COLUMN: Which is better, the camera or the pen?
James Choy
Issue date: 6/10/08 Section: Sports
There are two different ways in capturing and describing the Mt. SAC athlete in action.
As a journalist, you have to report it by writing and stenograph what you vividly remember happening during that moment. You would probably have to rely on your mind (as healthy as it may not be) to really remind you of, "what really happened now that I can't relive it back again?"
The pen is all that can draw that particular play-that collision that occurred midfield when Cruz Hernandez collided against his fellow counterpart during an intense soccer match, or when a hard slide into second base by Randie Baldwin had her called out by a mile when in reality she was safe untouched by the tag from the opposing team.
Or how about the exhausted but surging Jazlyn Davis dismantling Fresno's zone defense with her baseline penetration and scooping up an easy two-and one?
With a pen, you can only write out the moment. But with a camera, you can capture the moment … and what's even more shocking about it?
You can stop time.
Think about the process for a second. You have the ability to stop life at that one moment snapping the shot and then gazing at it as long as you wish and tell someone, "I grasped that moment, I took that moment and I made you feel for one second what it's like to see that moment in still imagery."
The camera versus the pen-if one was used as opposed to the other, which is the more powerful tool?
The camera leaves you to think and to respond in the photo in any way you feel, whereas the pen will direct you to see the moment in the way the writer expressed and described it-but at a different way by including feeling, metaphorical meaning and storytelling.
The camera will give you the color by sight and pinpoint every detail in its location, action and moment in time.
I recall the women's softball team's loss during a random home game. Kadie Baldwin with her chin sunken from gravity's pull, defeated with her front helmet concealing the gloom from her eyes and saunter slowly away from home plate.
Cue to another moment with pole vaulter Matthew Todd almost 20 feet above ground airborne gyrating his upper body over a guided pole hanging horizontally. Envision the ground and him in the sky--his face fully concentrated on his maneuver over the pole.
Of the two particular events, which would be the one grasping you most? Which would be the one exhibit where it shows, "Look at what happened and feel that moment?"
Whether the pen or the camera is the tool to tell a well-told story, athletes are what's making everything come to be.
Either way, I as a journalist use the best of both worlds; I use the pen and the camera.
Without the Mt. SAC athlete, what would I be reporting?
As a journalist, you have to report it by writing and stenograph what you vividly remember happening during that moment. You would probably have to rely on your mind (as healthy as it may not be) to really remind you of, "what really happened now that I can't relive it back again?"
The pen is all that can draw that particular play-that collision that occurred midfield when Cruz Hernandez collided against his fellow counterpart during an intense soccer match, or when a hard slide into second base by Randie Baldwin had her called out by a mile when in reality she was safe untouched by the tag from the opposing team.
Or how about the exhausted but surging Jazlyn Davis dismantling Fresno's zone defense with her baseline penetration and scooping up an easy two-and one?
With a pen, you can only write out the moment. But with a camera, you can capture the moment … and what's even more shocking about it?
You can stop time.
Think about the process for a second. You have the ability to stop life at that one moment snapping the shot and then gazing at it as long as you wish and tell someone, "I grasped that moment, I took that moment and I made you feel for one second what it's like to see that moment in still imagery."
The camera versus the pen-if one was used as opposed to the other, which is the more powerful tool?
The camera leaves you to think and to respond in the photo in any way you feel, whereas the pen will direct you to see the moment in the way the writer expressed and described it-but at a different way by including feeling, metaphorical meaning and storytelling.
The camera will give you the color by sight and pinpoint every detail in its location, action and moment in time.
I recall the women's softball team's loss during a random home game. Kadie Baldwin with her chin sunken from gravity's pull, defeated with her front helmet concealing the gloom from her eyes and saunter slowly away from home plate.
Cue to another moment with pole vaulter Matthew Todd almost 20 feet above ground airborne gyrating his upper body over a guided pole hanging horizontally. Envision the ground and him in the sky--his face fully concentrated on his maneuver over the pole.
Of the two particular events, which would be the one grasping you most? Which would be the one exhibit where it shows, "Look at what happened and feel that moment?"
Whether the pen or the camera is the tool to tell a well-told story, athletes are what's making everything come to be.
Either way, I as a journalist use the best of both worlds; I use the pen and the camera.
Without the Mt. SAC athlete, what would I be reporting?
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