A colegue from far away contacted me to talk about multimedia and stuff. They had a few questions that I am of course more than happy to answer. Learning how do soundslides, gathering audio, shooting enough good pics and developing interview techniques to the computer side of the whole thing is not easy when traditionally local news photographers have only really had to worry about getting 2-3 decent shots for the print edition.

I take every opportunity I get to eulogize about the benifits I have got personally and profesionally from making the transition and have been trying to get a course set up so that I can help other photographers develop.
I’ve always been a photographer first but, working for a news operation means we are also journalists. Only change is that now, I am a multimedia photojournalist.

Yes, it takes allot of hard work and many hours, mostly my own time, to get to somewhere nearing getting to be alright at making multimedia. I think I have made pretty good progress but there is a long road ahead.

Is it worth it? A difficult question. If you are self motivated, if you can take the decision to occasionally have put many hours work in the bin, if you are prepared to make the effort to get your brain into gear and biggest of all, if you can identify what will make an interesting piece of MM that the readers will find engaging. then I guess the answer is a solid yes.

How much longer will I be able to, or can afford to carry on developing? who knows. The core tasks of a local newspaper photographer are to shoot stills for the print edition anything else requires more work. Multimedia is hard to do and we all like to be stroked once in a while.