A team of Newhouse School students will gain hands-on experience photographing winter sports action at the 2022 Empire State Winter Games next month in Lake Placid.
The students are magazine, news and digital journalism (MND) and photography majors enrolled in the VIS 400/600 Photography for the Media course taught by Seth Gitner, an associate professor in the MND and visual communications departments. They will spend Feb. 3-6 in Lake Placid, where they will photograph events and upload their work to a website designed by Gitner. Media outlets from throughout the Northeast will be able to access the site and download the images for use in local coverage.
“This class is an opportunity for students to be published and also get assignments from real-world publications,” Gitner says. “We really want the students to be published in some form—whether it’s digitally or in print.”
The largest multi-sport amateur athletic winter sporting event in North America, the Empire State Winter Games includes some 2,000 competitors in more than 30 sports.
In addition to event photography, students may also have the opportunity to work on photographic essays or portraiture.
“Doing an assignment for a class once a week is different than doing it all day for four days,” Gitner says. “There will be lots of opportunities for students to get outside their comfort zone to photograph lots and lots of different types of assignments.”
Gitner and MND professor of practice Jon Glass will accompany the students on the trip. (Gitner will also compete as part of the CNY Flyers Sled Hockey team.)
The trip is is funded by the Newhouse Sports Media Center. In addition, SONY is supporting the venture as a sports photography workshop and will supply camera gear, while ThinkTank Photo will supply camera bags and Camera Bits will supply photo editing software.