The Issues Through Photographs II

According to Kobre, the idea for a photo story can surge from many different avenues.  Among these are personal experience, general assignments, topical trends and spotting out the trends yourself.  Finding a newspeg or a hook is also important in deciphering whether there is actually a story to tell.

Using people to represent a particular topic or issue is always a great way to grasp an audience and make them understand what the issue is all about.  Kobre lists several types of people stories namely those that center around the well known, the less known but interesting, the less known but representative of some issue, and finally a single person representing an abstract topic such as a disease like cancer.

Photographer and staffer at the Los Angeles Times Annie Well’s photo diary of her battle with cancer is an excellent example of the latter.  Well’s self-shot photos of her treatments, hair loss, breast burnt from the radiation treatments, and other up and down moments throughout her process with breast cancer are truly amazing.  If you are ever able to get your hands on a copy of Kenneth Kobre’s Photojournalism, The Professionals’ Approach, make sure you take a look at this story on pages 148-151.  This story, I believe, is truly indicative of the power of photojournalism at its best.

Another striking story in this section of the book is one of a welfare father who was left to take care of 4 children after the mother was arrested for welfare fraud.  This photo story can be found in pages 167-171.  The photos show their filthy living space, the children doing chores and sometimes crying, the father giving his children hair cuts to save money, and the tenderness he shows them by holding or comforting them.  Although the photographs are accompanied by some writing, it is that visual aspect that really tells the story and brings the point home.

The more I read this book and look through the photo stories, the more I realize that there is no better way to learn how to produce good, meaningful photo stories than to look at others that have already been done.  More than reading about how to produce these stories, I think that looking through many different examples is slowly helping me to really understand what goes into shooting a series of photographs that really come together to tell a compelling story.

I recently found a great Web site, JPG The Magazine of Brave New Photography that showcases more than 100 photo essays.  Some are issue stories and others are not, but I think they are a great way to learn if you’re interested in producing some of these photo essays yourself!

The Issues Through Photographs I

Photographs have always struck me as a strikingly effective way to provoke people on certain issues. Words can sometimes do the trick, but nothing tugs at your heart like a photograph where you can actually see an issue through the pain in a human face.

Kobre showcases several great issue centered photo stories that clearly demonstrate the potential these kinds of projects can have for exposing issues and bringing about change. One of my favorites is Judy Griesedieck’s “California’s Nursing Homes: No Place to Die” where she exposed some of the horrors going on in these establishments through a series of photos that were published in San Jose’s Mercury News. The pictures were all very simple but also very telling. One of the shots that showcased in Kobre’s book that left the biggest impression of me was that of a nursing home resident asleep in a chair in an empty hall way neglected and unattended, her neck hanging over the side of the chair. This photo story also exhibited the importance of looking at more than one side of the story, something that has often been argued photojournalism projects are unable to do. In addition to showing the negative occurrences at these nursing homes, Griesedieck also incorporated photographs that showed the caring personnel in the homes.

This example also does a great job of delineating some of the struggles a reporter and/or photojournalist might face in gaining access to issue stories, where people might be highly sensitive and defensive of anything that puts an establishment in a bad light. Griesedieck’s work shows that difficulty gaining the access is not a reason to forgo an issue story, only more reason to pursue it and get out the truth to the public so that some change might come from it. A photograph truly is worth a 1,000 words.

A Novice photographer’s experience with Photo 1- Oh My!

The two photographs above come from my Photo 1 assignment. The assignment consisted of taking some 200 pictures of some aspect of campus life at UF in order to then pick 20 of the best shots and edit them for the Web. I chose to take my photos of a Latin dance group at UF called Sabor Latino (Latin Flavor). All of the pictures were taken during their practice at the O’Connell Center last Wednesday. Several additional pictures were taken the following night at a performance they had at the UMA (University Memorial Auditorium) here on campus. Those will be used for the soundslide presentation that is to come later.

Moving on, first I’d like to share why I chose to display these particular pictures here, and then I’ll talk a little about my experience with this assignment and taking pictures in general.

The first photograph above is one of my favorites. Although you probably already knew that! I like this picture for several reasons. First, I like the variety of faces and positions in the picture. I think it tells a story. Anyone looking at this picture could quickly figure out what my story is about. Secondly, I like that some dancers are stretching while others are practicing their moves, and others are simply relaxing in the background. I think this picture really tells the audience the dynamic that existed at Sabor Latino practice that night.

The second photograph above is another one that I was really proud of. I like it because, although there are no faces in this one, it still tells a story. Again, by looking at this picture I think anyone could tell the basic subject of my story. I also like the detail in this picture, although maybe I could have gotten a little closer! I like that you can see the sweat on the first individual’s back and the tights on the second one. The third person seems to be ready to make some move or start a dance while the last person seems to be doing some kind of step. That being said, I really enjoy how much you can get from this one picture, although I understand some people might not see anything more than some feet and hands! Look closer, think harder!

Finally, I’d like to tell you a little about my experience taking these pictures. As some of my classmates might remember me mentioning in class, I have had to borrow different cameras for the various photo assignments/activities in this course. This has been a little stressful as I have not had enough time to really get to know a camera and all of its functions before I’ve had to return it and borrow a different one. I think my pictures have really suffered because of this. If you notice, the 2 pictures shown above have very fuzzy color. Well, I’ll tell you why. The camera I borrowed to complete that assignment was being strange and taking very long between shoots. Also, after I took the first few shots and looked at them, they were almost pitch black. Freaking out, I called my friend whom I had borrowed the camera from and asked why this was happening. She said that happens and that they would look fine once I put them on the computer. OK. I believed her. Still, I played around a little with the settings to see if I could do something about the darkness, just to make sure I had some usable shots at the end of the day. When I got home and put the pictures on my computer, the pictures were a little lighter but still too dark. I had no time to waste and no more practice to take pictures of, so the only thing I could do is adjust the levels until I could see something. And there you have it, fuzzy pictures!

As if that was not enough, the battery (which was fully charged when I got the camera) ran out on me. I had to run to my friend’s house to get it charged and drive back to the O’Connell center to keep shooting. Good thing they had a performance the next day, and they were still practicing when I got back.

So after this traumatic experience, I decided it was time to buy a camera of my own. Sure, I could not afford it, and it put me some $300 deeper in the credit hole, but what I could afford even less was the likelihood of my pictures for various assignments coming out horrible and dark again or not knowing how long my battery will last. So now I can sit with my own camera and really get to know it before I go out to shoot. I think my pictures will benefit greatly from it as will my piece of mind.

A Week in Review: Photography, Editing, Readings and More!

This past week, I learned a great deal both in and out of class.  During our class lecture, we were taught the “rule of thirds” in photography.  I admit I had heard of this before, but never really understood it quite as well as when Mindy visually explained it to us using actual photographs and grids.  My classmate, Eisa, also did a nice job of recapping what we were taught in class on his blog using his own photographs.

 

For those of you who might not know about this rule, it states that when you divide a picture into thirds the most interesting thing in the picture should be in the middle box points.  Again, see Eisa’s blog for a good visual explanation.

 

Learning this rule came in very handy on Friday the 21st when I visited William H. Turner Technical Arts High School for my Master’s project in lieu of thesis which is to be a series of feature articles on education in Miami-Dade County.  Although I am not required to take photographs for my project, after a few weeks in this class, I realized my stories would probably be incomplete without a few good photographs to illustrate the articles and the individuals I spoke to.  After only a few weeks of reading Kobre’s Photojournalism The Professionals’ Approach, shooting a few pictures during our in-class assignment last week, and discussing some of these pictures, I found myself really paying attention to every shot I took.  I thought about angles, composition, light, and the rule of thirds every time I pressed the shutter.  It is amazing what a little training in photography can do for your thought process while shooting pictures.  Still a novice however, I am sure most of the pictures I took on Friday are not anything earth-shattering, but at least I feel confident that I took a few usable shots, many more than I would have had before my recent exposure to photography.  Tomorrow I get another chance to practice when I visit two other high schools.  I am excited!

In class on Thursday, we also learned how to save pictures for the Web and edit them in Photoshop. I was able to practice cropping and adjusting levels.  I also learned that the correct picture resolution for the Web should always be 72 ppi (pixels per inch) and the maximum height for a Web photograph should be 400 pixels while the maximum width should be 750 pixels.  These are easy to set in Photoshop under Image, Image Size.

 

As usual, the learning this week did not stop in the classroom.  I found our three reading assignments each to be quite interesting.  These included Sound Advice: The Natural Approach,  Natural Sound Stories: A How-To Guide and The Transom Mic Shootout Part 2: Handheld Mics .  I will summarize/highlight a few of the most appealing points for each (in my opinion) below.  Still, you should definitely check them out for yourself!

 

1. Sound Advice: The Natural Approach

• The idea of natural sound, which is sound that compliments the image you view on the screen.

•  The idea of an “audio picture” was particularly poetic to me.  We sometimes tend to think of things in very definite terms, but if you let your mind wander just a little bit you can realize that images are not only created with photographs or other visuals.  Sound can create an equally effective image of a particular story in an individual’s mind if collected carefully.

• The term “audio band-aids” used to describe how the author “fixed” gaps in his recording of a narrator for a recent project of his.  The term sort of jumped out of the page for me and reminded me of our ethics discussion last week.  Still, if I remember correctly from our discussion, I think this is OK as the sound to create these “band-aids” was collected from the same room where the narration took place and on the same day.  Right?

 

2. Natural Sound Stories: A How-To Guide

 

• The four steps to creating natural sound stories
  i. Knowing your story and planning ahead for it, including its structure.
  ii. Getting the sound, both subjects speaking and the natural sounds of the surroundings to help the story flow.
  iii. Interviewing differently by asking two-pronged questions, making observations instead of asking questions, getting more sound than you think you might need, and asking subjects to clarify when necessary.
  iv. Finally, putting it all together by creating an outline of your story and organizing your sound, listening to the story to make sure nothing important was left out, and lastly testing your story on a colleague to see how it fairs before air.

 

3. The Transom Mic Shootout Part 2: Handheld Mics

 

•  This one was not my favorite as I had a hard time pointing out the difference in sound between the various mics.  Maybe my headphones are not that great, who knows! 

• However I did notice a few small differences.  There seemed to be an echo coming from Mic D, a little handling noise from Mic E and finally an awkward whistle-type noise in the background from Mic G.

 

In addition to the above readings, we were asked to take a look at The Art of Listening.  As I watched and listened to this, I wrote down one note:  “Listen carefully.  There are more sounds to sound than you think.”  Hmmm…interesting…what do you think about that?

 

Lastly, I listened to Studying a Koala Mystery in Eastern Australia.  These are some of the things I noticed:

• The background sound was good but was a bit of a distraction from the speaker.

• The sounds of the researchers walking in the grass seemed more natural to me, less distracting and seemed to add more to the flow of the story.

• However, the above was much more effective when it was demonstrating action, less so during the speaker’s static talking.

• The sound did a great job of making me feel as if I were there.  The scene was easy to imagine without any images.

• The use of different voices also helped the flow of the story and helped to keep my interest.

• I felt that some of the most intense natural sounds were found towards the end.  To me, this was a good way to signal that the end of the story was coming.

Ethics of Photography: Is There Any One Right Answer?

Ahh…ethics….that sneaky little work we seem to stumble upon no matter where we turn or what work we are involved in.  Most of us would like to be handed a list of do’s and don’ts, and call it a day.  Unfortunately, it is not that simple.  It seems that even the three basic ethical frameworks mentioned by Kobre, utilitarian, absolutist, and the golden rule, are not enough to always provide a direct answer to a photojournalist’s (and any other professional for that matter) ethical dilemma with any particular assignment.
I like the suggestion in the readings that every photographer and every assignment carry with them different ethical implications and thus must be handled separately.  This is important to remember in any situation.  As human beings, I believe we have the unfortunate tendency to try and simplify things too much, in this case ethical standards, to try and fit every case with one set of answers.  Kobre makes it obvious that this line of thought is not helpful.  Every situation is different and must be considered as such.

Then comes the question I have heard in so many of my mass communication courses here at UF: Are we journalists before human beings or vise versa?  It is this “professional versus good samaritan” dilemma, as Kobre terms it (313), that we seem to struggle with so much.  This question, too, does not have a definite answer.  In some situations, where we have the ability to assist those in danger, such as when Joe Fudge of the Newport News Daily Press Times Herald (pg.314) alerted a family that their attic had caught fire and helped them evacuate before he ever took a shot, it seems that our duty as human beings overrides our duty as journalist and providers of information to the public.  Interestingly, in a different situation, as when Pennsylvania’s former state treasurer R. Budd Dwyer committed suicide at a press conference (pg. 314), Kobre suggest that there was nothing the photographers could have done and thus the job overrode the human factor.  These examples, I believe provide a good dichotomy on which to judge this long-discussed dilemma of professional duty versus our duty as human beings.  I think I see Kobre’s point in using these two situations to illustrate this point, do you?

Finally, I especially enjoyed Kobre’s discussion about whether to print gruesome pictures or to sometimes shy away from printing these to avoid offending viewers.  In my opinion, yes, some pictures can be so gruesome and violent that they have the potential to really offend and outrage viewers, but is it fair then, as communicators, to yield the public from the reality that exists in their world without first giving them a choice to decide whether they want to know or not?  I think these kinds of photographs should always be published, as long as they provide some kind of crucial information to the public, and then individuals can choose whether or not to turn the page.  The media should be careful in censoring itself by going on what they perceive will be readers’ reactions, something they can never know for sure. 
This then reminds me of a time during my freshman year in college when I checked my mailbox at the dorm and found a seemingly harmless envelope.  When I opened it, I remember screaming, because there on a 4 x 6in.  postcard was a picture of a horrifying, blood-laden aborted fetus staring at me.  At the time, yes, I was very offended and upset by this unsolicited photograph.  Now, several years wiser, and many communication courses and ethical discussions later, I can respect that group’s offensive postcard, because they had a message to communicate and simply found the most effective way to do so.  Amidst all my screaming, that post card did serve to provoke some real thought on the issue of abortion.  So I ask, do we as a society wish to be thought for or do we wish be given the opportunity to think for ourselves?  Food for thought…pardon my cliché!

A helpful introduction to photography.

Our first readings from Kenneth Kobre’s Photojournalism, The Professionals’ Approach served as a significantly thorough introduction to photography.  Although I have dabbled with photography before in previous courses, I had never really had the chance to read about it in great detail.  I remember when I was young, I thought, you’re a photographer, big deal!  In my mind, there was nothing more to it than aiming the camera at a subject and pressing that shutter.  After reading about all of the thinking and planning that goes into taking a good photograph that will tell a complete story, I realize it’s not so black and white. 

The readings in addition to the class lecture were definitely helpful when it came time to take some of my own photographs.  After reading about different kinds of shots i.e. medium shots (tells the whole story, pg.14), close-ups (emphasizes one element to create drama, pg.14), and overall shots (paints a scene of the event, pg.13), I found myself putting more thought into every shot than ever before.  I thought where should I stand, what elements should I leave in the frame, what elements should I leave out, which details pertaining to my subject would be most visually appealing in a photograph, what elements would tell the most complete story? 

The readings, lecture, and in-class activity coupled together gave me a whole new respect and admiration for the work of photojournalists and photographers in general.  Kobre’s tips, in my opinion, can quickly improve anyone’s ability to take a better picture, a more complete picture, even for a complete novice like myself! 

Below I will highlight what I felt were some of the most helpful tips throughout the readings.  Read these carefully and you can quickly be on your way to taking a more thoughtful and professional quality photograph than you ever thought possible!

1. Be present when your subject is engaged in some activity.  This helps to avoid the posed portrait feel.
2. Think about the purpose and use of your photograph when deciding what kind of shot to take.   For example, if you know only one of your photographs will be used in a publication, take a medium shot that tells the whole story.
3. Using different angles can give your photograph a different perspective.
4. This is a tough one.  Because we are used to the kinds of pictures we might take with our friends or at a gathering, our tendency is to manage the scene by telling people where to stand and what to do.  Kobre says “Rather than stage-managing pictures, photographers observe but do not direct” (pg.19).
5. Kobre also says, “come early and stay late” (pg.54).  This way you can catch surprising photo-ops that might happen before and after the actual event takes place.  Also, by doing this, you have the best chance of getting a spot near the subject that will provide a thorough and clear shot, something you might not get if you are stuck behind a huge crowd of other photographers.
6. Always look for good lighting.
7. Look for something that stands out, something enlightening, something shocking.
 

Journalists’ Toolkit- Aspirations for this Course

When I registered for Journalists’ Toolkit 1 last Spring I was looking to extend the digital knowledge I was gaining in a course I was enrolled in at the time, Developing Digital Online Learning.  In this course students were briefly exposed to many skills including digital photography, collecting and placing audio on the Web, various software applications, digital presentations, publishing material to the Web and more.  Because it is always difficult to go in-depth into numerous topics in just one semester, I was left with an overwhelming fear that little practice in the skills I had acquired would erase everything I had learned throughout the semester.

My goal in Journalists’ Toolkit 1 is to continue to practice and improve my digital skills, and my ability to “figure out” different software applications.  During the course of the semester I hope to substantially increase my audio editing, photography and digital storytelling skills.  In addition, I hope to become increasingly comfortable with a computer and all of its powerful components.  I also hope to come out of this course with a few more work samples to add to the online portfolio I am in the process of creating for my nearby job search.

Everything gets better with practice, but I believe this is particularly true of the digital world and the skills needed to succeed in it.  I want to come out of this course with the ablity to produce more professional quality material for the Web and the confidence to take on any digital based project.

This course is crucial to a successful career in communications in the digital age, and I expect to greatly benefit from it!