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Seeing liberty through the lens

The Post has some of the best photojournalists in the world, and it’s always such a pleasure to work with them. For this three-part series on Virginia voters, Melina Mara took portraits of Virginians and interviewed them. Nick Kirkpatrick recorded and edited audio from the interviews. Then Bonnie Jo Mount traveled the state to photograph the themes: women, economy, and faith. Grace Koerber designed the beautiful package, and I was her editor. After she left the Post to go back to school for interior design, I handled the second two installments, putting together the mosaics and working on package branding. I love the slideshow and mosaic pattern Grace designed — it’s an inspiring way to do individual portraits and interviews. The ability to view images as a mosaic or in a full-screen gallery view is awesome.

For part two and three, I designed the mosaics. It was fun to lay out the page, especially with Bonnie Jo’s amazing photographs to work with. You can’t go wrong:

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iPhone photography

My first shot at iPhone photography. I found it really fun — I love the filters and the size of the phone makes it easy to carry around. I was mostly using Hipstamatic and Instagram, and shot a few panoramas with the Photosynth app. To see the full gallery, go here.

Most of these were taken in New Hampshire (Lake Winnepesaukee and Portsmouth), Boston, and Hendersonville, N.C. Here’s a shot of Mt. Major near Alton Bay, N.H. Click the image to enlarge.

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Recap from Malofiej 19

Malofiej
Photos: Malofiej 19 at the University of Navarra

In March, I set out for Pamplona, Spain, to join the jury of Malofiej 19. For three days, we judged hundreds of entries in the digital contest, while colleagues on the print side saw over 1,000 entries. Check out the awards here.

Other jury members came from all over the world — Germany, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Italy, and the United States. I met a ton of awesome people who share a passion for infographics and alternative forms of storytelling. Gert Nielson keeps a good log of the goings on at his blog, Visual Journalism. Kaitlin Yarnall of National Geographic wrote a summary piece for the Society of News Design blog here. Javier Errea, who organizes the event, also wrote a post on his blog (in Spanish).

I really liked Stephen Few’s presentation on Infographics and the Brain — reminding us all to think not only of how we want to present the information, but how it will be perceived. It doesn’t matter how good it looks or how clever we think it is if it misses the basic point: helping people understand information.

I gave my presentation on the power of using social media and user-generated content in graphics. I focused on two types of input — that which comes directly from our users (games, polls, submissions) and that which comes from existing social networks (facebook, twitter, foursquare, flickr). The amount of information out there is incredible, and we have to figure out how to use it in ways that show how people fit into their world. The opportunities are endless. Recently some interesting projects have come out that harness some of that power, including the Wall Street Journal’s Foursquare project, a look at check-ins over a week’s time in New York and San Francisco, and the New York Times Bin Laden emotion grid.

For more photos from Malofiej, go here.

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Alternative story formats: Investigation into Alaska native corporations

Two Worlds
Two Worlds

This investigation, which launched September 30, focused on Alaska Native Corporations and their explosive growth during the last decade. I combined photos, graphics and video in a multimedia slideshow. The intention was to build a relationship between the corporations and the shareholders they represent. Alaska natives are some of the nation’s poorest people, and some of the corporations that were supposed to be helping them make their way have instead been funneling money back to contractors in Washington.

Read more and see screen grabs ยป

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D.C.’s rock scene: 9:30 club turns 30

A multimedia history of the 9:30 club
A multimedia history of the 9:30 club

I spent the last few days working on this piece about the 30th anniversary of the opening of the 9:30 club, one of the best venues in D.C. (and a lot of people would say the whole country). Alex Garcia shot some great concert video and interviewed some key people, and Josh du Lac wrote the magazine story. I pulled it all together in this multimedia slideshow, which has several different text layouts and video in varying sizes. The content of this is the coolest part — there are some great stories in there about the old club: how there were so many rats they had something called the “rat highway,” how Will Smith (The Fresh Prince) showed up and just left without playing the show because he was so disgusted at how the place looked and smelled, and a whole bunch more. There are also some great photos from the ’80s and ’90s. I pulled the illustrations from the magazine layout, which you can see here.

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Photos from India

Early this year (Jan. 29-Feb. 11), I went to India with Whitney. We traveled to Mumbai, Udaipur, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, New Delhi, Agra, Rishikesh and Haridwar. It was a whirlwind trip, but totally amazing. Our good friend from college, Samkit Shah, who is from Mumbai, traveled with us and helped us find all the best deals and interesting places. It was so fun to see him and to see such an incredible place. Here are some photographs from the trip.