Mulit-Media Room
Whenever I made a documentary project, I felt that my images were not enough. It seemed to me that the voice of the subject was needed to round out the story. After all, the project was made from my perspective only and I felt that the subject’s perspective was what I was trying to reveal.
At first, when I added the voice of the subject it was usually text that accompanied the image. Even though I would tape interviews with the subjects, it always seemed so clumsy to have some sort of a tape player accompanying my images. Multi-media presentations or digital storytelling solved this dilemma.
My first step into Multi-media began in October of 2001 I was a participant in the Visual Edge workshop hosted by the Poynter Institute in FL. When we were given a choice of assignments and one of them was to cover a mosque, I jumped at the opportunity since it was so close to 9.11. I knew nothing about the Muslim religion and now I had an entrée using my digital camera and digital recorder to educate not only myself but to share my experience with others.
Through this workshop I began a journey into digital storytelling. Please check out the following website and see what you think:
www.wisualedge.org
When you get there, click on Story #8 and then Launch Story.
Several years after Visual Edge I was received a grant from the Roberts Foundation to continue with my interest in the Muslim faith, this time, on a local basis in the greater Hartford area and I created a Digital Story called “Beyond the Veil”. This work asked questions centering on teenage, Muslim girls, and why they chose to wear the veil (Hijab) or not to wear the veil in our western culture. Some of the answers were surprising, and I found the girls to be very eloquent speakers.
Follow this link to see the story:
Recently, (this past May) I attended the NPPA (National Press Photographers’) Multi-Media,Immersion Workshop at the Newhouse School of Commmunication, University of Syracuse. I was trying to stay current with the ever-changing trends in technology and started to learn Final Cut Pro (the industry standard software for creating digital storytelling.)
Click on the following link to see this story:
All photography, art and writings ©1990-2010 Christine Breslin