Looking ahead

I arrived at this orientation and training without expectations. Today I leave with a set of goals and enthusiasm that I would have never been able to generate on my own. I feel refreshed and inspired, and most important, resilient.

I found out this morning that I was rejected for a prestigious, competitive fellowship that I had applied for. After the initial disappointment (following a two-month application process), I feel excited to have a door open again that had been hinging on this decision.

A lot of reporters who went through the multimedia training this week have said that they are no longer afraid to tinker with equipment that once intimidated them. I no longer feel intimidated by the application process. I have the most specialized equipment in the world -- good contacts, editors and mentors -- to guide me.

Being uncertain about where I'll end up in the next couple of months is kind of exciting. I know that after this experience, I won't only have help in applying for future internships and jobs. I'll also have a lot of different couches to crash on in many different places. And that's just as important to me.

I have learned so much and love you all.

Making friends with raw video

As a photographer, I like things to be pretty.

Clean backgrounds. Sharp focus. Artful composition. Everything under control.

So when I started shooting video in college, I paid attention to detail. I always used a tripod, white-balanced, manual-focused -- you name it. If a shot wasn't technically perfect, it went to the digital cutting-room floor. The editing took so long that I ended up hating what I was left with. I edited the heart and soul out of every story I shot.

So when Val Hoeppner, manager of multimedia education with the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute, started her multimedia lecture today, I was surprised to hear her extol the virtues of what I thought was the devil of all Web sites: raw video.

To me, the thought of shaky-handed interviews with fuzzy audio was just unprofessional and distracted from the subject. But when she showed the powerful videos from the Hovey Street murders series she and her staff worked on, I was blown away. They weren't technically perfect, but they were emotional and timely, which made them even more sincere.

Most impressive, though, was the confession the paper received once the suspects viewed the videos on the paper’s Web site. It was a perfect display of how technology and interactivity can breed results beyond any we can imagine.

Today taught me to not edit out the passion of the moment or withhold it because it isn't technically perfect. Capturing the moment is 100 times more important, and that sincerity beats out a tripod any day.

Creating journalism that matters

I expect to come out of the conference with a renewed sense of how to create journalism that matters, on different platforms. Multimedia journalism is so often used as a blanket term for any content on a Web site. I hope to learn how to use technology in the best way possible to tell stories of people in my community in a relevant manner that best reaches readers. I know that sounds vague, but what it boils down to is moving beyond making "pretty pictures" as a photographer and really focusing on capturing the moments that matter, and using new tools to enhance understanding of issues. Here are a couple photos from the first day:

John Quinn walking out of the John Seigenthaler Center after our opening dinner and reception.

(L-R) Javier Barrera, Marjon Rostami and Dalina Castellanos listen to Val Hoeppner's tour of the Diversity Institute.

The street outside our hotel includes a cupcake shop, a couple of bars and an amazing record store. I love Nashville!