Photojournalism Today

In today’s world where we can share photos of what is going on in our lives with anyone at a moment’s notice through the use of our smartphones and social media accounts, what role does photojournalism really play in our society? Is it becoming obsolete as a career?

With the release of social media websites and apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, along with the invention of smartphones with fairly featured cameras in their own rights, many people feel that the role of typical photojournalists in spreading news has virtually vanished.

Now any witness to an event can simply snap a photo with their smartphone and post it to social media almost instantly, thus making it much easier to share news with the world, while most photojournalists use DSLR cameras, which do not allow instant sharing of the photos, thus forcing the photographer to wait until he or she has access to a computer to share their photos with the world.

And possibly even more important is the nature of the photos being shared on social media-the people taking these photos and sharing them online don’t have to wait to write an article about the photo or let their publisher see them first-they can simply post them instantly and say whatever they want about the event depicted in their photo.

Technology like this that allows anyone to become a type of journalist is the reason why many people believe that the roles of traditional journalists will soon vanish and be replaced by normal, everyday people.

Meetings Scheduled To Decide on Future of District

Over the last several years, Greater Johnstown Middle School building has suffered from large amounts of damage and wear and tear from its many years of use.

Now, GJSD has scheduled three meetings with community stakeholders in the school district in order to decide whether the middle school will stay open following the 2016-2017 school year, or if it will be closed down.

The meetings concerning the future of the middle school will be held on the following dates-April 25th at 6 pm in the West Side Elementary cafeteria, April 26th at East Side Elementary from 5:30 to 6:30 in the auditorium, and April 26th at Johnstown High School from 6:30 to 7:30 in the auditorium.

Johnstown: Third Fastest Shrinking City In The US

According to a list recently released by 24/7 Wall Street, Johnstown and its surrounding area is officially the third fastest shrinking city in the United States, with the only ones listed above it being Pine Bluff, Arizona and Farmington, New Mexico.

When describing Johnstown, 24/7 Wall Street said “Most metro areas with declining populations also have declining economies. Few had as rapidly shrinking GDPs as Johnstown, however. The metro area’s economic output contracted by an average of 2.4% annually between 2011 and 2015. As is common in areas with significant population declines, property values are low in Johnstown. The typical area home is worth only $89,100, one of the lowest median home values of all U.S. metro areas.”

From 2011 to 2016, the population of Johnstown decreased by 5.50 percent, the average household income was a mere $38,512 (compared to the nationwide average of over $50,000), and the unemployment rate was 6.1 percent, versus the nationwide average unemployment rate of 4.7 percent.

Johnstown is shrinking fast, and many are now wondering whether the city will be able to recover, or if it is destined to go the way of so many other small cities-slowly fading into the background over time.

Respect Your Peers (Fellow photographers)

I have recently been seeing this a lot in social media, so I wanted to make a short video of it.

D5100 First Day Review

So, yesterday, after what felt like decades of waiting (even though it was actually less than a week), I finally got my new(-ish) Nikon D5100 in the mail that I ordered from B & H Photo Video. My first impression of the camera was that it was fairly similar to the Nikon D3300 that I was accustomed to shooting with, despite the obvious differences. Many of the functions seemed to be the same, and I had no trouble at all understanding how to operate the D5100 right after I pulled it out of the box.

In the video here, you can see my first thoughts on the D5100 after pulling it out of the box. Then, later last night, after I charged the battery and messed with the camera a little bit, I recorded the video below.

And then, below the video here, you can see some of the photos I've taken with the camera over the last twenty-four hours or so (not quite twenty four.). 

I have enjoyed the camera so far, and haven't really found any big problems with it, but I'll update with a new article possibly in the next few days to tell you about my further experiences with the camera.

Portraiture Advice From A Beginner

Portraiture From a Beginner

Mr. Smith, Greater Johnstown Senior High School Principle

To a young photographer with little to no experience, portraiture can be a very daunting experience to try.

A portrait is any photograph where your subject is a person, although normally, a portrait is more of a posed photo instead of the more candid ones.

This photo here is of my niece, Aria, when we went for a hike one day in the woods near her aunt's house.

The reason portraiture is a little scary to most new photographers is because it can seem so formal, like something that only professionals can really do, but in reality, that's not true. Every time you lift you camera and take a picture of another person, you are taking a portrait.

My brother, Melvin, and his daughter, Arial. 

To take a portrait, you don't necessarily have to bring your subject into a studio and spend twenty minutes getting a perfect pose out of them. Just try to capture their personality in your photos. That's really the ultimate goal of any portrait photographer, to just capture the personality of their subject and tell a story about the person with a photo.

When you're taking a photo of someone, do your best to make them feel comfortable. If they're nervous about being in front of the camera, you won't capture an authentic vision of who they are, because everyone acts different whenever they're in front of a camera. 

Make your subject forget that the camera is there. Make them think you're just a normal person-one of their friends even, and that's how you get the most genuine depiction of who a person truly is. 

Photos