Best Practices for Working in the Field
Ron Haviv
Lesson Info
11. Best Practices for Working in the Field
Lessons
Class Introduction
09:03 2Finding Your Voice and Story
03:47 3Diversity of Multi-Platform Presentations
23:33 4The Importance of Research and Funding
29:38 5How to Craft a Budget
20:03 6How To Build Your Story - Mind Mapping
22:22 7How to Write a Successful Pitch Letter
31:05 8How To Use the Pitch Letter Template
14:04Lesson Info
Best Practices for Working in the Field
Taking care of yourself doesn't matter what kind of story you're doing your adrenaline is probably going to be pretty pumped while you're doing it can be really excited you can be really engaged to a really good chance you're gonna be working long hours you have to take a break it times to take a take stock of yourself am I too tired am I thinking clearly am I getting enough food because after a while after a few days if you're not sleeping enough if you're not eating well you're going to start to make poor decisions you're going to start to be very difficult for you to be ableto work a few years ago in the war front and I were traveling together we've been on the road covering this conflict like two months and we were really like at the edge and we finally get to a commander that we knew under siege and this guy was really like at at with end and uh bomb goes off nearby and my friend and I jump out of our skins were like totally freaked out and this guy whose life is on the line is ab...
out to get overrun turned to us and said you guys need to go home so we couldn't realize how like we had we were so frantic and not slept and not eaten and we needed somebody else who was in a much worse situation to tell us so it's really super helpful to kind of be very conscious off of your well being is going to affect all these decisions that you're making pay attention to where the groups are pay attention to what the targets are pay attention to all the different things pay attention to where maybe criminals might go to rob people all these different things you have to really be very conscious of when you're working in the field peters to your environment when you walked to a hotel when you go when you go to your car all these different things again you're going to be a target in some places where um because you have gear like that communication another big thing there's there's a link on the resource is guide that's super helpful about protecting your phone's protecting your computers when there were the olympics in sochi and russia as soon as everybody arrived everybody started seeing that their phones and computers immediately got hacked by russian secret service so it's happening all the time I used to be really careful about it to really pay attention when you're traveling decide it's up to you if you want to decide whether you want to contact the local embassy your embassy to tell them that you're there some people I think it's okay some people don't I personally don't because the american embassies are too large I know who gets the information but if you're a resident or nationality off a smaller country it can sometimes be super helpful sometimes the ambassador will invite you to dinner, talk to you can open doors and give you different information protecting your images you know you want to be able every time when you come back from a day shoot you want to split your your work into two different drives you want immediately duplicate you want to add metadata and you want to then after you do that for the first time you put won't leave one drive in the hotel and you take one drive with you same thing with your gear right? You dont take all your gear out into the field you leave one set of working here back at the hotel and take one set of working here into the field so if your hotel gets robbed, you still have your your work and your gear if you get rob's saint thing and if everybody gets robbed than probably it's time to go at the same time if you have good wifi and you have the energy should be trying to do an edit every night of the least ten images and uploading those images. So no matter what, at least you're going to have some work, so what I didn't do during the invasion of iraq was I waited until like the very end of the trip to start putting things on drives and two duplicating the drive and when I went to duplicate the main drive I've been using because I was in these vehicles and bouncing around so much, the drive was destroyed. I even said to drivesavers they couldn't rescue it. And so the majority of my work from the war was was gone because I wasn't, like, disciplined enough to, like, really set this up. It was a really huge mistake that I made.
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
KAren OLlis
Thank you Ron and Creative Live for the thoughtful and expansive course. Even for a pro, the information was often enlightening and definitely inspirational. The best way to learn is from a seasoned professional who knows how to teach in an organized manner. Appreciate the support materials as well. Will be out shooting stories no doubt! All the best, Karen Ollis, Karen Ollis Photo
Connie Kennedy
Ron Haviv presents his generous insights and experience in a wonderfully paced and very clearly delivered manner. Combine him with the Creative Live platform and you have a magical educational experience. I'm so grateful to attend this course. I wish I had heard a presentation like this years back; it would have spared me some mistakes. If you're sitting on the fence buy this course. Tap into his wisdom. Enjoy.
Jerry Burch
I think the course is good. However, for me, it really wasn't. I work as a photojournalist. What I was interested in was the resource guide. I thought with his experience this would have been more extensive. There is a lot missing from the list. It's a tough industry and gets tougher every day. You have to have a real passion for this field and Mr. Haviv really illustrates that. Anyway, I did enjoy the presentation from this very experienced photographer. I always love hearing about the experiences of others in the field. He really is one of the very best and the lecture was very enjoyable.