Camp Director Nicole Arduini, Herff Jones representative

Click here to get much more information, to register, etc.

Contact her directly at nicole@rmjournalism.com

July 20–23 at the University of Colorado, Boulder

It’s a time to prepare, to learn, to grow as a staff.

Build the Memories that will last all year.
Build a yearbook that will last a lifetime.

Join us for an unforgettable experience and workshop. Learn from Nationally and State recognized advisers.

Come for a day or for the full four days. It’s up to you. You make your own experience. We help you create your book.

We won’t leave out our traditional help for advisers looking to find better ways to manage staff, create workable policies and teach all the basics of visual and verbal journalism, from photography to newswriting. And we even offer a version of our Press Law & Ethics Certification course during the week, if you have not yet completed that.

Honestly, your professional growth dollars couldn’t be better spent than on SAW 2013. And we hope the new location will make it more convenient for more advisers to attend SAW.

You can read all about it by downloading the workshop one-page flyer, and you can always get more information by contacting Karen Wagner at kwags4@gmail.com or Jack Kennedy at jpkjournalism@gmail.com

After reading through your options, and deciding what will best support you, please register online by filling in our Google Forms registration document.

Payment must be made not later than the first day of your workshop session, and may be by check or credit card.

Second place goes to Payton Bonino, Brighton HS, while 3rd place goes to Lauren Binder, Rocky Mountain HS. Honorable mentions were awarded to Emma Roberts, Kent Denver School; Dominic Yang, Monarch HS; Rachael Pennington, Fairview HS; and Davis Livingstone, Rock Canyon HS.

Twenty portfolios were entered this year, and you can see the portfolios of the winners by clicking on their names above, which will take you to Flickr. Then play the slideshow to see the portfolios in the order the photographer chose.

Certificates were mailed to advisers of the honorees on May 14. The judges were very impressed, and insisted on four honorable mentions due to the high quality of portfolios. The 2014 contest deadline will be April 15, 2014.

Advice from a veteran portfolio judge: Think of your portfolio as telling a story about you as a photographer. Your first entry should be very strong, and your last image should be your strongest. Try to show versatility in everything from lighting to framing to capturing emotion to changing perspective. Seven very strong images are a more effective portfolio than including twelve images, with four of them being average in quality or repetitive in content.

Overall judging comments: Entries were technically very strong and the judges were impressed with the quality of work. The winners stood out for their ability to capture strong faces and peak impactful moments. The winners had the most photos that stick with and elicit emotion in the viewer. The winners also had well-rounded portfolios that featured student life as well as sports or pep rallies. The unexpected, candid moments of student life really stood out. The judges also enjoyed the photos that had strong quality of light.

Judges from the Seattle Times:
Sara Kennedy, Special Projects Editor
Erika Schultz, Staff Photographer
Ken Lambert, Staff Photographer

May 15, 2013 — Officer elections for CHSPA will take place this week, using SurveyMonkey. The election will close at 11:59 p.m. Monday, May 20. All current members may cast a ballot, and will receive them through their main email address. You may also access the online voting form by clicking here. 

CHSPA officers assume their duties on June 1, and serve for two years. The office of vice president is also president-elect. Past president will be Karen Wagner, completing her second year as president this month.

Candidates were asked to share their positions and any relevant biographical data, but only Adam Dawkins and Justin Daigle submitted any material to Nominations Chair Carrie Faust, MJE.

Statement from Adam Dawkins, running for Vice President/President-Elect
Adam Dawkins is in his fifth year advising newspaper and broadcast video at Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora. He is close to finishing his master’s degree in Journalism Education from Kent State University’s Journalism Educators graduate program. Adam has served on the board as Advocacy Coordinator since 2011. He developed and teaches the CHSPA Press Law and Ethics Certification Course, offered to advisers and administrators three times a year. He also co-teaches the CHSPA Summer Adviser Workshop. He is “all-in” when it comes to scholastic media and believes in the journalism curriculum’s powerful ability to teach real-world skills and help students to become responsible, caring, creative, and passionate young professionals.

Goals:

• Work with JEA to develop comprehensive journalism curriculum

• Help plan the JEA convention in Denver in 2015

• Develop a more robust summer adviser’s institute in Denver

• Continue to grow the Press Law and Ethics Certification Course and work for adviser protection in the state free expression law

• Continue the success of CHSPA’s “Winter Thaw” for advisers early each second semester

• Offer summer writing and media workshops for at-risk youth by seeking partnerships with city programs and non-profits

• Work with burgeoning HS broadcast video programs across the state to connect learning across campuses, districts, and communities

• Work with CHSAA to continue to develop policies and procedures that support scholastic media and perhaps include student media as an officially sponsored state activity

Statement from Justin Daigle, soon-to-be new CHSPA President

Justin Daigle has advised the Reflections Yearbook at Brighton High School for the past 7 years. His students’ publications have earned All-Colorado honors as well as several Best of Colorado awards from the Colorado High School Press Association. Nationally, his students have received All-American and Gold Medal ratings from NSPA and CSPA and have been highlighted in the NSPA Best of the High School Press and Herff Jones Ideas that Fly. Most recently, his staffs’ 2012 Yearbook was a Silver Crown winner from CSPA. As an adviser and teacher, Justin has been honored with the 2009 CHSPA Teacher of the Year, 2010 JEA Rising Star Award, and the 2012 Brighton High School Teacher of the Year. Justin has served as a yearbook judge for national and state press associations and has been a speaker and instructor at CHSPA Journalism Days, national conventions such as CSPA, and at the Rocky Mountain Journalism Spirit Camp. Justin has served the CHSPA board for 5 years as a Yearbook Sweepstakes Coordinator, Secretary, and Vice-President.

Goals: “As the next President of the Colorado High School Press Association, I hope to continue the excellence and legacy that this organization has brought to journalism teachers and students across the state. I will represent our state and organization at national conventions while making connections and building relationships with other state organizations. I plan to work with the elected board to see our organization continue to serve as a resource for advisers and students and develop new ways to serve programs across the state by offering more workshops, contests, and mentoring, particularly for those schools in our state that do not have the funds or resources to attend national conferences. Our board will continue to find innovative ways to create and share curriculum and instructional ideas that tie to our new state standards as well as the 21^st century skills. Finally, I hope by the end of my term that our state is one step closer to (or has) implemented a journalism adviser protection bill as part of our Colorado Free Expression Law.”

For information on how to prepare your entries, lists of categories, and more tips and news on our spring individual contests, go to http://www.chspaonline.org/contests/individual-student/

What is this?

This is the first year for a new competition that honors our best photojournalists by selecting the best portfolio of work from this school year.  This contest differs from Best of Colorado individual photo contests, such as news photo/yearbook, or sports photo/newspaper. This contest honors photographic work from this school year, whether published or not, whether taken for yearbook or newsmagazine or website, and rewards photographers who demonstrate broad excellence.

This competition does not require captions to accompany the images. All portfolios will be viewed on computer screens. Do not print and mail your portfolio.

The photographer who submits the top portfolio will be named the CHSPA Photographer of the Year.

What is a portfolio?

Each entrant should select 7–12 images taken during the 2012–13 school year and place them in a portfolio folder (to be shared through Dropbox or some other sharing site) or on a website (a personal site or using a photo sharing site such as Flickr).

The general purposes of a portfolio include helping attain scholarships and getting hired as a photojournalist, among other things. This portfolio is to demonstrate a photographer’s skills and storytelling abilities.

What will judges look for?

Judges want to know that the photographer did not just “get lucky,” and seeing a range of work will show consistency of skill and artistry.

Some advice from veteran judges: Your portfolio is only as strong as your weakest image, so judges advise you to NOT include 12 images just to be including the maximum entries. If you have 12 terrific images, by all means, use them all. The best portfolios tell stories, often include themes, and the photos don’t all “look the same.” Put your strongest image first, second-strongest goes last. Consider sequence/flow, and variety/diversity. Variety = different subjects, camera angles, POV, and shows style as well as tech ability, but should still have your “voice” as a photographer.

Check out www.zachhenrick.com for a good example of an online portfolio.

Check out http://studentpress.org/nspa/winners/photo12.html for a wide range of national award-winning photographs from the past school year. You need NOT include examples of your work in all these award areas.

Who may enter?

Each current CHSPA member medium may sponsor ONE portfolio, by ONE student photojournalist. Entrants may be of any grade, but must have been a staff member of at least one student medium at the school. However, photographs in the portfolio need not have been published to qualify.

How do we enter?

Carefully gather high resolution JPG copies of your best work since last August and rename them in this format: 01Kenerskiportfolio.jpg, 02Kenerskiportfolio.jpg, etc. (so judges will know the order you wish them to see your images).

Place them in one folder, which you share through Dropbox or some similar file sharing site, or share through your Flickr account (or some similar service), or through your own page on a website. Everything must be shared with jpkjournalism@gmail.com – and then the portfolios will be distributed to the judges by CHSPA.

Each entry must include a completed official entry form, which you will find here: 2013 photographer of year contest entry form

When is the deadline for submission?

Entries must be submitted by midnight April 15.

When do we get results?

Judging will be finished by May 1, and CHSPA will announce first, second and third place winners, plus any honorable mentions awarded by judges, during the first week of May. Certificates will be mailed to schools that week, in time for end-of-year celebrations and award ceremonies.

There are no enrollment classifications for this contest.

Top portfolios will also be shared through the CHSPA website (www.chspaonline.org).

What if we have more questions?

Contact Jack Kennedy at jpkjournalism@gmail.com or call 303–550-4755.

What is this?
This is the first year for a cutting edge competition that honors the best we can offer in covering our school communities using multiple media. Coverage topics may focus on one event or on one major issue.  For example, coverage of prom from many angles would be an “event,” while coverage of the evolution of teacher evaluations would likely be a “major issue.” Most coverage would span multiple days, if not multiple weeks or even months.

Entries must include AT LEAST THREE of the following:

• print (newspaper, newsmagazine,  yearbook)
• website
• video/video broadcast
• podcast
• social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.)
• blog
• more?

All material must have been published during the current school year, though yearbook coverage will necessarily be a “preview” of the 2012–13 book.

To be clear, print coverage is NOT required for this contest. It is just one of the varied media students may utilize to reach readers. Entries could include samples from two print media plus Facebook… or from website, Instagram and Twitter… Or from a blog, a video broadcast and a yearbook spread… All combinations are acceptable, and three media is just the minimum.

What exactly is convergent coverage?
According to the book “Convergent Journalism,” it represents a new form of reporting and may well be the future for journalism. Full convergence involves a radical change in approach and mindset among journalists and their managers. It involves a shared assignment desk where the key people, the multimedia assignment editors, assess each news event on its merits and send the most appropriate people to the story. Convergence coverage should thus be driven by the significance of the news event.

Such coverage is based on the concept of reading readers in multiple ways, and providing them information in multiple forms. This is NOT the same as NSPA’s Multimedia Story of the Year (you may want to check some examples of top website coverage at http://studentpress.org/nspa/winners/mstory12.html), though that contest’s use of website writing, video, audio, etc., is a great starting point.

Most major newspapers and broadcast networks worldwide are employing some form of convergent coverage, and students may wish to study how news organizations are using multiple media forms to reach readers and viewers.

Who can enter?
Each high school or middle school with current membership in CHSPA may enter ONE convergent coverage story. Since this kind of broad coverage likely involves large numbers of student journalists, awards will be to school student media departments, rather than to individual students, though individual student names will be included on award certificates, if advisers provide them. One adviser may oversee a school’s entry, or several advisers may combine forces to produce a school’s submissions.

How do we enter?
This is an entirely electronic contest, with materials being submitted in either PDF form, or by specific Internet links. There is no limit on number of individual coverage items that may be submitted. For instance, a school might cover major issues/events through print, video, and all sorts of social media and website forms.

PDFs may be attached to a contest submission email, and links may be placed in a Word document or pasted directly into the body of the submission email. All entries must be sent to jpkjournalism@gmail.com

An alternative entry form is to place all materials in a Dropbox folder and share the link with jpkjournalism@gmail.com

All entries must include a completed entry form, found here: 2013 contest entry form

When is the deadline for submission?

Entries must be submitted by midnight April 15.

When do we get results?
Judging will be finished by May 1, and CHSPA will announce first, second and third place winners, plus any honorable mentions awarded by judges, during the first week of May. Certificates will be mailed to schools that week, in time for end-of-year celebrations and award ceremonies.

Top entries will also be shared through the CHSPA website (www.chspaonline.org).

Judges will be looking for completeness of coverage, appropriate use of various media, and quality of reporting, both verbal and visual.

What if I have more questions?
Contact Jack Kennedy at jpkjournalism@gmail.com or call 303–550-4755.

Kristin Bonk, the curatorial assistant for painting and sculpture reviewed the stories and had said, “Really, they’re pretty good!  There’s a lot of fact-checking that they should take care of next time, but overall, very nice.”

The first place award goes to Emily Harmon and Sarah Greene, of the Grandview Chronicle. Their adviser is Catherine Sharp Moore. The writers will receive a Van Gogh t-shirt as well as passes to the exhibit.

Second place goes to Meredith Maney, of Littleton High School’s “The Lion’s Roar.” Her adviser is Kristin Kron. Meredith will receive passes the to Van Gogh exhibit.

The Van Gogh Media Preview was the third such event the DAM and CHSPA partnered on, and 17 students and 6 advisers took advantage of this opportunity to participate in a professional event, right along side local media. Look for another such opportunity in the spring of 2013.

The reviews honored are below:

FIRST PLACE – VAN GOGH WRITING CONTEST
Emily Harmon and Sarah Greene, Grandview Chronicle
Grandview High School, Review

The Rocky Balboa of Art

Even those who know very little about art recognize the painting. That self-portrait of the sandy-haired man, one eye blue, one eye green, peering at the viewer from beneath a straw  hat.

We all  know  him as Van Gogh, the troubled artist who cut off his own ear. But that is not even one tenth of the story. The man behind “Starry Night” and “Sunflowers” was a self-taught artist, “the Rocky Balboa of art.” He was not afraid to completely revolutionize his style because, even though he struggled with depression, he put aside that dark, narrow  place and changed how the world sees color.

“We’re taking the artistic journey of the artist and trying to downplay the biographical issues, we’re focusing on how people learn to look,” Gates Foundation curator of  the Denver Art Museum’s “Becoming Van Gogh” Timothy Standring, said.

The Denver Art Museum recently acquired 85 pieces of art that illustrate Van Gogh’s artistic journey, approximately 70 created  himself, and 15 painted by others  that molded him into the artist the world recognizes today. The exhibit is not set up as a meaningless cluster of rooms filled with paint-splattered canvases, but flows like a book with seven chapters that tell the story of Van Gogh’s evolution as an artist. The exhibit showcases his personal voice, his artistic “handwriting” and displays his transition from the dull browns and grays of the Dutch period to the vivid colors of the French period.

The first object the viewer sees is a bright blue wall with a large painting of a cheery landscape depicting spinning windmills and wheat blowing in a breeze, the so-called  “comfort food” Van Gogh that nearly everyone recognizes.

However, the next room, the first “chapter” of Vincent Van Gogh’s story, shows the viewer that he  was indeed an artist that started “on a different foot,” in the words of Standring. Van Gogh was not born an artist. He had four careers in his lifetime which heavily influenced his style particularly in the beginning. Many of his first works from the Dutch period were painted in dark hues of brown and black and tend to be of mundane objects, a sharp contrast to his later works, most of which were landscapes. At the beginning of his career his pieces were very moral and sermon-like, a carry-over from his time as a pastor in Belgium.

“At the beginning, he had two left hands, he wasn’t very good at painting. He had to conquer it. He believed in what he was doing and so he devoted his whole life it. I think that’s the kind of fascination…Van Gogh has in general for the general public,” curator Louis Van Tilborgh said. Van Tulborgh is the senior researcher at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh museum and curator of “Becoming Van Gogh.”

In spite of his initial difficulties, Van Gogh found a method that worked for him.  Although this early work has great value, eventually he decided he needed a change. So, he left the Netherlands for France, and in the space of a mere three years, he went from a blank face in a sea of thousands on a Paris street to the man who created art that touches people on a deeper level than what their eyes see. His art reaches out and grabs the viewer in a way that only the original works such as these have the power to do.

The DAM does not own any Van Goghs, Because of the “merits of the [exhibit’s] story-telling” patrons were compelled to contribute to the project, from a small museum in the north of England to international private collectors, more than 60 in all.

Standring made it clear that they were “loaning works of art, not money.”

“The times are over when you say the museums are doing this to get money,” DAM director Christoph Heinrich said.

So, why go? What would compel a museum to pour seven years of work into some pictures of a dead guy’s flowers? They are compelled by the fact that this exhibit is not just about flowers, or even about the artist.

As we walk through the rooms of the exhibit and observe how Van Gogh grew and changed as an artist, we find ourselves growing and changing, too. Leonardo Da Vinci once said that the artist’s job was to “translate beauty” to the rest of us. Without that beauty, we are no better than animals. The simplicity of Van Gogh’s work speaks across time, place and age.

We need to ensure beauty always has a place in our society — whether you are 18 or 87. As Blanche urges her sister Stella in Tennessee Williams’s Streetcar Named Desire, “don’t hang back with the brutes!” But the question still remains, Why go all the way to the museum to see Van Gogh when the Internet is a click away? By simply typing “Van Gogh” into Google, anyone can view his works.

But the experience of viewing the art through aching eyes trapped behind the bright glare of an 11X13 computer screen is vastly different from seeing the real paintings. In the museum, the original marks of his thick brush-strokes,  the ink, reed and pen marks on the drawings are evident. Experiencing living, breathing art without the glare of a lifeless computer screen will only feed the eyes.

“Something happens to our core, like the way we respond to a poem, we respond to literature, we respond to the original work of art,” Standring said.

Standing in front of Van Gogh’s depiction of a cafe, one can almost hear the clamor of streets. Taste the sweetness of the fruit as the juice dribbles down one’s chin. Smell the flowers through the bright pastel meadow. Touch the rough wooden table the potato eaters huddle over. Feel the blisters from wearing a pair of old broken shoes.

And, of course, see all of these sensations because sight is the vehicle the other senses travel through.See the exhibit. Smell it. Taste it. Internalize the beauty around you and let the art remind you not only of your humanity, but that life is a richly textured, colored thing and it is waiting for you, just like it was for Van Gogh.

Remember the words of Van Tilborgh when he said,  “Whether you’re eight or 18, you choose your path. And if you want to do something in life, do it with your whole heart and soul and put everything into it. And you might not have talent for certain things, even if you believe in it, but you have to try.”

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RUNNER-UP – VAN GOGH WRITING CONTEST
Meredith Maney / Littleton High School
The Lions’ Roar / Review

For “Becoming Van Gogh,” it’s the journey, not the destination

Upon leaving “Becoming Van Gogh,” visitors are left with the quote, “And the great isn’t something accidental, it must be willed.”

It’s an idea “Becoming Van Gogh” embodies.  The culmination of seven years of work by curators Timothy Standring and Louis van Tilborgh, the process of organizing an exhibit of such magnitude was a long time coming.  Bringing in over seventy works from all across the world, Standring had been envisioning the exhibit since 1998.

“We respond to someone who is an underdog, a Rocky Balboa of art, who was determined and disciplined to become an artist… I identified with Van Gogh,” Standring said.  And their connection is clear.  Everywhere, carefully placed paintings compare Van Gogh to his contemporaries as he “reacts” to other artists.  This exhibit is not made up of ‘Starry Night’ but rather the steps Van Gogh took to become that painter.

Standring said of the exhibit, “We start with the ‘comfort-food’ Van Gogh painting, the Van Gogh that we know, and then the Van Gogh we know less about, and that’s very brave; that’s why you put together exhibitions, because we are telling a different story.”

The story they weave is a fascinating one.  It is not the same tragic story of Vincent Van Gogh students have been hearing since they were little; the story of the “Sunflowers” artist who cut off his ear and whose genius was never appreciated in his lifetime.  Instead, the exhibit focuses on his influences, on his inspiration, on his journey.  The time he spent in mental hospitals isn’t the story, it’s the footnote.

Through this, visitors have the opportunity to get to know a more real Van Gogh. He isn’t a yarn wielding, color loving, inherent genius, he’s a man who was down on his luck, but who found his footing as an artist.

“This is the first exhibit where you’ve got self portraits at the end [of the exhibit], and not at the beginning. We thought it would a nice way to round up the exhibition, because now you can have your own thoughts of this particular artist; you can project anything you want onto this man. You can have your own private moment with him.” van Tilborgh said.

“Becoming Van Gogh” does not have the ‘masterpieces.’  The paintings in the exhibit are not the famed ones that are known all around the world.  While there are some pieces students might recognize from a textbook somewhere, such as ‘Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin,’ there is no piece that is definitively Van Gogh.

Yet the exhibit itself still manages to be a showcase of the true masterpiece: the power and perseverance of a man named Vincent, and how this utterly mortal man turned into an immortal artist named Van Gogh.

“Becoming Van Gogh” can be seen at the Denver Art Museum from October 21 to January 20. $13-$25. 720–865-5000 or denverartmuseum.org

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