School of Communication » Jamason Chen

Photojournalism 275-Student Projects

Jamason Chen — Fri, 31 May 2013 20:28:02 +0000

Photojournalism 275 is taught by the clinical professor Jamason Chen and other adjunct faculty in the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago. The class focuses on training students to observe and depict the social reality by using visual media. Not only do students learn how to visually document the news events and other social issues, but also why a professional photojournalist should be aware of the social responsibility and media ethics. This is the showroom through which we share our thoughts and vision about this world we live in and share. Photojournalism 274

Photography: Between a Hobby and Passion

Jamason Chen — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:30:20 +0000

A few weeks ago I took part in Malaysia’s biggest imaging event, the Kuala Lumpur Photography Festival 2012 and was asked to talk about photography, one of my favorite topics.

Through this festival and related events, the cultural and social interaction and communication among local Malay Muslims and Chinese communities and between Malaysia and the rest of the world have been enhanced. I’ve also come understand how Malay Muslims look at the world and their community through visual images. It inspires me and reminds me how powerful and comprehensive photography is in making social communication and understanding.

In my presentation, “Photography: Between a Hobby and Passion,” I talked about the role of photography both as a communication medium in depicting social reality and as an expressive medium criticizing social injustice. Using three example projects, I hoped to demonstrate how to use photographic technology to enhance the content presentation.

I used photographs from the “An Unretouched Cuba” exhibit, which I had curated for the Ping Yao International Photography Festival 2012 and my projects with 50-year-old Exakta photographs of Berlin and iPhone photographs of Chicago, Beijing and Shanghai. Since many KLPF participants are amateur photographers or hobbyists who enjoy exploring new imaging technologies and the search for the exotic or picturesque subjects, I wanted to offer them a new perspective on photography in power of manifesting its social responsibility.

I also participated in a forum about contemporary photography, with Alex Ng (Hong Kong Photo Mag), Yang Zixiong (Malaysia Oriental Daily News), Xia Jianguo (Chinese folk art photographer) and helped judge the contest for the best photographer of the year in the annual festival. Along the issue of defining the differences between classical and contemporary photography was a discussion with the audience on how local culture is presented in a global era with modern imaging technology.

There was an extended debate by photography jurors on the work of Malay photographer Mahd Azlan Bin Madh Latib, which finally took the top honor for the best photographs. ( Photographer Mahd Azlan Bin Madh Latib’s work ) Madh Azlan uses photography as a contemporary visual medium addressing the social concern commonly faced in most economic developed countries. Not only is photography for Azlan a visual presentation of the beauty but also a medium stating the social and psychological tension when the society experiences the material development.

International Photo Festival

Jamason Chen — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:32:50 +0000

One of the photographs from my Spring 2012 photojournalism class was selected for an international photography festival in China. Shawna Sellmeyer’s photo from her class’ project “Chronicling a Day in the Life of a Dancer” was selected and shown in a juried exhibition curated by Susan Dooley for the 12th Ping Yao International Photography Festival in China, which ran from September 19 through the 25th. This exhibition received entries from over 40 university and college students around the United States.

Congratulations Shawna, your hard work deserves honored recognition.

*Shawna Sellmeyer graduated Spring 2012 from Loyola with a BA in Anthropology.

NAB show 2010

Jamason Chen — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:14:41 +0000

By Jamason Chen

That was almost 2 months ago, my first trip to Las Vegas, the trip I had never thought I’d like to make. But that was an inspiring trip, seeing the “sin” city and the very innovative media technology showcase. This blog is a delayed on-site report what I saw in the show mostly, of course a few images of the city.

In the show, stereo 3D is the major showcase, partially, I believe, with the aggressive promotion by SONY with their heavy involvement in making and presenting the stereo 3D movie Avatar. All the major media technology giants showed their latest development in the stereo 3D media technologies, from content acquisition, post-production to presentation. Since I have spent a lot of time in research of stereo 3D content creation and presentation, I was more interested in what would be new technologically compared to the anaglyphic or polarized binocular methodologies a century ago. The solution I saw from those major name companies is still the same: 2 cameras or one camera with 2 lenses mounted on a very heavy and technically complicated tripod with some parallax view adjustment system. Through my conversation with those stereo 3D salepeople, I concluded that at this point the stereo 3D is still a financially luxury production choice and technically sophisticated implementation method. But as the stereo 3D research community said 10 years ago, when the stereo 3D media technology is ready, the next demand will be the content. So, now it’s the time to explore the stereo 3D content production, not just how to produce the content but what should be the content best using this immersive visual media.

This new stereo 3D wave is the 3rd wave in the visual communication history since photography was invented in 1839. Will this wave be successful and become a new media form with other interactive features new digital media has been demonstrating? The answer is still unknown. But it is for sure that this new stereo 3D wave with all the features digital media technology has provided will not end suddenly as its precedents.

Many years ago in the end of my research paper on stereo 3D visual communication I was uncertain if this technology would revive to the popularity in its heyday in late 1800′s. In this NAB show 2010, I can tell that it’s almost there. Who knows in the next few years everywhere may have stereo 3D displays, and everyone may holds a stereo camera. The three dimensional world would be not only in our lives but also in our media experiences.

[Show as slideshow]

Augmented Reality (AR) may revitalize print media

Jamason Chen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:23:21 +0000

Posted by Jamason Chen

ESQUIRE magazine announced its new issue with an embedded augmented reality feature. In the magazine some feature stories have data coded graphics printed along with the story. When you hold the magazine to your computer visual capture device such as a webcam, the pattern recognition software will recognize the story you are going to read and start a more comprehensive multimedia presentation of the same story online.

Augmented reality (AR) is the term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality. (read the detail in Wikipedia) The AR technology has been applied by some search engine and online game developers. It has been reported that Google is going to develop a translucent display unit with AR and wireless networking technologies. When the user holds the unit towards the subject the user is looking at, the unit will display the detail information of the subject with an overlapped visual effect through the translucent monitor.

As the layer feature of Flash media structure that provides a possibility of presenting contents with multiple interactive layers on a two-dimensional display surface, the AR technology adds another layer of information to the flat surface presentation and makes content presentation combine virtual reality and real realty together. One day, when we are standing in front of a news spot and point our visual communication device to the subject we will learn all the information about the subject, from its history to current circumstances. When we are reading a newspaper or a book but need to follow up the latest developing story or the character’s further information we may just need to take a translucent display device over the story in print and immediately read latest details through AR technology.

ESQUIRE started this AR interactive feature for their print media. When will other print media follow up? New technology always brings innovation to the industry and inspires us in the educational institution to explore new interdisciplinary programs and research projects. Not only will “old” media not die, but will refresh to a “newest” media through merging with “new” media. Thereafter, through AR telling a story may become a more interactive and comprehensive task.

Who is the VII?

Jamason Chen — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:46:12 +0000

This morning when I walked in to the lobby, two students stood in front of the panel of the upcoming photographic exhibition “Our World at War: Photojournalism Beyond the Frontlines”. “Who are these photographers?” “I don’t know any of them.” I stopped and talked to them briefly about the VII and the photographers who contribute their talents to this project. I told the students what is VII and who are the photographers; the photojournalism and background information of photojournalists’ co-ops in the history, such as the Magnum Photos. The questions came to me after the conversation with the students are: when we play with all the cutting-edge media technologies and are excited in creating various visual contents, how much we know about the history of visual communication, especially photojournalism and documentary photography? What was the idealism after the WWII when a group of photographers (Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David “Chim” Seymour) got together to organize a photographers’ co-op so every photographers would contribute and manage their photographs without any interferences from the media industry. Today, the consumerism and infomercialism/tabloitism have been swallowing the idealism the journalism used to hold up. What should we concern with more when we are teaching/learning all sorts of new technologies for career/professional development? Where is the idealism we used to stand for? —– Jamason Chen

Photo by Ron Haviv