Storm Chaser

Working for the Sydney Morning Herald as a photographer Nick Moir’s audio slideshow presentation on storms was an untraditional, yet effective journalistic endeavour. Its power lay in its pictures, an array of colour, taken terrifyingly close to deadly weather phenomena. The interactive function of this link allows the user to navigate through two slide shows, bio information about Moir and also links. It’s information by discovery. It doesn’t feel like news, but an adventure.

The beginning intro of sirens, radio warnings and reports was a spectacular addition to the slide slow and immediately had me sitting on the edge of my seat. Sadly this ended with Moir beginning a voice over that initially sounded well-rehearsed and unnatural. As the show proceeded he did relax into it a little more, however the audio of sirens etc could have been effectively used at the end of the show, linking the beginning and end together.

The use of video was not expected and certainly added something a little extra. Although the footage wasn’t fantastic it did emphasise the ferocity of the storm.

This exercise certainly did show me that the way news is presented to the audience is changing dramatically. This style has the ability to educate without the audience feeling like they are being educated.