Camera By Hand

Twitter widget test

2009-05-28T05:55:00.000-07:00

Playing with Twitter's widget creator. Here's a sample:

Free videos featuring smart people teaching you stuff!

2009-01-31T07:59:00.000-08:00

This is cool: there's a site called Academic Earth that aggregates video lectures from big-name universities (Harvard, MIT, Stanford ring a bell?) and you get to watch and follow taped lectures and courses FOR FREE.

So many journalists -- and people in other professions -- are talking about going back to school for more training or for a different career. This site might be a good way for you to peer into what academia is offering in a field, without committing thousands of bucks. Here's one video:

Waiting at a Baltimore stoplight

2009-01-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

Pic of the day

2009-01-14T17:30:00.000-08:00

I used to scoff at the idea of ordering from a joint, then waiting for
someone to bring the takeout bags to my car.

Until I had a baby. Now I find it a blessing. Sitting in my car
waiting for dinner to be delivered now, while baby naps in the back seat.

Northwood plaza, NE Baltimore

2009-01-12T14:06:00.001-08:00

Biz as usual at Northwood plaza on a Monday night. Former councilman
Ken Harris was killed here in September. Since then, security has
apparently improved. (Pic taken with my iPhone)

The iPhone as Reporter Tool

2009-01-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

I joked about buying the iPhone, over at BaltimoreSun.com's Consuming Interests blog, because I heard of one of the apps -- the iFart. For those of us who still guffaw at fart jokes, it's a fun toy.

But the phone is a powerful little pocket computer, and it -- or smartphones with equal power and web-browsing capacity -- should be required tools for reporters, bloggers and editors working in journalism today. The reality is that millions more real people -- yes, all of them potentially citizen journalists -- now have such digital, web-connected tools, in their pockets. And they're using them, in many cases, like your typical MSM "traditional" journalists would.

Here's a look at how I've used my iPhone in just one week (The photo in this post is taken from the skywalk of The Baltimore Sun building, at 501 N. Calvert St., which crosses over busy Centre Street and leads to our parking garage):

* Quick access to all my email accounts and social media sites I use, i.e. Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, I'm finding that using the iPhone-dedicated apps for email and these social media sites offer a much quicker experience for me. Some tasks still aren't desirable to do on a small screen, but it's amazing how much you can do. The previous post was a photo I took with the iPhone and uploaded to this blog via an email.

* Quick photos: I was having some trouble describing a scene to an editor, so I told her I'd just snap a photo and send it to her. Seconds later, she saw what I was seeing.

* Google search and voice search: The power of Google on the go. The voice search is incredible. For reporters on the move, you feel like you don't even have time to type. So, being able to speak a search into your iPhone, and then pull up information or a map, is huge.

* Google Maps and other navigational apps with GPS. Another fave: Say Where, which allows you to speak your map search requests. It works very well most of the time and saves me from typing.

* The weather apps: I like The Weather Channel app. For reporters who don't know what their day will bring, having the weather report in your pocket can be priceless.

* Short reports for your news org's Website: The iPhone, infamously, doesn't shoot video nor play Flash video. But the clever folks at 12Seconds.tv created a 99-cent app that allows you to string together three photos and then record audio narration. The app packages it all into a 12 second -- of course -- online slideshow. Talk about broadcasting on the go! I just started my own channel at http://www.12seconds.tv/channel/baltsungus. Note: I recommend shooting photos through the iPhone's camera, not within the app itself. But then you use the app to quickly assemble the report and upload to your channel. You can also send out a tweet to your Twitter followers everytime you upload a new 12 second report. Pretty cool.

* Digital audio recorder: I'm using a free app called iTalk, which offers very high quality audio recording. The quality is so good that it rivals, and perhaps even surpasses, the sound quality of my $90 Olympus WS-100 audio recorder. It won't replace my digital recorder, probably, but it is an excellent backup. (And you reporters out there know you need some backups with your equipment.)

* For police and crime reporters: This is SO COOL. Using the free FStream app in the App Store, you can pull in live streams of police scanner transmissions. FStream has a directory of a few dozen around the country, or you can input the URL stream you have in mind. Why is this cool? Well, a police scanner can run you a few hundred dollars, especially if your jurisdiction uses a digital trunking communications system, which typically requires a type of scanner you can't find for under $500.

But a free iPhone app gets you the transmission for free. Anywhere you may go in the city or town you're covering police in. That Rocks.

Looking for more iPhone tips and apps for journos? Check out this blog post from 10,000 Words, a blog about multimedia journalism.

Also, there are small tech companies out there that are designing apps specifically for journalistic uses, for both "professionals" and citizen-journalists. Check out http://www.celljournalist.com/customers/. If you know of other companies pushing the journalistic fold with their cutting edge apps for 21st century journalism combined with social media, leave the links in the comments below!

Or, if you're one of these companies and you're more modest, just give me a tweet at @gussent on Twitter to let me know who you are.

Cheers.

2009-01-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

I took this photo in Fells Point yesterday, at a sad scene where a man
died after somehow being set on fire under an overhang at the Broadway
pier. Another similar photo ran on baltimoresun.com. I took it with my
iPhone.

Big news: I finally bought an iPhone

2009-01-07T05:09:00.000-08:00

My digital life will never be the same. My 3G iPhone is my new best friend. I take it everywhere, of course.

I blogged about my experience with the iPhone over at the Consuming Interests blog at BaltimoreSun.com.

The only downside to it is that it doesn't support Flash video and you can't record video with it. But in all other respects, it is an extremely powerful device for communicating and for surfing the Web. It also has very strong GPS capabilities, and Apple's App Store offers a huge array of applications, many for free.

One little app I found, which I think people who work in media will greatly appreciate, is called 12seconds.tv. The app allows you to take three pictures with your iPhone and then record a 12-second audio track as a narration. As a reporter, I find this to be an excellent little app because it packages a couple of technical steps together (shooting pics, assembling them into a little 3-shot gallery, and automatically embedding your audio narration) into a relatively fluid and dummy-proof process.

I hope to try it out during breaking news incidents. :-)

UPDATE: Here's a sample of what I did with it at a press conference on Jan. 8th. I had a couple issues with it, which is good to discover in field-testing for stories where there isn't a lot of breaking news pressure. One prob: the audio I recorded sounded fine when I did it, but after I uploaded the 12 sec clip to the website, it apparently clipped it by about 1.5 seconds at the end. Not sure why.

[iPhone] Maryland Mortgage foreclosure scam alert on 12seconds.tv

Ronnie Jackson, 14, West Baltimore

2008-12-11T04:18:00.000-08:00

Ronald "Ronnie" Jackson, 14, was gunned down Sunday night in Upton, the West Baltimore neighborhood where he grew up, while delivering grapefruit to an elderly neighbor.

Police don't know of a motive or suspect in the slaying. His relatives believe he was shot in a case of mistaken identity. Within 12 hours of his death, they opened their doors to the Baltimore media to express their pain and outrage. (See the story I wrote for The Baltimore Sun.

Another Twitter widget test

2008-11-20T09:13:00.001-08:00

Again, from Youminis.com:

A Lot of News

2008-11-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

A lot's happened since my last post. I've done a slew of videos, which I haven't had a chance to post here yet. More importantly, though, I've delved deep into the world of online social media, especially with Twitter.

I'm experimenting with "widgetizing" Twitter feeds, so bear with me. The widget below comes from yourminis.com. I'm interesting in the idea that I daydreamed today of pulling Twitter conversations directly into blog posts. So readers can jump right in to an ongoing discussion or commentary about an event. Seeing a discussion unfolding before them, I think, will encourage readers to participate in it. So, check out this widget:

Wow. That was pretty damn simple. Go yourminis.com!

Here's another version of the same widget:

A 9/11 Memorial Race, Then A SWAT Raid

2008-09-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning was a busy one for me. First, I covered a 9/11 memorial race -- the St. Joseph Medical Center Run To Remember -- in downtown Baltimore. I shot video and then fed a 500-word (or so) story to my editor by email, from my laptop while sitting in my car.

Then, while heading back to the office, my editor called to say that a SE Baltimore resident called the newsroom to report that the city SWAT team had swarmed into his neighborhood and wouldn't let anyone in or out. Turns out, I was only minutes away from the scene because I had driven a little out of my way due to downtown morning rush-hour traffic.

So, I told my boss I'd check it out on the ground. Good thing. I think I may have been one of two media people there. Police warned me away from the scene at first, so I took some steps back and relied on my Sony Handycam's zoom lens to get closeup shots. I was able to come back with decent video and a couple photos, one of which was of some SWAT guys. Our photo editor cropped it and it ran in the paper.

Unfortunately, the best tales were told by the residents, who live on the street of the drug house that was raided -- and they didn't want to appear on camera or be quoted by name. That's understandable, if you know how Baltimore rolls.

The first video is the Run To Remember race:

And here's the SWAT team raid. The raid was part of a huge drug investigation where 18 locations were raided Thursday morning in a joint federal/local law enforcement take-down of a big drug org.

Crime Scene Video: Hostage Situation in Baltimore County

2008-09-06T20:52:00.001-07:00

A man took three people hostage while allegedly searching for his girlfriend at a home in Overlea in Baltimore County last week.

It was a stand-off that started on 4 a.m. and would last for the following 14 hours. I was at the scene from about 8 a.m. to noon, with Sun photographer Amy Davis by my side. Let me tell you: she is one fearless photographer, always pushing to get the best photo that will tell the story of the day.

The video I shot below benefited from her hard work. She kept pushing us to get closer to the scene and we got about as close as we could without getting too close. We returned to the newsroom with images of the SWAT team patrolling the neighborhood and an interview with a kind resident who let us keep her and husband company for an hour or so as we did our jobs.

Crime Scene Video: Dead Woman Found in Herring Run Park

2008-08-15T13:09:00.000-07:00

An adult woman was found by a jogger this morning in Herring Run Park in Northeast Baltimore. It's not a common spot for this type of crime. Police are still working to identify the poor woman because she didn't have ID on her.

"Perp Walk"

2008-08-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

Local media were in downtown Baltimore to record a rare sighting: the "perp walk." A young stabbing suspect -- accused of wounding three people in two attacks in May -- was arrested yesterday morning and charged as an adult. She's seen being led out of the Central District stationhouse in downtown Baltimore, on her way to the Central Booking and Intake Center. Take a look.

Crime Scene Video: Northeast Baltimore

2008-08-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

A shooting in NE Baltimore on Friday morning. This time, some guys were arguing over their dogs. A shot rang out. One guy was shot in the face. Police swarmed into the neighborhood and shut it down. Cops think the shooter got away. (Here is my short story.)

Funny story: I got there right before they started extended the crime scene area, got out of my car, and started walking around with my video camera before I was ordered outside the yellow tape as it was being put up. Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman, was kind enough to drive my car out of the area so I could drive back to the office and hand off my video to editor Anica Butler. Video clips from Kim Hairston are also featured here.

Crime Scene Video

2008-08-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

A driveby shooting left two people dead in Northwest Baltimore a few weeks back. Here's video from the scene.

Crime Scene Video

2008-08-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

One day last week, I drove all over Baltimore to compile footage of the various street scenes where homicides occurred in the span of one night. Here's the video report.

Clark Rockefeller Leaves Central Booking

2008-08-05T13:55:00.001-07:00

Check it out. I shot this video this morning with my personal Sony Handycam because I forgot my work camera at, um, work. Duh.

And then yesterday morning, I again forgot ALL my video cameras but happened to have a 5-year-old Fuji digital point and shoot that shot video in 60-second increments. I got down on my knees and shot this video in front of a bank of TV cameras outside the Eastside District Courthouse.

My Morning Commute

2008-06-03T06:35:00.000-07:00

Made this fun little video by strapping my camera onto my passenger seat with a Gorilla pod, then in post-production, adding some effects. Check it out.

Camera By Hand

Twitter widget test

#BaltTech Updates

Free videos featuring smart people teaching you stuff!

Waiting at a Baltimore stoplight

Pic of the day

Northwood plaza, NE Baltimore

The iPhone as Reporter Tool

Big news: I finally bought an iPhone

Ronnie Jackson, 14, West Baltimore

Another Twitter widget test

A Lot of News

A 9/11 Memorial Race, Then A SWAT Raid

Crime Scene Video: Hostage Situation in Baltimore County

Crime Scene Video: Dead Woman Found in Herring Run Park

"Perp Walk"

Crime Scene Video: Northeast Baltimore

Crime Scene Video

Crime Scene Video

Clark Rockefeller Leaves Central Booking

My Morning Commute