Multimedia Requirements

Just one story on SLAC Today this morning about Lylie Fisher who is an artist who recently donated a number of prints to the Director's Office to hang. I talked about meeting her and the director a few days ago, and this story is the product of that meeting.

Yesterday I was asked to snap a picture at the GLAST collaboration meeting being held on site. Today I went and interviewed a few summer interns and was asked to bring the camera for photos. Tomorrow I plan on going out with an employee in the housing department to profile how that office works—and you know I'll bring my camera.

Every story needs a picture, and almost every picture needs to have people in it. This is the law of the land when it comes to SLAC Today articles, and you can guess who is responsible for producing the photos…the writer.

I don't think this is just at SLAC or just for interns either. I think this is a very common requirement in the world of journalism today. Nobody just writes anymore, they have to be proficient at taking pictures and video for online editions. This fact really makes me appreciate the photography class I had to take at Indiana University. Now, hopefully, my pictures don't completely suck and contain a certain measure of style, color, and design.

And I've found that I really enjoy taking pictures. At least, I do when the subject in the view finder is interesting. Sometimes it’s a bit tedious to take pictures for stories here at SLAC, but now and then I get a real treat, like the car show/barbecue picture I took early last week, or the "rat rod" photo I took a few weeks ago.

If you happen to be interested in some more of my photography, such as pictures from Stanford's campus, San Francisco and Yosemite, check out my gallery website at www.kodakgallery.com/kingery.