Convergence '10: Craig F. Walker, Bill Frakes & Stacy Pearsall
DURHAM, NC (June 24, 2010) – In addition to Bill Frakes of Sports Illustrated and Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post, former military combat photographer Stacy Pearsall has been added to the list of impressive Convergence '10 speakers for the National Press Photographers Association's summer event in the historic port city of Charleston, SC, beginning July 8.
Convergence '10 will offer presentations, panels, and speakers whose topics will range from freelance business practices and equipment selection to video editing software and finding successful niche markets.
Pearsall, who is one of the most decorated and award-winning female combat photographers in U.S. history, and who is a two-time winner of the Military Photographer of the Year title, had the course of her career forever changed by the wounds she sustained in combat. Always the optimist, Pearsall says she will demonstrate how reinventing her photographic talents helped launch a new and successful studio business and education institution, the Charleston Center for Photography.
Walker's two-year essay "Ian Fisher: American Soldier" won the Feature Photography Pulitzer Prize in May, and the photojournalist will share his insights into the project and what it takes to pull off a long-term documentary project for both print and the Web.
Frakes will speak about "Emotional Motion" and producing multimedia journalism for the Web and for the new generation of eMagazines, and how photographers and editors can use all of the components to drive different media products across different platforms. Laura Heald of Straw Hat Visuals will also be speaking in conjunction with Frakes. His appearance at Convergence '10 in Charleston is sponsored by Nikon Professional Services.
Online registration for Convergence '10 is now available.
The first 75 people who go online and register for Convergence '10 will automatically be entered into a drawing for a free Apple iPad.
Those who have already registered for the event are included in the first 75, Straight said, and the drawing for the free 16GB Wi-Fi version of the iPad will be done at the event in July.
"You must still be registered at the time of the event to win the iPad," Straight said. "Anyone seeking a refund before the event will lose eligibility for the drawing."
The NPPA's special discount for a room rate was guaranteed until June 14 at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, but those who are still making their plans to attend should check with the hotel when booking to see if the special rate is still available (although neither NPPA or the hotel can guarantee it).
“Convergence 10 chairman Mark Johnson has put together a great line-up of speakers and topics for this year’s Convergence,” NPPA executive director Jim Straight told News Photographer magazine. “We learned last year that the more practical the topic, the more popular it was with the audience, and Mark has kept that tradition going."
Johnson was very pleased to announce Walker's addition to the selection of speakers. "I've gone through the 'American Soldier' story about a dozen times now and every time I see something new," Johnson said. "There's a clarity to the storyline that is stunning, there's a visual richness that inspires me. And there's a demonstration of the power and importance of in-depth, locally-centered visual journalism that is impossible to deny. Walker's illustration of Fisher's odyssey is a brilliant example of how to bring an international story home and make it resonate. I, personally, can't wait to sit and listen, to learn how this story came to be and how he and his colleagues presented it in such a compelling manner."
Straight said that adding Walker and Frakes to the line-up complements a great program that's already in the works, thanks to event chair Johnson.
"He's brought in Scott Mc Kiernan of ZUMA Press to talk about freelance multimedia projects, and Garret Hubbard from USA Today will be covering these topics: making the choice between using a DSLR and a standard video camera; how to conduct – on your own – an interview with impact; and writing a focus statement and what it will do for your shooting and editing. Joie Chen of Branded News will talk about new niche markets and alternative outlets for your work, and CNN's director of coverage, Stacia Deshishku will speak about how to dispatch resources when news breaks.”
“We will also have a certified Apple trainer, Jim Biddle, doing hours of Final Cut Pro sessions," Straight said. "He will be covering the topics of Color, Soundtrack, and Compressor. Try to find that kind of training elsewhere at our admission price!"
And if it is editing you are interested in, award-winning video editor Shawn Montano will follow-up Biddle's sessions with his own presentation about the art and theory of editing in Final Cut Pro.
"And what's really exciting is that all of these great minds, along with other faculty like freelancer Todd Baer of Al Jazeera, NPPA vice president Sean D. Elliot of The Day, and business practice expert Stan Leary have agreed to participate in an opening panel discussion on the current state, and future, of our industry.”
COPYRIGHT WORKSHOP ADDED: NPPA, in partnership with the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), has added a two-hour workshop to Convergence '10 on registering your images with the copyright office. The workshop is open to Convergence attendees and is free to anyone else who is in the area and would like to sit in on the workshop Thursday evening. You do not have to be an ASMP or NPPA member to attend. The workshop will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday July 8 and will take place in the Calhoun room of the Francis Marion Hotel.
The copyright workshop will outline step-by-step the ASMP Best Practices for Registering Your Photographs as well as the importance of copyright registration, common mistakes dealing with copyright, and a step by step walkthrough of the online process. Each participant will set up a template to make future image registration easy. The workshop is part of ASMP's Registration Counts initiative and will be presented by ASMP vice president Jim Cavanaugh. (Prior to the workshop, go to https://eco.copyright.gov/eService_enu/ and set up an online account with the copyright office. Participants need to bring a laptop and their eCO username and password to the workshop.)
“There are so many more topics we have to announce," Straight said. "We will have sessions on free and cheap tools to ease your workflow, how to measure success and progress based on metrics, today's multimedia newsrooms, succeeding financially in the new realities of our business, how to practice search engine optimization, delivering content on mobile devices, pitching multimedia to corporate clients, one-man-band reporting, and how to work for alternative outlets.”
Convergence '10 will be held July 8, 9, and 10 at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, SC. For travel planning, the educational portion of the event will open at 8 a.m. EST on July 8 and will conclude at 6 p.m. on July 10. The annual awards reception will be held on July 10 after the education portion of the meeting ends. Also going on during the entire weekend will be a shoot-out contest with prizes, and individual portfolio reviews.
"In an effort to make this as affordable as possible for people to attend, given the challenging economic climate, NPPA decided that the workshop price will remain the same as 2009," executive director Straight said. "This is only possible through the generous support of our Convergence '10 sponsors, Canon and Nikon."
NPPA's Convergence '10 is officially sponsored by Canon and Nikon. For more information, please see www.nppa.org/convergence.
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