Visual Journalism

John Loengard has a guest post over on Scott Kelby’s site, and it’s an entry that every aspiring photographer and picture editor has to read. The role of the picture editor is, perhaps, the most misunderstood one in the communication industry. No one likes their picture editor – not the photographers nor the editors on high.

But the role a good picture editor can play is so crucial it amazes me that there is not a great university program designed to produce great picture editors. Many schools have a class, but none (of which I’m aware) have an entire program dedicated to the art and business of visual editing. (Are you reading this, boss?)

A few quotes lifted from Loengard’s piece …

Other editors, with the story’s text in hand, may judge photographs by what they have read. Don’t join them. The reader sees before he ever reads and may never read if there’s nothing interesting to see.

The number of complaints I received as a picture editor from the word and design side regarding the photos not matching the story, with an assumption we had gotten it wrong, was uncountable. And asking, “Are you sure the reporter got it right? Where they there?” never went over well …

Before I became a picture editor, I assumed that “good photographers” took “good pictures” because they had a special eye. What I found was that good photographers take good pictures because they take great pains to have good subjects in front of their cameras. (Reflect a moment on what cameras do, and this makes sense.) Good photographers anticipate their pictures. What good picture editors do is help them.

I will admit I was a good photographer and probably a better picture editor (though I enjoyed shooting far more than editing). Where I put so much of my energy was in helping my staff get into the right place to tell a story. Once I had opened as many doors as I could and led them down the right hall, it was up to them.

Text editors do their work after the fact. But because photographers have something in common with Babe Ruth-they either hit the ball or they don’t-almost everything a picture editor does is done before the pictures are taken. What can you do after a home run except smile?

Another dilemma photographers run into. In the newsroom, the reporters are slaving away over their keyboards while the photo staff is relaxed, jovial even, at their work stations. The reporters response to this, verbalized or not, is that the shooters have it easy. What they fail to understand is the photojournalists who are no so relaxed are unwinding from having to tell an entire story in a split second, from having a massive amount of pressure dropped on them and then removed. There are no re-shoots in news, a picture editor can rarely rework an image to get a better story out of it. The timing of the pressure point is different. In fact, it may not even be a pressure point for the reporter as their agony can be dulled over time. For us, it is instantaneous and the bitterness of failure lasts a very, very long time.

I am as big a fan of Dorothea Lange as you will find. Take away all the issues around her life, just her work alone is amazing stuff.

But to make a musical about her life? Uhhh … hmmm … okay, I won’t pass judgement on this. Because, well, I like the overture … oh, wait, I just listened to the Excerpt from Maynard … I may judge this soon …

(Thanks to Donald Winslow for the lead.)

Up at My Old School, incoming grad students go through a six week boot camp that now includes a multimedia component. The students are required to produce a 60 second video or audio slide show about someone (or thing) within the neighborhood of Syracuse, New York.

I think this is brilliant. And, given the quality on some of these first-attempt pieces, they’re teaching this right.

Go Orange.

Adam Westbrook, who is pretty smart even by British standards, did a five-part series on blogging for journalists. Won’t take too much of your time and, if you’re not blogging, you need to do this to survive in journalism now …

1. Why Journalists Must Blog Now
2. How to Create Your Blog
3. How to Build an Audience
4. Giving Your Blog a Visual Edge
5. Five Big Mistakes I Wish I Hadn’t Made

Great info in each of those posts, even if you’ve been doing this for a while.

Well, Robert Niles over at the Online Journalism Review has presented almost all of my ideas in one handy post. All five of his ideas are solid and, if you’re not already doing them, it’s time to get going.

Several of these have been incorporated into my advanced class and, next semester, may trickle down to the introductory courses, as well.

Mindy McAdams, the Flash Goddess (her words), posted a question about what skills a reporter needs now. She started with a basic list, but go through the comments (and add your own), some interesting ideas in there.

I’ve added a few in there, as well.

Steve Fox up at the University of Massachusetts has a post up about why students need to be blogging. You need to read it, even if you’re not a student.

Why? Let me quote …

… students should blog because it allows you to practice your writing and your multimedia skills. And, like anything, the more you practice, the better you get. In the process, you are creating a body of work that you can show those looking to hire you for an internship or a job. Remember, your blog is part of your digital footprint. Take it seriously.

I try to blog something every day, here it is what’s called link aggregation, but elsewhere I try to create content. My goal for this academic year is to create more. Harass me if i don’t.

My colleague, Prof. Barry Hollander, was walking around with a sheet of these journalism warning labels from Tom Scott this week. Very entertaining stuff, but it got me thinking, do we need a set for photos?

Time to put your thinking caps on and create a few. My contributions:

• Warning: This brilliant photo is a total fluke. It’s the only sharp image I shot this week.
• Warning: We found this image on the web, we have no way of knowing if it is real. Also, we don’t have permission to use it, so don’t tell anyone.
• Warning: An editor with no knowledge of this story selected this photo. It may or may not make sense in the context used.
• Warning: This image was provided to us by Aunt Sally’s cat, who fell off a bookshelf and landed, paws down, on her 1973 SX70 Polaroid. Had we not eliminated our photo staff, maybe we would have had a photo of the cat falling.

Coffee, cameras and computers - Elissa Ewald blogging at the NPPA's Convergence 10 conference. (Photo/Mark E. Johnson)

This week, I’m in Charleston, South Carolina, for the National Press Photographers Association’s Convergence 10 conference. We wrapped up day one an hour or so ago with a great talk on copyright, just 13 hours after we kicked it off with a panel discussion centered around the question of what is journalism now. In between were a dozen other talks on technical, aesthetic and practical issues being faced by visual journalists today.

The hallway banter has been excellent – lots of good conversations, lots of good connections, lots of learning. I’ve met new people, found old friends and discovered that one team of presenters (here to talk about Craig Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning package) all have ties, in some way, shape or form, to my home town. It is very weird.

Frances Micklow updates the NPPA blog at the Convergence 10 conference. (Photo/Mark E. Johnson)

The crowd is a little thinner than we’d hoped, but the economy is to blame for that. To keep those not here in the loop, I brought along a couple of my students who have been blogging various sessions on the NPPA web site. They’re taking notes and then furiously writing and posting during the breaks, and will continue to do so through out the remaining two days. Check back in regularly to see what you’re missing – it’s a great event so far, should only get better.

I spent this morning posting 16 video pieces my students did this past spring. For my Documentary Photography course, we focused on a theme for their final video projects, a theme based on just one word: energy. From there, I let them have at it.

The story topics are all over the place, from recycling to dairy farms, bike groups to elementary schools. Eclectic ties it together as much as energy does.

While the students had produced a smaller piece earlier in the semester, this is their first foray into video journalism. The first time they’d picked up a video camera, launched Final Cut Pro or thought about matched action and sequences.

Which raises a question as an educator: do I share what’s good in the classroom with the outside world? I firmly believe that an education is an on-going thing, that failure is an integral part of that experience, that mistakes teach us as much as successes, maybe more.

I also believe that journalism is a Public Act. That hiding it away in my classroom is a disservice to my students because it takes away that public role, it removes the audience from the experience. We start out the Introduction to Photojournalism course this way with in-class critiques – every image submitted goes up on the big screen and everyone comments on it. It’s how we learn.

There is no right way to commit journalism. Some of these pieces I’m really impressed by, but maybe you like ones that I think needed a little more effort. Find yourself an hour and a good wifi connection and take a look. Leave a comment there or here, I’m interested to hear what you have to say.