Our third lab for JRN 4100 seemed like it was going to be a fun assignment to work on. And it was.
Doing the research and reflecting on my own immigrant story was fun to do because I enjoyed learning about the culture, history and numerous traditions for Poland.
I learned a lot about Poland while doing this lab. Just reading on some of the historical facts of the country, along with some of the other traditions I didn’t mention in my text, made this assignment an enjoyable one to do.
The process of photography was also fun to do. I enjoy taking pictures, both for fun during my free-time and for school/ work. If I didn’t want to pursue a career in sports broadcasting, photography probably would have been my next option. Plus, my iPhone XR takes excellent quality pictures, so that factor made this assignment easy to accomplish too.
Choosing what I was going to photograph for this assignment wasn’t too difficult. First of all, I go with my family all the time to the Polka Restaurant and Beer Cafe, so choosing that destination as one of my focal points was easy.
Secondly, my grandma on my mother’s side is a true Polish lady. She always cooks a big Polish meal for any celebration or holiday and she’s always trying to pass the traditions onto her grandchildren. I knew she would have some Polish artifacts that I could use for this assignment. The Christmas wafer and her mother’s old Polka records were perfect for this lab.
For the second portion of this lab, where we had to post this assignment to two social media sites, I chose Facebook and Instagram as my two platforms.
Facebook was my first choice because a majority of my family is connected with me on the popular social media site and I wanted them to read this lab, since it was so personal to my background, along with the rest of my family.
Instagram was my second choice because the site revolves around pictures. For an assignment that also focused around photography, it made sense for me to post this lab to Instagram.
I didn’t want to post this assignment to my personal Instagram, however, since it is mostly friends and work colleagues that follow me. Instead, I created an official JRN 4100 page that I could post this assignment, along with any future ones. I thought it was a neat idea.
As shocking as this might sound, I never used social media as a destination for school work prior to this class. This was a new experience for me, but one I actually enjoyed posting to the two sites I chose.
Overall, I enjoyed this assignment. I learned a lot about the Polish culture that I didn’t know before, along with using photography to tell a story. Obviously, I knew how to use pictures for journalism, but this lab helped me get a better understanding of how to effectively take pictures for proper storytelling. I hope to get more practice with using photography for journalism going forward.
Anthony Dombrowski 