Sean Gleason, co-editor of McKinley’s newspaper, here once again to share what I’ve learned. Last time I talked about the importance of communicating with my staff. This time, I’ll be talking about how to take better photos and what I learned about photojournalism. For me when it came to taking photos, I just did what felt right and what looked good and that was pretty much it.

However, when I started learning about photojournalism from my newswriting class and a presentation from Cory Lum @bonjiri on twitter, I immediately saw improvements in my photos. Some of  what I learned was pretty obvious like making sure there isn’t something distracting in the background, not cutting off feet, making sure there aren’t things sticking out of people, etc..

The most interesting thing to me was the different kinds of photo shots and different angles a person could use to really say something. A few days after the lesson about photojournalism in newswriting and the presentation from Cory Lum, Black and Gold Week along with the Hall of Honor assembly had come and it was time for not just me, but the entire class to show what they’ve learned. A lot of people improved their photo taking skills and I was really impressed with the coverage we got from Black and Gold Week. Speaking of the class, I really hope some of the freshmen decide to stay. It’s probably inevitable though, that there will come a point where a new set of people will have to be taught, but having returnees can make constructing The Pinion easier for the next staff and our adviser Cynthia Reves.

This placed third for blog in the public school division of the 2015 Hawaii High School Journalism Awards.