Photojournalism

This past week I was a judge for the Pictures of the Year International contest at the University of Missouri, where we sat in a room for 12 hours a day, for four days, viewing over 18,000 images from thousands of photographers across the globe. Per contest coordinator Rick Shaw’s guidelines for judging, we viewed each image three times, in order to give every image the benefit of the doubt. (So it was more like 54,000 viewings). At one point it felt like I was in the “Star Gate” sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey as we hurtled through images from all over time and space, inundated with light, color and scenes of intensity from around the globe, filled with awe.

I was absolutely delighted to fulfill a professional milestone, alongside Elizabeth Krist, Bruce Strong, and Moe Doiron. Our job was to evaluate the Reportage multiple pictures categories on our way to choosing the Photographer of the Year. I had been to a POY judging – but only as a participant. This time, I was out of the armchair and into the hot seat – especially because our comments were at times recorded on Facebook Live.

As someone who has written about, taught and presented on effective visual communication, it was also a great opportunity for me to gain further insights into the urgent question that I often think about as a visual creator helping clients reach audiences.

What makes for compelling images?  

What images not only win contests, but also break through the visual noise and clutter to make a viewer stop, linger and look?

So as our group propelled ourselves through the images, I tried to answer this question. I paid attention to what was going through my mind (and gut) as I experienced the multitude of amazing images. It was not easy. We made split-second decisions that were often visceral.

I concluded that it came down to four criteria. They reflect image perception from the eye, to the mind and ultimately and most importantly, to the heart.

1. Beautiful

When your eyes are inundated with images, beauty always makes you stop and fill with awe – an underlying character of many viral images. So in this case, it became a bare minimum to move forward with an image.

Images had to combine light, mood, emotion and composition in a visual coherence that were just plain beautiful. If it was color, it had to be beautiful color – not necessarily bright and beautiful, as it could be high key and muted, or even dark and brooding. It just had to be done skillfully to heighten an aesthetic.

We had long discussions about post-production and color treatments, etc. As a photojournalism contest, it’s generally frowned upon for ethics reasons. If it supported the content, I was all in favor of it. If it became a look for the sake of a look, then I would argue against it. The winning portfolio had a series of images with a post-produced look that I felt was completely unnecessary. But I voted for it anyway on the strength of the content.

I will say that post-produced images are more likely to be given a second look, as you first experience the style and what it has to say, and then dig deeper into the image itself. In that pause, there is likely an opportunity.

2. Storytelling

Storytelling creates motion between images – a narrative thread that engages a viewer. We started with overviews of essays, where we could experience their overall context. This is where editing really became key.

Visual variety, identifiable faces or characters to put a face on an issue – all of these things help when viewing a body of images. Photographs shot at a distance were not quick reads and were a bit of a challenge to appreciate when viewed as a grid. Nonetheless, we lingered on them to give every entry its due.

When there is a push-and-pull between images shot at different distances and focal lengths, it produces a narrative motion that propels a viewer forward through a set of images. You can see the flow and it enhances a story. (This translates to sequencing for videos as well)

So it was very easy to quickly scan a grid of 12 or 40 images to tell whether there was a breakdown in the story in the form of repetitive or weak images.  The flow was also interrupted when a photographer put together two images that were just too similar to each other, but were likely separate in his/her own mind.

Because we all have short attention spans as humans, you don’t want any of these things to distract from the motion or sequencing of a narrative.

If images are all photographed in a similar manner that can work too, as long as the viewer is brought to an unexpected place by the repetition and uniformity. But it’s a delicate dance to make sure images are not redundant to the point that you lose interest.

3. Engaging

Images had to engage the mind. For this, a cognitive reaction of, “What’s this?” had to happen. New and fresh always get more attention in visual communication.

If an image makes you ask questions, all the better, but not to the extent that you walk away without enough information to understand what you just saw.  Then it’s just an irritation to your cognitive curiosity and the image gets dropped like a rock.

Rodeos or boot camps or any number of clichés got passed over quickly, unless they were exceptionally and uniquely presented. We’ve seen it. No surprise.

Engaging stories are ones that usually relevant to the cultural conversation at large – images that speak to ideas, thoughts and emotions that are swirling in our world.

For example, we all admitted to leaning forward in our chairs looking for picture stories that spoke to some of the bigger news stories from last year, such as Standing Rock or the Fidel Castro funeral.

For the stories about drug violence in the Philippines, we saw many photographers’ work. Which won? The story with contextual scenes that showed how the deaths intruded on daily life. Those were more engaging. We wondered what it would be like to have to deal with that on a day-to-day basis.

Another takeaway was that it’s important to relate any story back to shared human experience, to stir a connection (see below).

4. Emotional

Perhaps most obviously, emotion was the rule. It was the ultimate arbiter, how images made us feel, after all was said and done.

As a photojournalist at my news organizations, I always keyed on the emotion of a story in the limited time I had. You have to find the heart of a story.

But there’s a very important caveat that I think eludes a lot of people.

Emotions are only valuable to the extent that it makes the viewer care.

The images had to spur compassion, fun, anger, injustice, inspiration etc. Yes, it’s great if the subjects are emotional in the frame, but capturing emotion was not enough. As viewers we had to care about the subject to care about their emotion. Otherwise there is a disconnect. We have to know enough about the story and the context to be able to relate

Foreign ceremonies, unusual events, strange traditions, fetishes, or ethnic group profiles can all be interesting, visual and even emotional. But does it really matter to a viewer except in an anthropological – external observer kind of way?

As busy humans with short attention spans, we need to feel the urgency of caring, now.

That’s the challenge of any contest – to thread a narrative through beautiful and engaging images that make jurors care.

But that goes for just about all visual communication, and the everyday jurors who make split-second decisions that can determine your future.

I finally had some breathing time this month to upload photos for a picture gallery of a non-profit foundation project that I just loved working on. Over a year ago I was contacted by a former colleague who realized that his organization really needed to showcase the tremendous work it does, for members, supporters and the general public. Since then, I dropped in during different seasons to document the beautiful landscape in a creative photojournalism style for an image library for its internal and external communications. Their annual report is about to be published, which I’m excited about because it makes ample use of this imagery. I also shot some aerials and edited a video for the organization’s anniversary, which can be found in the motion-video category of my site, but also on their foundation’s page. Give them some view-love:-) if you have a few minutes. For visual consistency, I gave the images a creative treatment that reflects the feeling and mood that I experienced in my wanderings there, which was often during the Golden Hour. Hope you enjoy!

When I first started attending portfolio reviews as a commercial and editorial photographer a couple years ago, I was faced with the question: Printed portfolio or iPad? I wanted to position myself among others who I perceived were mostly using books, so I created a printed portfolio. I even enlisted a friend who is a wood artisan, to create a gorgeous portfolio book made of black walnut. I loved it (and strongly recommend his work). I had something that was unique. On a conceptual level, it suggested the “real nature” of the “real people” that I generally work with. 

I spent days printing work at great expense, after making difficult choices about what to include and what not to include, mindful that a reviewer has a compressed period of time while turning oversized pages.

I wanted to distance myself from the digital media of an iPad. I thought printed material would convey a certain seriousness of my work as an artist, which is also something I had read in some interviews of portfolio reviewers.

But in the end, I decided to use an iPad Pro. Why?

Having gone through a few reviews with both a printed book and an iPad, this is what I’ve personally found:

1. You can’t control for the light in the room when viewing prints. There’s no doubt that prints can be impressive. But if you’re stuck in a dark corner with a reviewer, your prints could appear dark and suffer from the lack of radiance they had while making your gorgeous print. If you’re stuck in an incredibly bright part of a room, your prints can look washed out. At least when you’re printing for a gallery show, you have some control over user experience. You can’t really say at a review, “Well, trust me, this looked fantastic in the room where I printed.”  Yes, it’s true that the iPad can have glare, but usually by tilting the screen, using a non-glare surface screen, that goes away. I personally haven’t found that to be an issue. I’ve certainly found that colors on an iPad will often sing more than on a printed page.
2. Having a reviewer slow down to see every detail of your large print may work for your genre but it may not. In fact, it can steer the conversation away from the strengths of your abilities. I’ve observed that a reviewer will take more time and consideration with a print than a screen they can swipe. This is great if you’re the kind of photographer who invests hours or days into making a single image with detail, complexity and a level of production that you want the reviewer to notice and appreciate. But if you’re a storyteller like I am, “real moments” are more important. You might want someone to see a number of photos on the way to a mood, feeling or sense of intimacy. I also like to show I can work quickly, creating image libraries with emotion and action.
3.  An iPad offers more potential to customize your presentation. This is more important when you attend a portfolio review event with multiple reviewers.  I happen to have many bodies of work, some with more commercial flavor, some with more editorial flavor and others in between. But at reviews, you can’t bring five printed books with you easily (just the optics of that raises eyebrows) but you can quickly customize your portfolio based on the research you’ve done. Easily customizing your galleries helps keeps your conversation on target with your reviewer and leads to less confusion about who you are as a photographer.  
4. If you have a lot of work to show, an iPad is less overwhelming. At my most recent review, I showed far more work on my iPad than I ever could have shown via a printed book, and it still wasn’t enough for some reviewers who enjoyed the pictures and wanted to see more. Conversely, some reviewers appeared overwhelmed when a photographer’s voluminous portfolio book landed with a thud on the reviewing table. I would think the more you can show while respecting a reviewer’s time, the better. 
5.  If you have motion to show, you’ll have an iPad there anyway. 
6. There will be reviewers who enjoy printed books, and there will be some who like iPads. But will it really affect whether you get work? I’m guessing the greater influencers are whether they have need for your type of photography, whether they like your work and whether they trust your skill sets. I would think your conversation and your personality, more than the style of presentation, would give someone a greater edge.

If you do decide to bring an iPad, however, here are a couple tips I hope will be helpful:

1. Be sure to completely charge the iPad, and to bring a portable battery charger or long battery cord. Or both. Like with any photo shoot, back-up your back-ups.
2. Bring a soft cloth to wipe off fingerprints from the screen in between reviews.
3. Turn off all notifications, update the system software and put the iPad into airplane mode. The last thing you need is a text or system message to pop-up during a review.
4. Turn off the auto-lock, so you won’t have to deal with punching in your code in front of the reviewer. If you end up chatting for a few minutes in between viewing images,  the iPad may decide to take a breather.
5. I personally use Foliobook, but there are many different types of iPad apps out there for photographer portfolios.

During a recent panel discussion of art producers at a photo community meeting, a questioner in the crowd asserted that Instagram photographers (the kind who only work with phones) and photojournalists were ignorant about the needs of production. It was as if both lacked an appreciation of the complexity of producing a shoot.

At best, the analogy was a woeful overgeneralization. At the very least, it was uninformed. At the time, I figured it was the wrong time to divert the discussion. 

But it’s an unfortunate perception that breeds distrust and missed opportunities.

Ironically, what I’ve been most buoyed by in my commercial work have been the logistical similarities of producing shoots from my background in photojournalism.

As an example, recently I was looking over a spreadsheet with a photojournalist friend on a huge budget shoot for a well-known international magazine. 

It was the kind where you are your own cost-control expert, combing through budget line-items looking for efficiencies to keep a client calling you back. It was fairly typical planning for that kind of trip. 

His spreadsheet rated locations around the world, according to a dozen different criteria. He had consulted with top-level scientists around the world to confirm his perceptions and findings. He had articulated his vision on a creative call (or, conference call with editors and writer) and all were excited about the project. 

The project would take him to many rural areas off the grid. These were the kind of places where a random police officer could shut down the entire shoot with arbitrary and opaque laws, confiscate all your equipment and/or detain you and your crew unless you had cash available for “instant permits“. 

He needed to find experienced producers (or, fixers) way ahead of time to help avoid any problems. The best are natively bilingual, with deep contacts, a nuanced understanding of the culture and an appreciation of the needs of photographers. The worst are government snitches who’ll sell you out if you’re in touchy areas around military installations or persecuted communities.

Moreover, he needed a location scout to vet identified places. Locations often hold more promise in theory than reality. You can’t waste valuable time and money to discover that what you expected to find only happens there in a different season.

If he were to lose power, or even lose one piece of equipment, the whole trip would be torpedoed, since he’s in the middle of nowhere and can’t send an assistant to a rental house the next country over. His backups needed backups. 

Food and catering?  On-the-go packaged protein would replace any available street fare that could sicken his team for days, an intolerable outcome, especially at a distance from healthcare. But then, he’d already arranged to be evacuated by helicopter in case of a medical crisis.

On his way to a “hero shot” he’ll have to streetcast talent (or, subjects) willing to be photographed. As many pre-interviews he can get done, the better. Even in news environments, you’re something of a casting agent looking for the most visually-compelling individual that fits the dimensions of the story.  

If it’s a portrait, he’ll ask them about props or clothing that reveal more about their lifestyle or character. Unlike the commercial world, you can’t rely on post-production to change colors of clothing or to remove an unwanted object later from a photograph. For reasons of journalistic ethics, you have to get it right in-camera, the first time. A certain amount of color-grading could be acceptable depending on the magazine.

Even if he finds the right subject, he’ll have to use every technique in his interpersonal toolkit for them to avoid the deer-in-the-headlights look, abject fear, or amusement at facing a foreigner and his team.

All the while, he should keep his art director (or, photo editor) updated so that everyone involved in the project could sleep safely on the days before and during the trip.  That requires communication, so he’ll probably bring a satellite phone just in case.

Of course not all photojournalists run productions like these.

These complex productions are often run on deadline on a news cycle. They’re competing with other photojournalists in the field like a crazy Survivor game where brand reputations are at stake. 

Moreover, in addition to news and news features, photojournalists also run fashion productions. Some run lifestyle productions. Others run food productions. Some construct sets for studio shoots.

It just depends on what lifestyle section, fashion supplement, special section, multimedia project, magazine shoot and/or budget they may be working with. In the end, you get it done, with little pretense and fanfare. 

I’ve had experience with all of these kinds of projects before moving to the commercial and advertising world, where I’ve discovered the sheer joy of being able to hire people to do the work that I used to do alone.  

But there is a tension I’ve found as productions grow in size.

When you scale up a production crew, it can exert a form of gravity on a set that interferes with the ability to create the authenticity in which moments can occur.Experienced photojournalists possess a sense of story that comes with shooting them on a daily basis. They also have an anticipatory sense of the moment, and the ability to capture it. So they know that if a real person finds themselves surrounded by strangers, trust can dwindle, and intimacy can fly out of the room like a butterfly.

So for valid aesthetic reasons on some types of projects, a photojournalist may not be inclined to want a big production.

Either way, a frank discussion needs to happen with the art buyer – about what level of production is required, and what kind of results are expected. The benefit of clarifying these issues is that you work with a photographer who is adept at communicating story and its emotional core.

For the photojournalist, emotion is the currency of meaning. In the back of their mind, they’re always answering the compelling reader question, “Why should we care about your story and what you have to say”?

There is great diversity in the term “photojournalist”.

For those who are savvy to this, there are many opportunities that are yet to be explored.

On the hunt….©2016 Alex Garcia

Are you a Chief Visual Brand Storyteller?

An Editorial and Advertising Photographer?

A Senior Visual Content Specialist?

A Multimedia Photojournalist/Video journalist?

Or, maybe “Lead Picture Guru”?

If you’re a professional photographer, you’ve probably pondered, paused or even struggled to figure out how you should describe yourself on your business card, social media profile, or during an elevator pitch.

How you refer to yourself often depends on your audience. But in person or especially online, you’re both unsure of their specific need and their sophistication with imprecise job titles.

If I introduce myself with the term “photojournalist”, someone may see me as the crazed Dennis Hopper from Apocalypse Now or clueless Jimmy Olsen from Superman, depending on their Netflix history. Getting past the strange depictions of photojournalists out there, there is a huge creative difference between a photojournalist who uses studio lighting for location portraiture, and a conflict photographer who is a pure documentarian. 

I may introduce myself as a “storyteller” – if they understand its potential for advertising and marketing. If not, I might get invited to the next meeting of the National Storytellers League. 

Of course you have a niche but you’re also quite capable of applying your talents to other projects. Labels can seem limiting to the person who does many things well.  

But there’s that persnickety little acronym, SEO. Why turn away traffic when keywords can make the difference of being found, even within online directories? For kicks, you can call yourself “Lead Bottle Washer” at “XXX Pictures”. Or maybe “Visual Widget Maker”. I’ve even seen “Photographer Extraordinaire” and “Creative Genius” while browsing social media. They’re funny relief from titles that can seem bland and rote. But searchbots being robots, they don’t get the joke. 

Most would agree that in the marketplace, it’s not enough to be a “photographer”. Top dollar and creative respect goes to the specialist.  Photography has become differentiated, specialized and segmented, so the market has responded.  There are specialties of specialties. 

As trends continue, it won’t be enough to say you’re an adventure photographer. You’ll have to say something like, “I’m an extreme polar arctic photographer specializing in aerial drone photography shooting 360 degree virtual reality – in HDR! ”

To which a client may say, “Oh that’s too bad, I have a huge project for an extreme polar arctic photographer specializing in aerial drone photography shooting 360 degree virtual reality – in black and white! Can you recommend someone?”

As your business grows, your photographic specialty and the market ideally mesh in a glorious symbiotic relationship. You have all the business you need. No fuss, no hassle. That is, until your high-key, sun flare, blown-out photos become dated, forcing you to regenerate like Dr. Who.

So my best (and perhaps unsatisfying) advice is this,

Be specific, but not too specific.

Be general, but not too general.

Of course, this is all coming from someone whose business card succinctly reads: “Alex Garcia: Photographer”. 

I’ll explain more in person…