The MediaStorm Workshops: One

About the Workshop

During the week of May 3-10, 2008, four talented professionals collaborated with the MediaStorm team at the first MediaStorm Workshop. The participating photographers and editors explored New York City as they documented their stories and refined their audio, video, photography, and editing skills.

See the projects produced during this workshop below, or apply for the next round of Workshops.

One Man Brand by Lucy Nicholson &
Jassim Ahmad

After meeting at the gym, Robert Burck and Cindy Fox started dating, but he was elusive about his job. To find out for herself, Cindy went to Times Square and was surprised by what she discovered. See the project.

Roots in the Garden by Carolyn Cole &
Pia Sawhney

Last century, the Italian neighborhood of Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, New York, was thriving. But the wave of gentrification has washed over the neighborhood, creating a conflict between those who embrace change and those who long for the old days. See the project.

Behind the Scenes by Tim McLaughlin

The MediaStorm Workshops offer an opportunity to learn in a hands-on setting with industry-leading producers adept at the changing environment of journalism. See the project.

Participant Biographies

Jassim Ahmad joined Reuters in 2000 and works in its Media division as Head of Visual Projects, with responsibility for producing photographic books, exhibitions and other other visual communications. He has produced several books with Thames & Hudson, including "The State of the World" - published in 10 languages and staged as an exhibition in 25 locations in 10 countries. Recent projects include books "Sports in the 21st Century", collector's series "Our World Now", and multimedia essay "Bearing Witness". Jassim is of British-Indian nationality and is based in Reuters' London headquarters.


	"MediaStorm has a distinctive approach, with a focus on rich, nuanced narrative. Learning one-to-one from a talented team, I have come away with a strong framework for multimedia storytelling. After a challenging week of both theory and practice, I am conscious of the potential of this medium for visual journalism. I leave inspired to do much more with these powerful tools." - Jassim Ahmad

Carolyn Cole is a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times, where she has worked for over ten years covering national and international news. A graduate of the University of Texas, Carolyn began her career at the El Paso Herald Post in 1986, and also worked as a staff photographer for the San Francisco Examiner and Sacramento Bee before joining the LA Times in 1994. Carolyn won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for feature photographer for her coverage of the civil crisis in Liberia. She has also won several World Press Photo Awards and was named the 2007 Photojournalist of the Year in the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism competition.


	"With seven days of hands-on training, I now have a better understanding of the possibilities multimedia offers in telling stories more completely. It is exciting to see what can be done in just one week. The MediaStorm Workshop not only taught me important multimedia skills, it made me a better journalist. I have already started to put the lessons I learned into use." - Carolyn Cole

Lucy Nicholson is a senior staff photographer with Reuters. She was born in London in 1972 and is based in Los Angeles, having worked as a photographer in Mexico City, Chile, and Norther Ireland. She photographs sporting events such as the Olympics, Super Bowl, NBA Finals & Final Four basketball, Stanley Cup hockey, World Series baseball, and U.S. Open tennis. She has been awarded for her sports photography twice in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame contest, in the 2005 China International Press Photo contest, the 2006 PDN/Nikon Awards, and the 2007 Editor and Publisher's Photos of the Year Contest.


	"The MediaStorm Advanced Multimedia Reporting Workshop was inspiring. I came away feeling much more confident in my ability to create multimedia pieces. It was immense fun. The instructors are amongst the best multimedia producers in the business, and strike the right balance between throwing you in the deep end & stepping in at critical moments to rescue you. They sacrificed sleep with us to meet deadlines. The workshop was really focused - we had very concise lectures on the essentials of video, audio, photography for multimedia packages and Final Cut Pro, and then went straight into the field as a team to apply the techniques. I learnt a hell of a lot about story structure & how to gather media to support it. Learning audio and video is making me think about photography in a whole new way, and I'm excited about continuing the process." - Lucy Nicholson

Pia Sawhney is an award-winning independent producer and director, and has collaborated on films for PBS/Frontline, PBS/American Experience, HBO and MTV Networks. Her multimedia and audio projects have been published to the Los Angeles Times, aired on Radio Free Europe and Voice of America. Pia has also created short films for the web and recently completed a series of essays for the Huffington Post on the 2008 election and other topics. She holds a graduate degree in broadcast journalism from NYU and lives in New York. Pia speaks four languages including Urdu, French and Punjabi..


	"The workshop was a real treat. I met journalists committed to producing important work. For those searching for an industry standard in multimedia storytelling -- this workshop could well become a must. I'm also grateful for the time and patience of my teachers and mentors, and hope the projects created here help forge worthy collaborations with the MediaStorm family in the future." - Pia Sawhney

Learn more about The MediaStorm Workshops.




The MediaStorm Advanced Multimedia Workshops are sponsored by:



If you are interested in sponsoring our workshops, please contact us at: sponsorship@mediastorm.org

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