heavy eyelids and beautiful stories
November 20, 2009 § 1 Comment
Hello, hello! Please do not judge my incoherent sentences right now. It is quite late, the only thing keeping me awake are the Avett Brothers. I’ve been all around Tuscaloosa today. The last few hours of my day were spent in an empty Reese Phifer in 301. And being the only human being in Reese Phifer late at night is quite creepy.
Anyways firstly — look at this guy’s website: Matt Mallam’s Photography. I found it bookmarked in my browser. I think Andrea showed his to me once. His photos are beautiful! Look at his blog, too.
Alright so thanks to Dr. Lowrey’s little list thingie, I decided to take a look at the Center for Digital Storytelling. The CDS is a non-profit organization that tells stories internationally using digital media. They’ve told stories all over the U.S. and all over the world and collaborate with different projects. The way they go about telling these stories is beautiful — they let the people in the stories tell them. I know that sounds like what all journalists do, right? But this is really different. The projects (at least the ones I took a good look at) allow those in the stories to create their own presentations and share their stories in their own way.
First, click the stories tab. These stories are beautiful. One man shares the emotions sofas evoke from him. A woman shares her love for farming, and how she’s always felt connected to the earth. A journalist delves into his family history to learn more about his grandfather and the adventures he had. Each of the stories are slide shows and a question and answer blurb is at the right of the video, which is very cool. But really… look at these stories!
A case study that really caught my attention was The Y.O.U.T.H. Training Project: Current and Former Foster Youth Offer Unique Tangible Help to Social Workers. Click the link to the project’s page after reading a bit of the summary, and be sure to look at the Digital Stories. These are the youth who actually went through the foster care system, and they submitted the pictures and they put together their own presentations. So not only is this project sharing the stories of these people, but they are empowering them — they’ve learned storytelling tools, too.
The only small criticism I have is that I think they could feature the projects on their main page instead of requiring the reader to click a few links before actually getting to see the results of the collaboration of the CDS and these individual projects. Also, I mean, they could always use more pictures. I know that might not be the ultimate goal of the site, but maybe if they featured a photo from one of the stories or what not … I don’t know. I’m so visually driven. It is a very clean layout though. I mean don’t get me wrong. It is nice.
So yeah …
Stories I’m working on:
* For my assistantship with CCBP, I’m doing a story about the Rural Medical Scholars Program. It’s a program at UA that recruits students from rural parts of Alabama that are interested in practicing in rural hospitals. I got to talk to the founder, Dr. John Wheat, about the program this morning. The idea is that they raise homegrown doctors, since most medical programs turn people into city folk, as he put it. The type of training doctors in rural areas receive is unique, too. I’ll show the final product when I’m done with it.
* For my Bragg story, I’m writing about Donna, a server at our IHop here in Tuscaloosa. She’s a beautiful, sweet woman who was gracious enough to share her story with me.
Oh I’m impressed with myself. I wrote a lot. See you all in the morning!
Tagged: Center for Digital Storytelling, Photography, Reese Phifer, rural, slide shows, storytelling, Tuscaloosa
Glad you’re writing these. Haven’t seen your writing in wow, a couple of years… I like the writer you’ve become. Hope you keep up with this blog.