 |
| Capitol Beltway (CBS DC local news) |
When looking at these two different
articles and two different pictures, several differences jump out at me. The Washington Post’s picture gives off a
feeling of serenity; somewhat of a calm before the storm. The article explains
how this “Truckers Ride for the Constitution” rally is coming, and it’s not
joke. The picture looks like it was taken
on a nice morning, a little bit after sunrise.
The lighting is bright and the camera is panned out enough to show at
least 30 cars going up and down the beltway.
Basically, this picture consists of a normal, fall morning; people are
commuting to work as they do every day, but most of all, the beltway is problem
free with no trucker traffic.
 |
| Capitol Beltway (Washington Post) |
In CBS DC’s photo, you get a view
of the protest after it started. The
picture appears to be taken from inside of a car that is currently stuck in
traffic. The beltway is full of trucks that are planning to fill up the capital
beltway to protest the federal government shutdown. In this picture, unlike the first one, the
picture casts a much gloomier feel. It
was taken today, so it is raining outside, and the sky is dark. The picture basically casts the epitome of
gloominess.
One thing that CBS’s picture does
an extremely good job of is appealing to the average citizen who might be
reading the article. The caption says,
“A trucker convoy traveling 10 mph blocks all lanes of traffic on the Capital Beltway.”
It’s raining, there’s horrible traffic, and the traffic isn’t moving any time
soon. Almost every person reading this article will be able to empathize with
the situation, and that is exactly what CBS local news is aiming for. They use a picture which casts a view that
resembles one taken from an everyday person, and that generally appeals very well to the
masses.
As far as the quality of the
pictures goes, the Washington Posts's picture is superior to CBS local news' picture. It is a professionally taken photo
specifically designed to be in the Washington
Post article. The second one looks like it was taken by a civilian and sent
in to CBS, or taken by a reporter from their own car (which it was, in fact.
It was taken by John Domen of All-News 99.1 WNEW). Essentially, it wasn’t taken
by a professional photographer or even with any special photography equipment;
it looks like it was taken from a phone, which seems to give the reader a sense
of what it would be like to be in that driver’s seat.
The photograph from The Washington Post is also a
great reference picture for someone who is reading the story from CBS. It can be used as a baseline to see what the
Beltway looks like on a normal day. As
far as we know, the Post’s picture could have been taken yesterday, last month,
or last year; the only thing that we really need to know is that the Beltway
looks like that on a normal day when people are commuting (except in the case
of normal rush hour traffic).
The two photographs were both covering a recent traffic incident involving a truck convoy protest on the Maryland beltway. The two sources were CBS DC and The Washington Post. The lighting, perspective and camera angles were compared in the analysis of the photos. When giving a description of the Washington Post photograph the author could have added information on the focus and clarity of the picture as well as the difference of quality between the two pictures as opposed to just stating who took the two photos. The Washington Post is a national newspaper so the picture needs to be clear and professional, the cars are in focus, and it’s taken at a better angle to show further back. While the CBS DC is local news station who had a local reporter at the scene taking a picture from a car. The picture has poor focus (blurry), the only cars in view are the ones directly in front, and it’s off centered clearly taken in real time by an amateur. CBS DC audience is local residents who want to physically see the traffic and the highway that they know and drive on daily while the Washington Post used a generic picture for national readers who just want a visually appealing picture. Also the pictures could have been flipped, when describing the Washington Post photo the text was aligned with the CBS photo and vice-versa for the description of the CBS photo The Washington Post picture was posted making it confusing for the reader.
ReplyDeleteThe explanatory title was very well written and explanatory but it still didn't quite tell us what the story was that these news sources wrote contrasting articles about. The author gets right into comparing the two images He begins with the photo from the Washington Post showing just a picture of the beltway with normal traffic and no "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" rally yet. This was used as more of a before/after type photo. Before the rally, and then if the rally took place, they'd put a photo of after the rally. He described well why this photo worked successfully with the angle, light, and landscape view. He then went on to discuss the CBC DC photo. He went through the ways this photo was during the rally, and taken by a photographer in a car on the highway, rather than a landscape view. He discussed why both of these photos worked with the story that was written from these news' sources and the quality of each photo. I would swap the photos because he has the wrong photo matching with the wrong image in his blog. I'd also add some more background information on the rally because it wasn't just because of the government shutdown. It was also for impeaching getting rid of a lot of the leaders in the government and having a "citizens jury" http://www.ibtimes.com/trucker-protest-planned-shut-down-dc-beltway-truckers-ride-constitution-t2sda-real-or-just-hoax
ReplyDelete