Geophotography Webinar Series

This event has already taken place

The geosciences rely heavily on photographic images as one of the most important means by which information is recorded and shared. Geophotography encompasses a number of genres: landscape and outcrop photography, mineral specimen photography, paleontological photography, repeat photography, time-lapse photography, photomicroscopy, and much more. However, rarely is any training afforded or forethought given to the photography of geologic features and processes. This workshop was convened to help geoscientists improve their photographic skills to enhance the creation and use of geo-imagery in research and instructional practices.

Schedule and Topics

Workshop sessions were held on Tuesdays from late February through early April, 2013.

The individual workshop sessions were recorded, and a streaming video is posted on each session page.

February 26: Jerry Magloughlin, Geophotography: Getting the Most out of Your Images
March 5: Ellen Bishop, From Shooting to Post-processing: Making the Most of your Camera's Capabilities
March 12: No scheduled session; Personal Portfolio Development
March 19: Steve Weaver, Beyond the snapshot: making the excellent Geo-photo graph in the field. Explorations in the importance of good composition and the use of light to make an excellent "geo-photograph."
March 26: Marli Miller, Geophotography as Public Outreach
April 2: David Mogk, Geophotography as Pedagogy: Students Creating and Using Geologic Images

Workshop Goals and Expectations

The goals of the workshop were to:

Introduce geoscientists to the equipment, methods, and "best practices" that will help to improve your own photographic expertise for research and teaching;
Explore ways to use photographic expression to convey meaning and understanding to student and community audiences;
Introduce geophotography across the geoscience curriculum by a) developing activities that encourage students to engage the creative process of photography in their own professional development, and to b) effectively use photographic images in instruction in the classroom and beyond.

Workshop participants were expected to:

Attend all workshop sessions, and contribute to discussion and chat activities;
Create an example photo portfolio that explains a collection of images: how the image was taken, what the central content of the image is, what message is being conveyed; this will be posted in the 3rd week of the workshop, and we will have a chance to receive feedback from workshop participants to help improve our photographic skills.
Contribute at least one teaching activity that has geophotography as a central component of that activity.
Submit a post workshop evaluation.

Platform

These webinars were conducted using the Blackboard Collaborate software package (formerly Elluminate) for presentations, screen sharing and real-time chat between participants and presenters. Audio was handled through a separate conference call telephone line. We welcome participation by anyone on the discussion board for these topics, whether you attended a webinar or not.

Registration and Fee Payment

This event has already taken place. The cost of the 5-session workshop was $145 (or $100 for NAGT members; learn more about becoming a member of NAGT). Our National Science Foundation grant provided funding for the remainder of the operational costs of the workshop.