PDX Media Day

The Old Town sign courtesy of Wikimedia commons

By Mak Johnson

PDX Media Day was at the White Stag Building, hosted by Northwest Scholastic Press and the University of Oregon. PDX Media Day is a convention of sorts where mass communications classes from around PPS come to listen to professionals in the field. There were 4 sessions of speakers held throughout the day, between 10:00 and 1:50. I went to go see Molly Harbarger in her presentation “Asking the right questions,” Melissa Toledo in her presentation “Taking Better Photos, and finally Jessica Young for “10 Basic guidelines for good photography.” The reason I went to three sessions and not four, was because I got the tour of the White Stag sign on the roof.

Harbarger is an Oregonian journalist. In her session she explored different interviewing techniques, how to ask follow-up questions, and how to be a confident interviewer by putting on her “lizard suit,” which was her way of stepping into a different persona for interviews. Toledo is an event photographer. She talked about what equipment she uses and how to not take lots of photos and hope you get the right one, but to truly capture a moment and be patient. Young teaches yearbook. Newspaper, and more at Orange Glen High School. Her session had some very useful tips, like not being afraid to be close to your subject, angles, and how to draw someone's eye to a point

I really appreciated PDX media day. Nobody had too much trouble finding their next session, everything seemed orderly, and all of the people hosting sessions were really nice and didn’t mind questions. I learned a lot from the event. I learned an immense amount on how to get the right picture in different scenarios and how photographers do their job. Overall PDX media was absolutely worth the walk from Lincoln to Chinatown.