On diversity of education

Rationale for personal choice of areas of emphasis

More than once I have asked myself what I am going to do with a community development major. Each time I reconsider this I have come out more convinced that this is the major for me.

International Community Development (ICD) is a diverse degree which gives me  a vast source of information to draw from when I am either on the mission field or in the work force.

From the general education credits, I have learned how ancient civilizations relate to today’s society, my life has been enriched through science and language courses, and my writing skills and general health have improved. The ICD core classes have opened my eyes to resources to which I still make reference or run to for information. All these classes have added to the knowledge source which I will be able to draw on for the rest of my life. Continue reading

From heartache to hope…and beyond (ResLife Stories)

The story of Gisela Grant
From heartache to hope.

Gisela Grant’s life was a mess and she knew it.
After moving to central Canada and finding another broken relationship, she came back to Michigan and found out that when you keep running from God, something in life eventually wears out.
Gisela was in the middle of a life of “drugs, bars, and men” when she started slowing down.
“I had enough of my lifestyle,” she said. “I got down on my hands and knees and said, ‘OK, God, it’s your turn. I’m done.”
Change began, but she was about to discover what giving up really meant. Still looking for relationships, Gisela met another guy and he invited her to a singles group that met at Resurrection Life Church.
Something was different there so she decided to keep coming, but the draw of her past kept her struggling between the new life she wanted and the past that was hard to let go.
After almost a year of wavering, Gisela found herself on a hospital bed racked with a fever, kidney failure, and a body that was starting to shut down. Continue reading

Don’t come back without them.

Whatever you are covering, there are three shots every photographer should bring back to the newsroom: The overall shot, the medium shot, and the close-up. These are your must haves.

The overall shot

Often a wide angle or expansive shot that provides an overall view establishing the scene. This image let’s the viewer see how the subject(s) is/are oriented in relationship to the whole scene.

Take a street festival for example…the overall shot may show the expanse of the street lined with vendor booths and crowded with people with a perspective from a high vantage point. This image lets the viewer see how big this event really is.

The medium shot

This shot is the basic story teller shot. It lets the viewer see the subject close enough to view their actions but not so tight that they are secluded from their environment or people they are interacting with.

Back to the street festival example…the medium shot may show a street vendor interacting with a customer and leaves enough environment to place the interaction at the festival.

The close up

This shot pulls out details that support the other two shots. By narrowing the field of view, it forces the viewer to come closer and, in effect, enter the scene themselves. A close up gives the viewer that personal view of even small details that make up the whole of the scene.

In the street festival, the close up may be the sticky fist of a child holding an ice cream cone and framed by an equally sticky face or the intricate carving of an artisan’s craft.

By making sure you’ve got these three covered, you’re going to have a much better chance of coming back with not just one image that “works” but getting a story in images that will help you show what you saw and keep your editor happy.

Warm Lenses

This is the second part of a two-part entry. Part I covers tips for Journalists, while Part II covers tips for Photojournalists.
As a journalist, staying practiced up is something that’s a must. Whether you’re a student, a stringer or a full-time staffer, you’ve got stay on top of your game. I call it keeping your pencil sharp for journalists and your lenses warm for photojournalists. Here are a few tips for doing just that.

Tips for keeping your lenses warm:

  • Shoot. Evaluate. Shoot better. Always evaluate your work. Look through the contact sheets and see what worked and what didn’t. Then figure out what you need to do more of and what you need to avoid so you can do it better next time. Continue reading

Sharp Pencils

This is the first part of a two-part entry. Part I covers tips for Journalists, while Part II covers tips for Photojournalists.

As a journalist, staying practiced up is something that’s a must. Whether you’re a student, a stringer or a full-time staffer, you’ve got stay on top of your game. I call it keeping your pencil sharp for journalists and your lenses warm for photojournalists. Here are a few tips for doing just that. Continue reading

The other side of the bad news

Crime, death, destruction and all the other bad news can become so common in that even as journalists we can forget to see the other side of the good.

We can spend all our time showing and telling the bad news that we skip the good to get on to telling the story of the next tragedy. Within every tragedy there is usually someone or something that shines a light of hope, love, or just a reminder that a little caring can make a difference. Don’t forget to tell those stories.

In 2004 I had the privilege to make two trips to Guatemala. While in Chichicastenango, Guatemala documenting missionary and humanitarian aid work there, I was introduced to a sad story. Among the Quiche-speaking indigenous people of that area, statistically 60 out of every 1,000 babies die before reaching the age of five in this region or Guatemala. I saw extremely underweight babies, a child with clubbed feet and hundreds of women bringing their children to a milk program to help them provide nutrition for their children. That’s where the silver-lining started showing up.

I spent time documenting a clinic and milk program, but one of the highlights of my time there was getting to spend time with a little boy named Daniel.

Daniel was one of those babies that would statistically be unlikely to live past five, but Daniel had beat the statistics. He was six years old when I met him. As a baby he had been through an extreme fever and was mentally and physically impaired as a result. He is considered blind and over his six years of life had never spoken although his sensitivity made him scream when touched. He lived on a wide bed in his family’s cement block house under a tin roof where his mother provided the best care she could.

That was the sad reality, but the story I got to tell was of how that reality was changing. Through a rudimentary therapy program, Daniel was showing improvements and was responding well and gradually began to expressed enjoyment of the attention and therapy he received.

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Six-year-old Daniel’s mother gives him a drink during a therapy session at their home. Daniel is physically disabled since a high fever during his infancy. Through the medical assistance of a missionary outreach, his physical condition and responses have been improving.

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Daniel giggles while being tickled by caregiver Shawn Helwer. Through physical therapy, Daniel has gone from screaming when touched to giggling and laughing during his semi-regular therapy sessions provided by volunteers from a local medical outreach in Chichicastenango, Guatemala.

Whether you’re covering a crime-ridden neighborhood or showing how the economic downturn is sending people into bankruptcy, don’t gloss over it or stop there. Dig a little deeper and find the stories of how lives are also being helped by the people and organizations that are bringing a ray of light into the sad situations of life. Your informative and objective story might actually help someone see that there is a reality of hope as well as despair.

For information about the organization that is helping provide care for Daniel and other children in Guatemala, visit www.aselsi.org

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Michael Shead is a photojournalist and writer with experience in small town journalism as well as international video documentaries. He serves as Communications Director at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville, Michigan. He also teaches photojournalism at Cornerstone University.

Get closer

“They” say you can miss the forest because of the trees, but many times it’s easy as journalists to show the forest and fail to let people know what the “trees” are really like. I’ve had times like that. When I worked at the  Fort Scott Tribune, I found that forest in things like the summer street festival that I’d covered year after year or the school board’s monthly meetings. Yet, it was by stepping closer and closer that I started finding “trees” that helped both me and my readers find out what an interesting thing these forests really are. Here are four tips that I’ve found help me take a step closer:

  1. Get past the pros. The professionals are great for the stats and figures and they even have anecdotes that get you closer, but if you don’t let them introduce you to the real people who are directly affected by the issue you’re covering, you can get stuck showing your readers the forest. By stepping closer you can show them things like: the family that can’t pay their winter gas bill, the farmer who’s corn is turning brown because of the drought, the 28-year-old who’s just signed a mortgage on a condo in a tax-free zone and bring those numbers into vivid color. Many times the “pros” can put you in touch with the real people who are affected. Then, you can tell their stories and help the stats and figures come to life.
  2. Let your feet do some walking. Sure your fingers are faster, but there’s nothing like getting down in the action and walking through the neighborhoods. Get out of that car and walk around the block. You’ll meet people and you’ll find stories you can’t get in a drive-by.
  3. Take the time. The relationships that I build with time tend to be the ones that keep providing me with valuable tips and open doors. Because of a relationship I had, I was once invited to be the only media present when two Vietnam war buddies met and cried with a family. The veterans had come to share the story of how that family’s brother and son had died beside them some 20 years prior and it was the first time for the family to hear the story. Several years after that story, I ended up getting a personal account story from that same family from a son who had been in New York City on September 11th, 2001.
  4. See again for the first time. Whether it’s that street festival or the city budget meetings, try to look at it with the fresh eyes of someone who’s seeing it for the first time. It works for photographers and it works for writers, but sometimes it just takes work to see it with a fresh perspective. I’d covered the school board’s battle with the teacher’s union for months, but when I stepped closer and investigated pay and benefit rates compared with surrounding districts, I was able to show people more than an ongoing debate and let them see the reality of the situation.

————–<p>Michael Shead is a photojournalist and writer with experience in small town journalism as well as  international video documentaries. He serves as Communications Director at Resurrection Life Church in Grandville, Michigan. He also teaches photojournalism at Cornerstone University.