Convention Schedule

MNPA Convention 2009 April 17th-19th

Welcome to our annual event. Located at the lovely Murphy Hall at the University of Minnesota. Make yourself at home. Over the next two and a half days there will be deep discussion of visual and audio presentations. There will be plenty of opportunities to learn as you participate in workshops and listen to speakers. Enjoy.

Cost for members is free. Cost for non-members is $5 for Saturday and $15 for Sunday. Student price is $5 for each day.

Schedule

Friday April 17th

4:00pm CPOY
Judging begins

Saturday April 18th

8:30am Nikon Breakfast
For members to discuss the future of the organization. Figure out the needs of our membership and talk about the possibility of creating a photo coop. Here your chance to have your voice heard. Please come and join us.

9:30am POY (All day)
Judging begins.

9:30am Story telling workshop: Brian Peterson
Brian will go over story construction. No matter what medium you chose whether it’s a still image, photo story, audio slideshow or video how to tell that story effectively.

10:45am Web Tools: Kris Hase
Kris will talk with participants about how they can market themselves on the web. Figuring out market strategies based on your business model and what tools to embrace or avoid.

12:00pm Lunch

1:00pm Lighting: Carlos Gonzalez
Back by popular demand Carlos will give us the scoop on location lighting with simple tools and tricks of the trade.

2:15pm Video: Jenni Pinkley
Jenni has helped many people on our photo staff make the transition from stills to video. She will go over video techniques, tips on shooting, collecting good audio and story construction.

3:30pm Biz of photo: Panel discussion
The panel will talk about the freelance business. What it’s like out there and how to go about getting clients and keep them.

7pm-ish Hot dish Hoedown: At Kyndell Harkness’ house
This is the time to show off your true Minnesotan culinary skills. So come with food or drink and stories to share. This is not a pity party. We know the stake the industry is in. This is the time to talk about what we all really love, photography.

Sunday April 19th

Speakers

9:30am Brian Plonka
Plonka, 43, is freelance photographer based in the Inland Northwest. Plonka worked at numerous newspapers across the country until being recently laid-off from the Spokesman-Review after 10 years due to staff downsizing. Plonka started his photojournalism career at age 15 in New Castle, PA. Plonka was named POYi Newspaper Photographer of the Year during the 59th annual competition. He has been a 10-time Photographer of the Year in various state and regional competitions and accumulating more than 20 individual awards in previous POY and POYi contests. Plonka has lectured and been a faculty member in numerous contests and workshops. Plonka’s wife Kathy is a photographer for the Spokesman-Review. They have a 10 year-old son, Jordan, and live along the shore of Hauser Lake in North Idaho.

10:45am Kathy Kieliszewski
Kieliszewski is a three time National Emmy Award winning multimedia storyteller and photojournalist. After ten years as a newspaper photographer, she made the transition to picture editing when she joined the Detroit Free Press in 2003. She is currently the Deputy Director of Photo and Video at the Free Press where she oversees video and multimedia. She is graduate of Michigan State University and has been honored with numberous picture editing awards including Michigan Picture Editor of the Year. She lives in Grosse Pointe Park, MI with her husband, two boys and a dog named Sherman.

12:00pm Lunch

1:00pm Carlos Ortiz
Ortiz was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and raised in Chicago, Illinois. As a teenager, his love of photography led him to work at a traveling carnival to save money for photography equipment and college tuition. Later, Carlos Javier attended Columbia College in Chicago, where he studied photojournalism. Following college, Carlos Javier was a staff photographer for Chicago In The Year 2000 (CITY 2000), a yearlong project documenting the city and its inhabitants. He worked for several years as a photojournalist for newspapers in Philadelphia and New Jersey. Carlos Javier is currently working on a cross-cultural youth violence project, which documents adolescents in Chicago and Guatemala. The project documents the lives of youth victims of violence as well as the teenage perpetrators of these crimes. Carlos Javier’s work is sponsored by the Blue Earth Alliance, a non-profit organization that supports documentary photography projects of endangered cultures, threatened environments, or current topics of social concern. Carlos Javier was a finalist for the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography for his project, Too Young To Die in 2008. Carlos Javier is represented by Rapport. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Washington Post, The New York Times, The Times of London, The Guardian, Stern Magazine, Internazionale Magazine, and other publications.

2:30pm Brian Storm
Storm is president of MediaStorm, a multimedia production studio based in New York City.
Prior to launching MediaStorm in 2005, Storm spent two years as vice president of News, Multimedia & Assignment Services for Corbis, a digital media agency founded and owned by Bill Gates. Storm led Corbis’ global strategy for the news, sports, entertainment and historical collections. He directed the development of Corbis’ production tools and the representation of world-class photographers for assignment work with a focus on creating in-depth multimedia products.
From 1995 to 2002 Storm was director of multimedia at MSNBC.com, a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC News, where he was responsible for the audio, photography and video elements of the site. Storm created The Week in Pictures and Picture Stories to showcase visual journalism in new media.
Storm serves on the Advisory Board for The Council on Foreign Relations, The Eddie Adams Workshop, The Alexia Foundation, and Brooks Institute’s Journalism School. He has judged both the University of Missouri’s Pictures of the Year and the National Press Photographers Association’s Best of Photojournalism contests.