0.5 photos with friends. Perfectly posed senior portraits. Sports photos that capture the winning moment in a snapshot—photography is a part of our everyday lives, whether we realize it or not. If taking pictures and expanding your knowledge of a camera sounds intriguing, there’s an upcoming class for you.
Students can now enroll in Foundations of Journalism (formerly known as Journalism 1) as well as a Photojournalism class for the 2024-2025 school year. These classes are a part of the newly formed Academy of Media and Communication, which will help train students to be writers, editors, graphic designers, content creators and multimedia journalists.
The Academy will bring together the school’s TV production and digital art programs, as well as the journalism program, which will give students the opportunity to create digital content for the school in a variety of formats.
After learning that Photojournalism was a state-approved course, but one that wasn’t approved by the county, journalism teacher Britton Taylor got to work. He began collaborating with TV production teacher Donna Parker and digital art teacher Mary Marinel to create a framework of courses, including the new Photojournalism class, and he looks forward to seeing these topics taught in the classroom.
“I do a lot of photography with Yearbook and Newspaper,” Taylor said. “It’s something that I’ve naturally worked with a lot over the years. It’s going to be a little different than all the writing and designing that I usually do.”
Both the Photojournalism and the Foundations of Journalism classes are year-round, and don’t require any prerequisites at the moment, since the program is just starting. Eventually, Photojournalism will be a second-year course. The course is set to teach students the ins and outs of using a DSLR camera, and how all the settings can be adjusted. Taylor’s plan for the class is to assign subject-based projects where the students can take multiple photos in order to tell an overall story.
“I want to learn more about how to adjust a photo and make it look better, and to improve my previous photography experience,” sophomore Jiana Velez, who plans on taking Photojournalism, said.
Similar to Photojournalism, Foundations of Journalism will set students up with the base ideas and skills they can use for journalism classes such as Newspaper and Yearbook in the future. One difference for the new Foundations course is that it will incorporate more modern journalism techniques, including social media and web-based journalism, while still keeping traditional elements of writing and design.
However, not only are there new courses to choose from, the journalism room is also getting an updated look. Taylor has been working alongside Administration to update the layout of the current journalism room, so students don’t have to sit in computer rows to work on their assignments.
“I really wanted updated equipment, updated furniture, things that are going to make it look a little more and feel a little more like a collaborative, creative environment.” Taylor said.
Between the new courses and the classroom renovations, it’s clear that future students will have a lot to look forward to when they sign up for classes. For more information about the Academy, click here.
