Last week, Stephanie Clifford wrote an article in the New York Times detailing changes in the landscape of professional photography arising from the competition with amateurs newly-enfranchised by digital technology.

For the past three months, I have been working on major projects as a special advisor to the School of Communication at American University here in Washington D.C. and as journalist-in-residence for the Knight Center for International Media within the School of Communication at the University of Miami.

Over a eight-day span recently, I worked as a part of the team teaching at the Joop Swart Masterclass, sponsored by the World Press Photo organization in Amsterdam.

Joining me in that endeavor were photographers Philip Blenkinsop, Giorgia Fiorio, and Maggie Steber, photo curator Celina Lunsford, and photo book publisher Dewi Lewis.

Enthusiasm and dynamic, focused discussions marked last week’s Online News Association09 Conference and Awards Ceremony in San Francisco, in sharp contrast to other gatherings of journalists that I have attended this year. One might say it almost seemed like “irrational exuberance.”

NPR’s release of their NPR News iPhone app is now almost a month old.

Today, I wanted to acknowledge my multimedia colleagues at MSNBC.com marking the first decade of “The Week in Pictures”, or TWIP as it is known in the trade. MSNBC.com senior multimedia editor Meredith Birkett has put together a good behind-the-scenes look that details both the history and ambition of this presentation – a mainstay feature of their visual journalism presentation.

This week, I read with interest Henry Jenkins’ recent blog post featuring text from interview that he had done with Eric Klinenberg, professor of sociology at New York University and author of “Fighting for Air:The Battle to Control America’s Media.”

As we prepared for the VJ workshop at Brooks Institute I had multiple e-mail conversations with Paul Myers, a professor there. We discussed a theme for my individual talk and overall aspirations for the project.