Official AAJA 2011 Convention Blog

Here’s a few post-convention Dodo Bird Discoveries du jour:

Anachronism can work. The Choosing the Best Platform for Your Story workshop told us to check out the low-tech work of the Seattle Sketcher, a blog with beautiful hand-drawn paintings of Puget Sound life by Seattle Times staff artist Gabriel Campanario  (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seattlesketcher). So I thought I’d try my hand at some sketches of AAJA Convention life.

This was an amazing moment at the Gala Scholarship & Awards Banquet when Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Nick Ut (above top) received an AAJA Lifetime Achievement Award. During his acceptance speech, he spread his arms and showed how he saw a girl running down a road trying to tear flaming clothes from her body after a napalm attack in Vietnam. He said that he took the iconic picture, then put down his camera and tried to help Phan Thi Kim Phuc, then 9 years old.

Thank you so much to the Ford Foundation and AAJA for an incredible learning opportunity. 

Above left and right, I’ve included before and after sketches of my experience at the convention. As an older print journalist, a.k.a. Digital Dinosaur, I found this convention was an invaluable, insightful and inspiring doorway to new discoveries. Thank you so much!

— Sarah Eden Wallace