My radio class put together a podcast for our last assignment. The theme was “firsts” and no matter how hard I wracked my brain, the only firsts I could think of to do a story on was first kisses. I wanted to talk to some teenage girls who had their firsts kisses recently and thankfully my cousins Sarah and Grace and their hilarious friends helped me out. Otherwise I would have totally been that creepy person cruising school yards looking for someone to talk to me.

To bulk it up, I also interviewed a researcher about the neuroscience behind remembering first kisses. These girls might remember their firsts clearly since it happened so recently, but why do the memories stay vivid for so long?

I also got to host the whole freaking thing. The show, along with another program by a different class at CUNY, aired originally on WHCR. I’m feeling a bit too lazy to type out all the credits, but listen to the whole thing and I read off all the reporters and producers names.

Ken Burns: On Story from Redglass Pictures on Vimeo.

Partially, it’s a great video because Ken Burns knows how to tell a story, even about himself (anyone else notice he talks about manipulating the viewer in the beginning and then how he manipulates with his personal story? Sneaky.) But the editing really sets it apart. The Atlantic did a great interview with the filmmakers on how they approached the video. The piece does not necessarily lend its self to a visual format but they found ways to make it compelling. The pacing, archival footage and beautiful shots of a projector to mix up the visual worked together seamlessly.

Last week a video on David Remnick, the editor in chief at New Yorker, came out timed to his profile on Bruce Springstein. Remnick’s impressive output and work on Israel has given me a bit of a fangirl complex. This video, however, did not pull off the same feat that the Ken Burns piece managed.

STORYBOARD: The Art of the Profile with David Remnick of ‘The New Yorker’ from Tumblr on Vimeo.

In truth, the videos were very similar. Both were short documentaries on people who tell stories for a living. The content was equally compelling and the length (important for my internet attention span) are about the same. Perhaps the Tumblr crew behind the Remnick video didn’t have as much time for post-production (or someone doing After Effects) as the Ken Burns team did.

But there were a couple things that stood out to me as easy fixes. Their mains shot, a tight one of Remnick, is not lit well, could use another half stop at least of light and some of green tint pulled out. Footage of someone sitting and talking is not all that interesting, but if that’s what you are working with, make it beautiful. Secondly, they did the classic no-no of “monkey see, monkey do.” When Remnick is talking about how he’d rather write than go to the beach, they show a New Yorker cover of a beach scene. This is very literal and not needed. Videos for the web are best when they give us as much information as possible in the shortest period of time. Other imagery could have been used there to illustrate the story. I would have loved to have seen Remnick’s desk, the New Yorker office or some more Springstein footage. Regardless of these issues, I watched the whole thing. They did a great job with the audio, keeping it snappy, and Remnick was a great interviewee.

Alright, alright I know I said I would post about East Harlem and I still will soon. BUT I just wanted to post quickly that I got published on TheAtlantic.com with what I’m calling “a thought piece on a campy vampire show.” I got caught up in the show but more importantly, I’m getting a little preoccupied with the South. I knew I had it bad when there was a particularly steamy hookup scene last season and I found myself gawking at the bayou setting. Through in a little bit of interest in visual storytelling and the idea for an analysis of the South’s role in True Blood was born.

The piece, like many of my freelance pitches, had a rapid turnaround time and I was pulling out my hair for 36 hours trying to get thoughts into strings of words that made sense. The plus side of this was, of course, there was only 36 hours of pulling out my hair. I had help in the form of Tim Harper, a teacher and writing coach of mine at CUNY. Among his many helpful additions and tweaks (and straight up fixes), he added the very last line that ties the whole bit together quite nicely. I pulled my Absalom! Absalom! quote from a foreword of a book. Harper, a true pro, must be familiar with the text. Check out the piece here.

This was my first project for Video Storytelling class, taught by the wonderful Bob Sacha. I met Caroline at a bar in the neighborhood. She was chatting with my husband who looked awfully animated so I went over to investigate. Luke, the husband who is a wonderful wingman for story leads, turned to me and goes “Caroline is a Buddhist witch involved with occupy.” That’s all that I needed to hear to have my little journalista heart all a flutter. The witch element didn’t end up fitting in a three minute video (or the fact that she does stand up too!!) but I think meditation at a political protest that was getting testy was an interesting angle.

Even though I heard a lot of “I’m sick of Occupy stories” there were at least a few interested parties. Occupy.com had a nice blog post with my video. Occupy has died down and so has my energy for doing stories on it, but I’ll keep you abreast of any developments.

NEXT UP: Let’s talk El Barrio and some photo projects. Coming soon, promise. I know you’re at the edge of your seats.

African Americans make up 44% of all new HIV infections in 2009, despite making up just 14% of the US population. Even more disproportionately affected are black women, who are 15 times more likely than white women to become infected with HIV and 3 times more likely than Latina women.

Stigma, poverty, homophobia, and a lack of awareness are all factors in the skewed numbers. But speaking out is one of many ways to combat the spread of HIV.

Special thanks to Kimberlin Dennis, Halima Grant, Naimah O’Neal and Dr. Barbara Gripshover.

A few weeks ago, I got to do a quick shoot with Meridian friend Alyssa, who works for Vanity Fair’s site. She was doing a Q&A with two Brooklyn synchronized swimmers. This was in honor of the March Issue’s Proust Questionnaire of Esther Williams, a famous (albeit retired) swimmer. There was no direction but obviously synchronizing their movements was the a visual that we were most interested in capturing. Also, since this was more fashion-y than I usually get to do, I went a little heavy handed with my flash to get the feel right. The girls, Nicole and Nicole (I know, perfect for this piece right?) were troopers. Not only did they dragg suitcases of clothes to the shoot but then posed outside in the cold. Also a shout out to Hotel Williamsburg that fed us pastries and let us use their beautiful space.

I won’t go into detail for the time being as I’m trying to convince Serena on a project that would go into depth about Barbados.

While working in my archive, I felt like these two images went well together. So, I did a quick diptych in Adobe Lightroom.

On the left, 5,000 revelers take to San Diego’s Mission Bay during Floatopia. On the right, a fundraising dinner at a home on Country Club Drive in La Jolla.