26Sep

WVUncovered

Two-Lane Livin’ Magazine was one of the fortunate publications in W.Va. to be selected to participate this year in the WVUncovered Program at West Virginia University. The program is led by the university’s School of Journalism, designed to introduce papers to new media.

Our first workshop session was this past week; two days spent learning about digital photography.

Of course, Frank and I both already have digital cameras, but neither of us use them to their full capacity. We spent two days on campus in Morgantown, Thursday evening and nearly all day Friday, learning about digital cameras, photo composition and lighting, photo cataloging and indexing, and photo editing.

This is just the first of many workshops to come.

Visiting Morgantown and WVU campus was an experience. I haven’t been to Morgantown in more than 20 years, and I haven’t been to a metropolitan city in — years.

Traffic was intimidating. It too an hour and twenty minutes to travel 3 miles from the hotel to campus and find a parking space. If I had not had Frank with me, I never would have made it.

Seem lame? Well, there were three other participants who never did make it there on Thursday evening. One never made it on campus, and two others made it to campus, but never found the right building.

I was taken aback by several things.

First, to a lady who is used to parking meters that don’t take quarters, I thought 75 cents per hour for a parking meter was a little stiff. Luckily, we found a meter that didn’t work right, and got more than three hours for $1.50.

I was also a bit surprised at today’s campus fashion. I didn’t know that mini skirts had gotten so “mini.” Now, I’m no prude but, if you sit down and your entire back side comes in contact with the classroom chair — I believe your skirt is too short.

The other thing I found interesting is how every, and I mean EVERY student walked around with a cell phone or ipod ear plugs in their ears. When lost on campus, we considered asking one of the many students walking around for directions. There weren’t any that weren’t ear plugged or in the middle of some phone conversation.

City life is very different from country life. I didn’t realize it had changed so much since I left the city. For one, I’m rather accustomed to greeting the people I pass on the sidewalk. I at least make eye contact and smile, and was prepared to do so as I walked around campus. But, whenever a student came near, they immediately avoided eye contact.

Inside the classroom however, and inside the buildings, folks became friendlier. If greeted, they responded. If you smiled, they smiled back.

All those involved with the WVUncovered program were very friendly. They were genuinely happy to have us there. We felt extremely welcome in the School of Journalism, and look forward to visiting again.