Inauguration Day @ Texas State University

[Anthony Martinez]

Two very different reactions, within 20' of each other.

[robert t]

Where were the tombstones set up? My daughter is there. She didn't say anything about the display but then she may not have even pass through the area. She was probably at Jowers most of the day.

[Anthony Martinez]

Robert,

Both photos were taken at the head of the quad, right by the giant horses in front of Derrick Hall.

Anthony

[robert t]

Ok, Thanks. Bet she din't go that way. She is over in Smith.

[Anthony Martinez]

Now that they've opened up the sidewalk that goes from Smith down toward the Psych building, it's easy to imagine not walking through the Quad to get where you need to go (if you even need to go in that direction). Last semester it was required if you had to get any further east than Derrick.

[johnastovall]

Nice well done pictures but they lack the one that makes a shoot true photojournalism (the kind you would submit to an editor) CAPTIONS. The lack of captions is the constant offense I see in this forum. Any shoot worthy of being called 'photojournalism' must have a caption. And that caption should contain at a minimum the basic AP caption information. Just think, where, when, what and who. The who is important if a local paper wants to run it.
And it's not a bad idea for practice to complete the IPTC fields for the work.

[Anthony Martinez]

Thanks for the input. I do fill out IPTC information on the photos themselves (to avoid having to again populate data fields when uploading to Flickr, etc), but do have a few questions. The full spectrum of useable metadata fields is obviously enormous, and somewhat confusing to me. There is both a "caption" and a "description", the two words have quite similar definitions - but which is the proper field when filling in IPTC data? For example, and a poor one at that (but I'll run with what I have), the photo of the two people has the following fields:

Description: Two happy people on Inauguration Day
City: San Marcos
State: TX - Texas
Country: USA - United States
Title: Happy
Copyright Notice: Anthony Martinez

What I see, however, are fields available for: Document Title, Headline, Keywords, Description, Description Writer, Instructions, Author Title, Credit, Source, City, State/Province, Country, Transmission Reference, Copyright, Copyright Info URL, Urgency, Creator, Creator: Job Title, Creator: Address, Creator: City, Creator: State/Province, Creator: Postal Code, Creator: Country, Creator: Phone(s), Creator: Email(s), IPTC Subject Code, Intellectual Genre, IPTC Scene, Location, ISO Country Code, Job Identifier, Provider, and Rights Usage Terms.

Still, those are only the fields Bridge sees fit to show - there are more within the full standard. So, what actually gets filled in?

[johnastovall]

'CAPTION' is for the who, what, where, when.

I would cover all the creator fields, subject code, scene code, location, ISO country code and Rights Usage Terms. If you submit to a paper, ask what the editor wants but if you submit to a service the more the better as many use those codes to catalog the image without human eyes even seeing it or they will have a page on their website what they require.

But a written caption is critical. I'm a string for a regional paper and they don't really use IPTC (yet) but each image I email the day editor must have a caption covering the basic four W's. This holds even if I'm with a reporter but a lot of the time it's go to and get us a picture of.

That's why it think it's important for people posting here get in the habit of at least providing basic captions for each photo.

[Anthony Martinez]

Thanks again.

[toverman]

As a former reporter/editor/photographer for more than one newspaper, I agree with Stovall. To an editor, the most important "who" are the actual names of the people photographed.

Usually I'm just happy to see someone post in this section of the forum. I'm officially out of the biz but do get to cover some events as a contractor for a city near me.

[Anthony Martinez]

Todd,

Thanks for echoing the comments. I just started working w/ the school paper, as sort of an "everything" guy. Given the terrible economy, my photography equipment is unlikely to survive the year w/o being liquidated. That won't keep me from trying to learn as much as I can about the business. Having been off active duty for far less than a year, I'm still much more aware of the requirements of my old profession than those of the one I'm working towards.

Regards,
Anthony