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.

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.

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.

In going through the comments to John Harrington’s most recent post on Black Star Rising (noted here), I came across a link to this piece on the ASMP site by Rosh Sillars dealing with … well … dealing with amateurs. (Thanks, Dominick, but why no link to your own site?) Loved this line:

The mystery of the photographers’ black box has been made simple and easy for anyone to use. The best way to build a career in photography today is create new mystery and magic that cannot be easily replicated.

There was a time that owning a camera made you the professional. Next it was the ability to not just put the box in the mail and let Kodak handle the rest. Then it was technical excellence, in sharpness and exposure. Then in delivery time.

Now, you can walk into any electronics store (not even a camera store) and but state of the art equipment that will produce sharp, well exposed images that you can send around the world in a moment.

But that doesn’t mean you should. There’s still a professional element at play here. Several, actually.

Photographically, it’s not just about sharp, well exposed and high resolution. It’s about composition, light and moment. It’s about understanding what you’re shooting and how to communicate a message to a wide and varied audience.

Professionally, it’s about doing that reliably. It’s about every frame working, it’s about building a business model that allows you to bill for today’s shoot in a way that let’s you be there for the client again in six month or six years. It’s about wanting to do this for the rest of your life, about letting your passion be your career.

So where do you find that “new mystery and magic?” It’s in your eye, it’s in your heart and, maybe most importantly, it’s in your head. One of my business heros, Stanley Leary, has talked with my students about turning contacts into clients and then keeping those clients. If I were hiring, I would hire Stanley because I like working with him. He’s confident in his abilities and makes me feel comfortable working with him. I trust him. I know he’s thinking about my needs, about my business. He makes my business his business. He’s not a contract, he’s a colleague.

And there’s some magic in the ability to move from thinking about people as your clients to your colleagues.

Damon Kiesow has a great article up on the Poynter Institute web site about Jim MacMillan, a veteran Daily News shooter who has more Twitter followers than Katie Couric does. Lots of great advice in there, including this:

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everybody has ideas. Go do something.

Well said.

This is an important read not just for our recent graduates but for everyone of our students - Steve Buttry has posted his tips for finding a journalism job in the digital world.

I’ve made some semi-random comments about similar thoughts in the past, but that’s one of the best collections of them I’ve seen. My Advanced Photojournalism students this fall will have a semester-long assignment to build their digital persona because waiting until graduation week is too late – it needs to start now. (And, depending on how it goes in the fall, my Introduction to Photojournalism students may be required to do it in the spring.)

What will that entail? I’m going to start simple with a few key things:

• A Digital Portfolio: Whether it’s a self-hosted web site or a Wordpress.com-like CMS driven, the students will be required to post what they’re working on on a regular basis as well as developing an area of expertise in something. I’m not going to be too concerned about what that area is, but it should be something you can be an expert in – maybe food, sports, environmental issues or local politics (it is an election year, after all).
• A Social Media Marketing Campaign: This would most likely be driven by Twitter, perhaps Facebook, probably both. But they will need to drive traffic to their web site and start conversations about their topic of choice.

It may go further than that, haven’t decided yet. But the successful folks I keep reading about are the ones who are way outside of our traditional journalism comfort zone. Time to make my students more uncomfortable.

Scott Bourne has launched a new web site called Going Pro – and it’s full of tips that young photographers need to hear to become a success. Should be regular reading for students. And, um, us old folks, too …

A sampling of headlines …

• Are You Trying to Get Published? Editing Counts
• Community Involvement and Professional Photography Go Hand-in-Hand
• Making Salable Photos out of Lemons

Put it in your favorite RSS reader and pay attention.

Wow, that sounds like a really bad airport hotel seminar, doesn’t it?

But success does take preparation. You can wish to be lucky all your life, but it probably isn’t going to happen. (“But have you noticed how that luck happens to the same photographers over and over again?” Edward Steichen)

Over on the Luminous Landscape site, Jack Graham talks about preparing for daily success – and a lot of it goes with the ideas of routine and ritual I’ve discussed in class.

Preparation to me is getting your mind in the right place, understanding, appreciating, thus enjoying the natural environment of where I am about to set out too.

This is one of those things that pops up from time to time that some folks will erringly fixate on and drive themselves insane - it’s a listing of 200 jobs, ranked from best to worst, according to a study released by CareerCast.com to the Wall Street Journal. Why will it drive you insane? Because the best career in America is being an actuary.

Yes, they predict when people will die.

Really? That’s the best job in America?

The worst, according to this, is “roustabout,” which I had to look up …

Why am I posting this? Because photojournalist is on the list … at number 189. Eleventh from the bottom. Hopefully if enough people read that list, they’ll all decide not to do what we love, leaving more work for us.

So, shhhhhhh ….