This semester, I’m taking another huge step out of my comfort zone into the world of multimedia. Not only will you get to read about all my attempts at amateur photos and video, you’ll get to see some of them, too.

Every week, you can also expect a blog post responding to prompts from class or detailing my frustration or elation with a project. As always, I’ll fall to humor when I can.

Prompt 1: What are three (or more) goals you have for this course experience, and more importantly, in what ways will you really have to stretch yourself in order to achieve each of those goals?

First, I want to learn how to use a DSLR and take photos that tell a story. I’ve never had reason to learn anything more than a point-and-shoot before, so I’m excited to learn new technical skills. I’m also not used to communicating in anything other than words, so it will be difficult to try to translate those storytelling skills into visual ones. It also seems, to me, that taking photos of people can be more invasive than asking for a comment or just talking. I want to get over my shyness at asking and be more bold (but professional) so I can get the images I want.

Second, I want to get a better sense of how to package multimedia together into a story. I’m used to how photos and graphics and text come together to tell a story, but I don’t really know how to fit together mostly visual elements. This will be a stretch for me because I’m used to relying on text as a crutch to explain how the other elements come together. I’ve never had a story where text wasn’t the star, and I know that to really invest myself in learning multimedia I have to let go of my reliance on just text.

Third, I want to learn how to properly voice an audio piece. I’ve had experience doing some voice work before, but it was so specifically targeted toward hard news that I think there’s a lot I still have to learn. The stretch will be moving past what I already know to open up to something new.

This is all new to me, and to be honest, it makes me nervous to venture out into something new. Like last semester with intermediate writing, I’m trying to take the mature and realistic route and make decisions that, though hard, will improve my journalism past what I can already do.

I’m always hesitant at first, but I suppose if it didn’t make nervous, I wouldn’t care as much. Stay tuned for some more multimedia adventures!