Photojournalism- First time with the 'Canon 450d'

Different perspective on Winchester City -different options and camera settings make the capture of the reality suprisingly better.


Different shutter speeds and depths of field make such a difference to focusing on the subject.

Contrast of colours plays a crutial role in images.

Changing an angle of the subject helps to show the different aspect of the subject.



Story telling and investigative Photojournalism is an emazing form of Journalism.















Winchester University Journalism Course Media Production Skills, Photojournalism

Reporting Skills, writing a local story- Hampshire on top with recycling

Over the last year, Hampshire became one of the best recycling areas in the country.

At the end of 1980’s Hampshire was facing a waste disposal crisis, as landscape was rapidly filling up, levels of waste were continuously increasing.

Mr Leon Richardson- Zhang, a communications officer for Recycling and Waste, said that “it was quite tricky” to get to the stage where Hampshire is now, especially when in 1988 recycling was only being introduced and people had to be informed about the importance of it.

It started of “collections of rubbish from homes” and “separation of the rubbish, what was quite a big project” at the time, said Mr Zhang.

Despite a difficult period of a worldwide economic depression, it has progressed immensely.

Previous campaigns like ‘Recycle for Hampshire’ proved successful and encouraged residents to recycle more of their households.

Additionally, Hampshire’s Household Waste and Recycling Centres will now remain open for an extra hour in March and so the spring cleaning and tidying of the gardens this month will have more time to recycle their household.
Moreover, thanks to the projects like INTEGRA, Hampshire has some of the best waste infrastructure in the UK.

It has now set itself a target of recycling 50% by the year 2010, what is “quite a likely target as Hampshire has been continuously beating targets set up by government".

Winchester University Journalism Course Reporting Skills, News Reporting, Local Story Writing

Government and Politics in Britain, John Kingdom- honest and funny

Favourite Quotes from Government and Politics in Britain by John Kingdom(2).

"The retention of the generalists' hegemony was justified variously.
Only they knew why around the Whitehall system, only could understand the (equally generalist) minister's mind; that is, the best people to lead the blind world be the blind."
That was part of the chapter about The Whitehall, Ministers and Mandarins in British Government.

How more honest can the comments of British can be about their own Government, I thought.

Reading further, I found something even more interesting about the Whitehall, "...a civil servant could be imprisoned for disclosing the colour of Whitehall toilet paper."

Further, in the same chapter Permanent Secretary, Sir Richard Mottram was quoted to have left a note to his colleague during the Sixth-Moore affair. It happened to be published in the Sunday Times in February 2002:
"Oh! sir Humphrey!
We're all f*****. I'm f*****. You're f*****. The whole department's f*****.
It's been the biggest cock-up ever and we're all completely f*****.

I really can't wait what else is this book going to uncover.


Winchester University Journalism Course People and Politics
TBC, Politics in Britain by John Kingdom

Government and Politics in Britain by John Kingdom - can be surprising?

Favourite Quotes from Government and Politics in Britain by John Kingdom(1).

"Members of sexual minorities, prostitutes, holders of unorthodox views, squatters, student protesters and so on can all expect rough justice."(chapter 20)
How amazing! That was written in the chapter for Justice and Politics: Trials and Errors! That view came out of the political processes throughout British history of Politics, Student protesters were put along with such respectful members of the society. Then in the following chapter there was an example of a police officer speaking to a young offender in absence of his parents...
"'You're a fucking little cunt aren't you? You've been at it again haven't you, you little bastard?... I'm going to nail your fucking hide to the wall'. (Smith and Gray 1985: 420)".

In one of the earlier chapters (15)a very meaningful comment was quoted:
"No one is qualified to criticise... unless he first hand experience of working in it. But if he has worked in it, then there is a convention that he should never speak about it thereafter expect in terms of respectful admiration. (Hoskyns 1984:4)"

I also found a little bit of poetry:
"Cabinet members are career politicians who, like Macbeth, entertain valuing ambitions of their own."

This beautiful peace of art was followed by quite logical and truthful statement:
"Charter 88 declared: No country can be considered free in which the government is above the law. No democracy can be considered safe whose freedoms are not encoded in a basic constitution."

Well, England, effectively has no written Constitution that is why I exceptionally looked into this sentence.


TBC (Politics in Britain, by John Kingdom)

What's real what isn't - Existence

Thoughts about the life... what's real what isn't?

I went through a 'philosophical hill' with my friend.
We talked about our aims of life.
We both wanted to succeed, we said, we wanted to be famous journalists, travel, write a book, have a huge house and great car.
After reaching our career satisfaction we would settle and have children.
How much of that what we said do you think was real?
How much is only going to be a part of our dreams or imagination?

'Dogs can hear things that we can’t hear... cats can see the real colour of the grass and dolphins can see/sense the baby in the human's womb'...animal's perception differs from humans but that does not mean that we should wonder which one is real and which is wrong.

Does real equal something that we can prove?
'We experience time or gravity' as Chris wrote 'we can measure these things and perceive them but not envisage them as dimensions within the perceived universe'...

People who 'suffer' of Delusions see things that do not exist for others, their senses perceive things and they react on them... 'we' universally called them as 'unreal' but for people who see them, they are it's their reality that we don't understand.

I think that reality depends on our believes and paradoxically believes cannot be proven.
Faith cannot be explained nor measured- it exists and we know it but can’t prove it.
Even when a scientists proves something with a logical and medical explanation it all had to be based on belief that their methods were the ‘right’ ones to be used.
Science aims to find the 'most universal' explanation for things to then call things and define- what makes it easier to understand and identify.

There are still many unexplained things in the world and whole universe, not proven and not yet perceived by a human being. I think that the answer is to stay open for everything that life brings and allow yourself for thinking that things are real as long as you believe in it without necessary proving it.

Winchester University Journalism Course People and Politics, A-Priori task, What is real?

Delusions treated with epiricism vs. A-priori approach- how would that look like?

An Empirical Approach to Understanding Delusions vs. A priori reasoning.
Delusional (Paranoid) Disorders

Lets have a look into the definition of Delusional Disorders...
they are a form of Psychosis in which a person has paranoid delusion(s) which are often long-lasting, and do not have an obvious physical/medical cause (e.g. head injuries). Occasionally they may be accompanied by the person hearing noises, sounds, other people talking, which don't exist (called auditory hallucinations).

If the cause is not found, the person can still be helped by things such as Antipsychotic Medication, and possibly psychotherapies. People can and do recover from paranoid delusions. However, it is extremely variable, and there are many people who do not.
Thanks to the empirical approach, the Disorder is studied and understood as a health/ brain disorder rather than meta-physical. While in hospital, or perhaps being seen by a mental health professional (e.g. a psychiatrist) out of hospital, the cause of the paranoid delusions might be found (e.g. Schizophrenia), and this can then be treated.

"With the growth of psychopharmacology and the development of biochemical and neurophysiological research, the need for careful description of clinical phenomena in psychiatry is greater than ever before." (Hamilton 1976)

A-priori (without the science research) a person with such a disorder would not be helped and further more, not believed and left alone with the problem. That could result in being excluded from a society, avoided and left for self distraction.

However,furthermore, given all the research on psychosis in the intervening three decades, it is striking that our understanding of the concept of delusion remains limited. It is often assumed that delusion and normal thinking are qualitatively different. This belief may derive in part from the subjective strangeness (craziness).

But empirical and conceptual, studies of delusional thinking provide support for the view that delusions lie at the extreme of a continuum of thought content. Much like the label "hypertension" the decision to use the label "delusion" is somewhat arbitrary, since a qualitative difference at some point appears to be clinically described, whereas the empirical and conceptual evidence suggests only quantitative difference.


Inspiration:
Winchester University Journalism Course People and Politics, Empiricism vs. A-Priori
Ghaemi, S. Nassir. An Empirical Approach to Understanding Delusions
Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology - Volume 6, Number 1, March 1999, pp. 21-24
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/simplepsych/paranoia.html
http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/delusional_disorder.htm

People and Politics - Which political system?

Is it the Monarchy? No, it could potentially, eventually convert to corrupt Tyrany.
Aristocracy? No, as it could become Oligarchy. Anarchy is not an answer either, as it's based on the idea of ‘state of nature’ and realistically, it is too basic to be taken as a principal of creation a well functioning State.

Absolutism... dictatorship, on the other hand, reaching XV century roots system, has centralised power and it would stand above society and dominate all the political and economical spheres. In this case, society would eventually divide into government supporters and left wing party, all that would lead to creating social structures. Then, legitimate standards between the organisations and also between ruling and ruled would have to be the next step leaning towards developing diplomatic relations or probably violent riots against the State...

Well, lets say that the 'Power' should remain in hands of the strongest organisation or perhaps there should be few of the leading organisations so that could rule over certain interests and issues, like specialised smaller ‘government groups’ rather then generally idealised one.


Is Pluralism the answer?

Those few 'elite organisations' would probably, naturally, compete with each other so the power will eventually fall on the strongest ruling organisation and the other ones would work under.

This idea could work in the Marxian version of the ‘Body Sate’ but would it be good enough for the Perfect State?

The under organisations could, assumingly, divide into either supporting the main organisation The Government or those who will not. Also, the society would surely want to choose who they want to be ruled by and so Democratic Election could become a perfect solution, but even this ideal and fair idea can be undermined. Corruption.

Monarchy will probably not survive unless it has only representative role for the State, the ruling power should be spread onto plural power- organs ruling underneath the Monarch but not less important. The inherited power is not a reasonable decision. It can be seen by the society as an ‘unfair choice’ of the ruling person as well as waste of money for keeping up with the traditional ‘King/Quinn like habits (expensive palaces, demonstrations, cult of the royalty for people that may not even know what they are doing). Skills, charisma and ability to rule the State, not for the personal benefits should be the features of the ruling organisation which would be democratically chosen for the role.

Democracy certainly brings state together, settles ‘inner peace’ in the macro-politics sphere.
The class division will probably always exist as the state is formed by the theory of the ‘state of nature’.

There should be no class system where ‘uppers’ use ‘lowers’ for self benefits only, but there should be cooperation created for an overall benefit. Need for materialistic goods and development of the State as well as among the ‘inner organisations’ should become a collective interest for the state-society benefit, not one or another separately.

Another issue would be to organise and set the roles for the organisations that will be helping the Governing ‘Body (personally I believe that the elite group would work better than an individual )’. Legislation should sate all relations so that all the ‘organs would work beside fulfilling each other at the same time’ creating strong structure supporting the main ‘Governing Body’.


How could the State be made better?

I believe the answer is to find the right balance between those having and using power truthfully and those whose lives depend on the right decisions of the Governing Body.

The perfect State is the one with rather complexed structure of a significantly strong Governing Body (organisation of people), chosen democratically and not having an absolute power but responding in front of the Law equally with other members of the State-Society.

The Law would bring justice and peace to the state and strengthen relation between the Members of the Society and Government Organisations.


Winchester University Journalism Course People and Politics

Winchester University Journalism Student - my first post!

I started my own Blog in my first year of Journalism at the Winchester University. I am going to be posting stories, thoughts on lectures, books, articles, personal reflections, phylosophies and a lot more.

It’s going to be my personal record of intellectual and phylosophical fights and life experiences. First steps into Journalism of every kind. News, Features, Filming, Production, Photography, Phylosophy, Art, Religion, Politics, Law, History Literature, all in context of Journalism and not only!

Make sure you check out my Poetry Blog too: Veronica's Poetry- Poezja Weroniki (also in Polish) and Online Journalism at our University's run News Website: Winchester News Online (WINOL) where I learn to be a Video Journalist and Sub Editor for Production team of the News Bulletin.

Take a noticeof my Photography which you can see all over the blog.
All the links can be of significant help in reading and broadening the understanding of my posts.

Join me, Follow up! Comment on my work or simply exchange ideas.
Let me learn from you, spread ideas or simply get to know each other.

Thank you
Veronica Frydel
Winchester University Journalism Student