Let's Talk About Narrative, but This Time in Photojournalism by Jessi Dodge

Let’s talk about narrative, but this time in photojournalism By Jessi Dodge

The ideas and insights of visual leaders reflect on their newsrooms and the industry as a whole. The concepts help us shape guidelines for workflow, processes and expectations for developing visual narratives in a photojournalistic setting.

Broadly, a visual narrative is defined as a story told with images that doesn’t rely on words to convey the central message. Marcia Allert, Director of Photography at the Dallas Morning News, described the complete narrative as a tool for “informing viewers about a world and a reality that is not their own.”

Written and visual mediums are often weighed against each other in newsrooms. Each image in a photo story is compared to a word in a sentence or a paragraph in a story. Each image carries the story forward in a unique way and each is an essential piece of the overall narrative. But these analogies to text stories are made with open hesitance by photo editors.

For centuries, written word traditions have defined storytelling and how we understand stories. Narrative is understood in terms of words and text, but its role in visual storytelling has been explored far less extensively.

A complete understanding of storytelling through images is essential in a visual world, where our daily lives are consumed by still pictures and video. Producing visual content is no longer reserved for visual journalists.

After talking with eight visual leaders about narrative in visual storytelling, these 10 key points identify ways to help elevate photojournalism. These guidelines were identified and narrowed based on the experiences of these leaders.

1: Everyone is a Story:

Identifying new stories as a visual journalist or photo editor is the first step of the storytelling process. But where do you look? According to Brian Storm, executive producer and founder of MediaStorm, there is no shortage of stories available at any given moment.

“I’m a big believer that every single person that you’ve ever met on this planet is a story,” Storm said. “Everybody’s got something to say.”

Similarly, Denny Simmons, visuals coach at the Courier & Press in Evansville, Ind., says his publication and staff focus primarily on local, people-driven stories so the community can learn about the people around them. This idea was echoed amongst other editors as they stressed searching for new ways to tell local stories without clichés or repeating previously published content.

2: Photographing Adjectives and Adverbs: Images and multimedia content are no longer just produced by professional visual journalists – they are produced by everyone. For Mike Davis, Alexia Tsairis Chair of Documentary Photojournalism at Syracuse University , the future of the visual industry relies on presenting information with complexity beyond just showing what happened.

Davis describes this as photographing adjectives and adverbs, instead of verbs and nouns. The most powerful images combine information, like subject or event, with photographic qualities like light, composition and color. If combined well, images can then become “more than the moment they capture,” but instead become “an extension of time,” according to Davis.

Freelance photojournalist Alyssa Schukar offered similar thoughts, saying that photojournalists should constantly be thinking about how they can photograph bigger ideas and themes for the viewer using tools like symbolism.

3: Working Empathically:

For Marcia Allert, empathy is a necessary ingredient for creating visual narratives. She expects her staffs’ work to use a camera as a recorder and not as a weapon.

“I am a firm believer in the camera as an empathy machine and photographer and image maker as empathy maker,” Allert said.

In the earliest stages of a visual story, she asks the photographer three questions:

1: Why do you care about the story? 2: Why should I care about the story? 3: Why will readers care about the story?

When photojournalists and photo editors prioritize compassion and empathy, they are promoting respect and dignity in the end result to viewers.

4: Sharing the Human Experience:

The importance of honestly communicating the human experience is important to editors and photojournalists alike. For Alyssa Schukar, being a photojournalist is about opening people’s eyes to others’ realities while amplifying the voices of those who aren’t often heard. For Schukar, the most important element of visual stories is humanity. “(Humanity is) the surest way to connect with an audience through photography,” Schukar said.

A necessary part of the narrative development process is preparation and planning, both for what the story is and how photographing it will be possible. Becky Liebowitz-Hanger, a photo editor at the New York Times, says this early question is “what are the photos?” It’s important to brainstorm with the photographer what the story is and talk about the scenes, ideas, and images that could come from shooting.

But pre-visualizing images is an act every editor, including Liebowitz-Hanger, spoke against. Planning should rather be a tool to prepare and be ready to make the photographs.

“The reality of life is always so much more compelling than anything that I can dream up,” Schukar said, emphasizing her avoidance of pre-visualizing specific images.

The human experience has universals every person connects to. Communicating emotions can promote understanding to viewers. MaryAnne Golon, Director of Photography at the Washington Post, described photography in its ideal form as a “language of the eye” and a “universal language” that makes understanding possible beyond spoken languages.

5: Communication is Key:

Communication between photojournalist and photo editor is necessary for a successful project and for building a successful relationship. The need for strong, two-way communication from pitch to publication was emphasized by all editors, including Richard Shaw, adjunct faculty at the University of Florida and former photo editor and director of Pictures of the Year International.

Shaw pointed out that the entire editing process is dependent on communicating with the photojournalist. He particularly emphasized the role of the photo editor, saying “A good photo editor that’s not listening to the photographer is making a mistake.” Similarly, Golon highlighted the idea that it takes photographers a long time to trust their editors, so strong communication is one key way to gain that trust.

Every editor is different in how hands-on they are when working with photojournalists. But most editors pointed out that challenges in the photo editing process are often tied to poor communication. The best projects are ones where doors are kept open, between photojournalist and photo editor, and between photo editor and the rest of the newsroom team.

Outside of internal communication, both Denny Simmons and Alyssa Schukar stressed the need for journalism in photojournalism. Simmons emphasized the need to intentionally convey the central message and prevent the reader from having free interpretation. He pointed out that photojournalists communicate a specific point to viewers, and that if that communication doesn’t happen they are just artists.

6: The Next Visual Plateau:

The difference between good and great is reaching the next plateau - for Richard Shaw at least. Shaw described the hardest part of the photo editing process as first recognizing where a story is at, what plateau it is on, and figuring out how to “kick it up a notch” to reach the higher plateau.

This move to the higher level can come from any number of changes, like reordering images, reevaluating the narrative arc or even working with the photographer to reshoot certain ideas or rework their vision. Each of these shifts works to achieve the ultimate editing goal: to help turn a good photo story into a great photo story.

7: Pairing Text and Visuals:

Traditionally, images have been paired with text stories as a package. But what should that package look like? For Simmons, the two are separate. He pointed out that the photo story isn’t made to match the text story just as the text story isn’t written to match the photo story. They should, however, mesh and complement each other.

By collaborating with other newsroom leaders, Lebowitz-Hanger sees the opportunity to expand the traditional role of photojournalism, increasing stand-alone content rather than always being tied to a text story. Because of increased visual literacy in today’s readers, she sees room for photojournalism to serve as a home for stand-alone content. For example, certain forms of breaking news could become ‘photo-only’ stories now, when previously the default was a few hundred words of text.

8: Editing - like Packing for a Trip:

When describing the nitty-gritty parts of editing a photo story, several editors shared common approaches and styles. All seven editors and producers included in this research talked about looking through every single photograph and minute of footage. They want to enter a project seeing everything recorded.

The second commonality was the use of categorization while editing. Lebowitz-Hanger compared this process to how she packs for a trip. Just as you may pick your best pair of pants, best shirt and best shoes, images are split into categories of like purpose or format and then narrowed down to pick the best of each type. This process helps to pick the strongest images while preventing repetition in the final collection.

9: The Perks of Prints:

There was one additional technique referenced by every still photojournalist or photo editor included in this research. Everyone talked about the value of printed images. Sometimes the images were used as part of the categorization and narrowing down process, other times for ordering the final images and other times to help move past being stuck.

Everyone does it, but why?

Golon explained the value in using tangible images to work through the final parts of the process. “There’s a different relationship with something you touch. And I don’t think you’re really touching it when your hand is on the mouse,” Golon said. The tangibility of printed images allows for a more direct experience with the images, and it can allow for a more tangible understanding of the viewer experience as they move through the images.

10: What are We Missing?:

It is easy to see what we are doing now and to talk about the work we have done in the past. It is less easy to see what we are not doing and what stories we are not telling. For Golon, one of the biggest needs in photojournalism today is a balance between light and dark. The industry, right or wrong, primarily covers the problems in society, the darkness, and forgets about the light stories highlighting beauty and success.

“Of course, the only thing that makes me happy is photography, so I have to look at some other kind of photography,” Golon said about how she avoids being bogged down by dark content. She fears that without more emphasis on the light, people will turn away and stop listening.

Lebowitz-Hanger focused more on those telling the stories, emphasizing a need for more diverse newsrooms and journalists. The limited diversity in journalism, and in photojournalism specifically, places a limitation on the stories and the voices that are being shared across a number of categories including race, gender and socioeconomic class.