The topic I chose to highlight in my audio-photo slideshow is the Pearl Street Farmers market. As a student here at the University of Denver, the Sunday market has become one of my favorite parts of student life here, and I wanted to see what impact it had on other students’ experience at DU. Through the photos I took and chose to use in this slideshow, I wanted to capture everything the market has to offer DU students, as well as what students’ thoughts were on how it impacted the community here and what they thought could improve it. 

In terms of storylines, I really had two main objectives. The first was to capture what students’ thoughts were on the market, how it impacted student life, and how they thought it could be improved. For this, I mainly relied on interviews to tell the story. The second storyline I wanted to highlight was how the market brings people together. People from all different backgrounds come together here to enjoy the warm weather, wide range of homemade foods, and entertainment. This was told more throughout the pictures and background dialogue in the video.

In the video, aside from interviews, I focused on three main subtopics. The first was the fresh fruits and vegetables that are offered at the Pearl Street Market. For this subset of photos, I found myself drawn to taking up-close photos because of all the intricate details. I took a couple of wider shots of the different booths, and with these I was hoping to capture the essence of the market with the different colors, customers, and sellers. In terms of the up-close photos, I thought the attention to detail helped make things more tangible for viewers. In this subset, one of my favorite photos was an up-close shot of a seller proudly displaying a tomato they had grown and picked themselves in preparation for the market. Their hands carefully cradle the produce, and I thought it was a great representation of how valuable this market is for both the people running the booths as well as the people buying products from them.

The second subtopic I focused on was the food and meals sold at the farmers market. One of the best parts of the Pearl Street market is that there are so many different cultures represented, and I felt it was important to highlight that. There truly is something for everyone here, whether that be homemade empanadas or roasted chili peppers. For these photos, I tended to go for wider shots in order to capture the whole visual. I was trying to capture how food brings people together, so instead of doing closer shots that showed the little details, I wanted to capture how food created interactions that brought people together, even just for a conversation.

Finally, the third subtopic I focused on was the art scene at the market. Many booths feature handmade art that takes a lot of talent and hard work to produce. For these photos I went back to mostly close-up shots so that I could really capture all the detail that goes into making something so beautiful. I specifically chose to photograph the woven fans and baskets (seen at the beginning of the segment) because they were some of the most detailed art I had found at the market. With many bright colors and patterns, they just organically draw the eye of the viewer, and I liked the color contrasts of them. 

I chose the formatting and order of the photos and interviews carefully. The introduction seemed like a good place to get viewers who maybe hadn’t been or heard about the market up to speed, and from there I transitioned into talking about the fresh produce lineup because it is the biggest sector at the market. From there I went back to interviews with students, trying to get more of a background from their perspectives on how often they came to the market. Throughout the video, I tried to find a balance between having the student interviews play an important role and making sure the other information about the market was also being conveyed correctly. The foods and arts sections were shorter because they have less dominance over the market, but they are still just as important.

For audio, I really had three types. I chose background music using Adobe Stock, which helped me find Creative Commons licensed music to use. I selected a fun and uplifting beat to set the tone for the video. The second type of audio was a voice overlay I created myself. I used this for the parts of the video that did not include interviews so that viewers could have more context for the photos they were seeing on screen. And the third type of audio I used in this was the audio from the interviews. In terms of text, I really only used it to identify the students being interviewed, as well as to give song credit at the end of the video

Reflecting on this project, there are a lot of positives and negatives. One of the biggest takeaways for me is from the audio. The voiceover and song audio came out great, but there are parts of the interviews that have too much vocal fry. You can still understand what the interviewee is saying, but the inflection of their voice is sort of distorted, and that’s something I’d like to fix next time around. Because the market is only held once a week, I had the unique challenge of really only having one two days to get all of my content for this video, so as much as I would have liked to go back and reshoot the interview audio, I did not have the chance to because the next time the market will be help will be after the due date of this project. But, I do think most of my video and photo quality came out great, and it was fun to play around with adjusting the settings to get good imagery.