the white island

photo night with pete souza & the joy of conversing

The Photo Department in the JSchool at UNC hosts a Photo Night once a month that features a pro photojournalist who comes to speak and show his or her work. Last night Pete Souza, who works for the Washington D.C. bureau of the Chicago Tribune was the featured photog. He's done some pretty diverse and impressive work, so I recommend checking him out.

As is the custom, a group of us went to Linda's, a bar on Franklin Street, afterwards to share a few beers and talk. This time it was a small group, which is really nice because everyone has the ability to talk together around a little table. And it's definitely motivating to discuss what is happening in the media world with a mixed group of professionals and students. Ideas and speculations begin circulating and they all certainly inspire me to keep going and to try to innovate and produce. It reminds me of how much more I still need to learn, but the awareness of the need to learn such things is really important and is obviously the first step in doing so. So, cheers to sharing beers, laughs, and ideas.

posted by Whitney Shefte @ 2:57 PM 0 Comments

Apple Features Washingtonpost.com

Apple came to post.com a couple of months ago to work on a feature about the site. Thus, you can watch this presentation to see inside where I work as a photo intern and check out some of the innovative things that are happening on the Arlington side of the Potomac.

posted by Whitney Shefte @ 4:12 PM 0 Comments

look at all the people

right now, on this beautiful, spring-like thursday evening, i am sitting in one of my favorite places - weaver street market - and accomplishing very little. instead i am looking at multimedia on the web (clearly something i am addicted to) and watching all of the people here at weaver street. a man just left his table.. he must have been between 40 and 55.. and he had a shaven head and was wearing a long, maroon skirt and a vest with no sleeves coming out from it. he looked very monk-like, an appearance i assume he was probably going for, though the vest added a quirky twist to his style since it looked like it came more from an outdoors store than a monastery. and there are so many other fascinating people here.. as always.. like the man with the dreads who always meditates, the laughing children, the countless hippies, the grungy, contemplative writers.. it goes on and on. And so it was fitting that just a few minutes ago, Feilding sent me a link to Monoface, where the picture above comes from (click on it for the link). It's a flash-based site that allows the user to click on the eyes, nose, mouth and head of the person and you can shuffle through different options. I mixed features to create the face above. And it's a fun thing to play with but it it is certainly in interesting in the context of thinking about the many unique people in this world.

The other site I found is a project called "6 Billion Others" and it features interviews from people all over the world. Some are simply the people introducing themselves. Others are on specific subjects, like laughter. The point, it seems, is to show that no matter where we are from, people are all the same in a sense. And this is certainly an important concept to keep in mind when we think about the global community that is now thriving thanks to technology. It is worth watching to remind us of these things. Click below to see the site.

posted by Whitney Shefte @ 6:17 PM 0 Comments

It's almost March??

Somebody tell me.. how did that happen? Hopefully the next few months will fly by just as fast. Why do I say this, you ask? Because I am back in school and absolutely hating it. Ok, hate is a strong word and I'm actually excited about my Documentary Multimedia Storytelling class is building a website for the Special Olympics World Games that happen in October in China. Sometime this semester, I will get to fly somewhere in the world (India, South Africa, China..? I still don't know for sure) to document the life of a Special Olympics participant. So that part.. that part is bad ass. But the rest of it... well let's just say I'm about 4 years or so older than most people in every one of those other classes because, they're all freshman courses. Yeah, I'm the dummie who either put those off until my last semester or didn't realize until late in the game that they hadn't transfered a few years ago. Damn. So I'm OK with being rocketed to mid-May.

And I do love Chapel Hill - it's a lovely little place. But I don't want to live there anymore. I'm here in Arlington about every other weekend, if not more and this is where I'm coming back after graduation. It's home now, even though I don't know exactly how long we'll end up staying here. (A few years, I'm guessing).

Anyway, if you haven't yet, check out post.com's best of 2006 multimedia. It's hot stuff. And hopefully there will be more updates for you soon.

posted by Whitney Shefte @ 9:46 AM 0 Comments