Today, from AtGoogleTalks

Tim Kawakami (San Jose Mercury-News), King Kaufman (Salon.com, Bleacher Report), and Ethan Sherwood Strauss (Salon.com, ESPN TrueHoop, WarriorsWorld.net) discuss the state of sports journalism today. From traditional newspaper coverage to the competitive business of professional blogging, Tim, King, and Ethan share their experiences and give some insight into this high-profile industry. Each will speak for about 15 minutes, followed by a Q&A session.

Free PDF on journalism for the Internet

“Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive, A digital literacy guide for the information age”, by Mark Briggs (Assistant Managing Editor for Interactive News, The News Tribune) 

PDF English version now available for download; also available in Spanish or Portuguese. You can also order hard copies.
 
Topics include: Chapter 1: FTP, MB, RSS, Oh My

Chapter 2: Web 2.0

Chapter 3: Tools and Toys
Chapter 4: New Reporting Methods

Chapter 5: How to Blog

Chapter 6: How to Report News for the Web
Chapter 7: Digital Audio and Podcasting
Chapter 8: Shooting and Managing Digital Photos

Chapter 9: Shooting Video for News and Feature Stories

Chapter 10: Basic Video Editing
Chapter 11: Writing Scripts, Doing Voice-overs

For continuing discussion of new technology for journalists, check out Mark Briggs’ Journalism 2.0 site.

Using plain language in government websites; free book on website design and usability

Free website usability guidelines book, from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Throughout your Web design or redesign project, you should take advantage of what is already known about best practices for each step of the process. The Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines (PDF, 20.64MB) brings you these best practices compiled through an extensive process of research and review. (From usability.gov)

You can also download specific sections of the book:

• design process and evaluation (PDF - 1.9MB)
• optimizing the user experience (PDF - 9.1MB)
• accessibility (PDF - 2.4MB)
• hardware and software (PDF - 2.8MB)
• the homepage (PDF - 12.1MB)
• page layout (PDF - 21.9MB)
• navigation (PDF - 13.1MB)
• scrolling and paging (PDF - 4.5MB)
• headings, titles, and labels (PDF - 7.8MB)
• links (PDF - 17.1MB)
• text appearance (PDF - 11.2MB)
• lists (PDF - 6.6MB)
• screen-based controls (widgets) (PDF - 15.1MB)
• graphics, images, and multimedia (PDF - 16.8MB)
• writing Web content (PDF - 11.0MB)
• content organization (PDF - 10.1MB)
• search (PDF - 9.1MB)
• usability testing (PDF - 1MB)