Dodge-Projectreport.Pdf

The Photojournalistic Narrative An examination of the approach of photo editors and photojournalists in creating longform visual narratives.

Jessi Dodge Missouri School of Journalism University of Missouri Masters Project May 2020

Committee: Brian Kratzer, Chair David Rees

ABSTRACT:

Conversations about narrative are few and far between in photojournalism. Interviews conducted with leaders in the field helped to complete a fuller understanding of the process and ideals of building visual narratives. Understood through the hierarchy of influences theory, this research found that photo editors look for a strongly communicated human experience first in the narratives they work with. Conversations further suggest that communication is the single most important element of the narrative development process.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………ii II. Integrative Introduction…………...…………………………………………………....iv III. Professional Component………………………………………………………………..1 a. Introduction……………………………………………………………………..2 b. Discussion……………………………………………………………………....3 i. Previous Book Analysis……………………………………………...…3 ii. Picture editing…………………………………………………………..4 iii. Design and publication………………………………………………....8 c. Evaluation…………………………………………………………………...…11 IV. Interviews Component…………………………………………………………………15 a. Introduction…………………………………………………………………....16 b. Literature Review……………………………………………………………...17 c. Guiding Theory……………………………………………………………...... 22 d. Methodology…………………………………………………………………...25 i. Interview Guide……………………………………………………..….31 e. Findings……………………………………………………………………..….32 f. Conclusions……………………………………………………………….....…48 g. Article for publication………………………………………………………….54 V. Works Cited………………………………………………………………………….....59 VI. Appendix…………………………………………………………………………….....63 a. Field Notes……………………………………………………………………..64 b. Interview Guide Questionnaire………………………………………………...82 c. Partial Interview Transcripts…………………………………………………...83 d. Original proposal……………………………………………………………...115

iii

INTEGRATIVE INTRODUCTION:

I come from a world of storytelling. In many ways, who doesn’t? But growing up, coming together and sharing stories of past and present was a staple of daily life. We were constantly surrounded by tales of humor and comedy, of shock and disbelief. All these memories bounced from one corner of the table to the other, each new voice piping in for their favorite part or to defend with a correction of a ‘failed’ memory. I loved listening to all the stories of the past and seeing photographs of brief moments that tied one story to the next. I knew always that I wanted to grow up and be able to share my own stories at the table – to share the best and the worst moments in story form – just like I spent my early years.

What’s the catch? Telling stories with words. I’m terrible at it. Whether in text or by voice, I missed out on a talent for catching other’s attention and keeping people alert as the story rises and falls. I realized quickly that the art of the spoken narrative is not a strength of mine.

But I knew still that I wanted to contribute, that I still wanted to tell stories about experiences and livelihoods with others. So, I picked up the camera.

The majority of my life to this point has been spent in a town with less than a thousand people. Agriculture was a string connecting the surrounding areas, where a few hundred people in a small number of homes actually run the community. Too small to be completely self- sustainable, necessities like groceries were purchased in neighboring towns. Things like pools, theatres and stop-lights were something you drove at least 30 minutes to find. But it was the shortage of vibrant local news that left the biggest gap. Gas station shelves were stocked with county and regional newspapers, but only one publication ever really covered familiar towns or talked about the schools and community members – the people that “my people” knew and recognized.

I started working for this weekly newspaper, the Elbert County News, in Colorado, in high school, sending them my best action photos from football and basketball games. At the time, I was excited to make print and to contribute. Now I look back and realize that the stories our town had to tell were rarely seen in print. A three-man newspaper didn’t have time for storytelling or for spending entire days documenting the life of someone’s neighbor, such as someone who taught in the school for forty years only to retire and drive the sports bus for another twenty. Or to see the tireless work of a century ranch – one of only a handful left in the county. The stories that defined the town and the people were overlooked because of resources the paper didn’t have – and still doesn’t. I had already found photography, but I quickly welcomed photojournalism as a tool for telling these stories and sharing the experiences of the people around me.

I didn’t realize until coming to college just how much of a loss this was for my town, both now and for the future. The concept of seeing stories not recorded was confirmed year after year with my participation as a volunteer in the Missouri Photo Workshop. The photographs created over the course of only a few days, year after year, each in a different small town, together made a record. This record is a massive collection of stories about the most everyday people and the roles they play in their families, communities and beyond. Watching and listening to this process helped me recognize the value of storytelling not only with community leaders, but also with the neighbor everyone knows but never sees in print. This coverage can both define the community as it stands today and help to build a stronger community moving forward.

As a five-time crew member working in closer proximity to the faculty of photo editors than the photographers themselves, I have become most interested in the role of the photo editor in storytelling. This interest developed further in my role as a photo editor and Assistant Director of Photography at the Columbia Missourian and Vox Magazine. This work has pushed me to

develop and challenge my skills as an editor in crafting and developing a final narrative from images created by our team of photographers. As the workshop’s editors continue to deepen my understanding of the “photo editor” position, I looked to my master’s project to explore how photo editors, primarily, and photographers approach the construction of visual narratives, photo stories and essays.

By better understanding the processes and ideals driving photo editors as they work to craft narratives in photo projects, this research aims to increase consideration of the processes used to create final narratives seen in publications. A deeper dive into understanding the work process and factors influencing decision making helps to fill a gap in previous research on how narratives are created by photo editors and photojournalists.

The product of such enhanced communication has potential, optimistically, to inspire more productive, forward-moving discussions on visual narratives, and to increase understanding of the motivations of photo editors. In building an understanding of these working styles and approaches, we can optimistically increase discourse amongst industry professionals on the work that they do and the motivations behind their choices.

Driven by an interest in improving my own approach to narrative development in longform visual storytelling, I connected this research directly to my professional component: the editing and designing of the 2019 Boonville Missouri Photo Workshop book. The workshop has been hosted three times in Boonville – 1953, 1998 and 2019. The book I created placed primary emphasis on the body of work created as part of the 2019 workshop, and used work created in the earlier Boonville years to enrich the historical introduction of the town. The research on the approach to narrative building combined, with the creation of a photo book driven by a town’s narratives, aligns the interview component with the professional project. The research specifically looked to answer the following question:

RQ: How do photo editors and photojournalists approach visual narrative construction for long-form photographic stories and essays?

vii

PROFESSIONAL PROJECT COMPONENT

Introduction

The professional component of this project was the complete editing and designing of the

2019 Boonville Missouri Photo Workshop photo book. The Missouri Photo Workshop began in

1949 when Clifton Edom brought photographers and photo editors to Columbia to explore photojournalism and how to document a community with a camera. Over the course of the next seven decades the workshop has spread across the state to photograph 50 towns and their residents.

Originally the workshop used a collaborative group effort to document the town selected for the year. Since then, it has shifted to its current form, drawing roughly 40 photographers to a town to collaborate and learn from editors and photographers from around the world, ultimately having each photographer find and photograph a photo story, approved by their faculty, during the week. The first photo book from a single workshop was completed in 2008 from the stories and images created as part of the St. James workshop. Since then, books have been designed for workshops in Festus & Crystal City, Macon, Clinton, Trenton and Cuba (Bickel, 2009; Peltier,

2010; Wood, 2011; Hyunh, Pasek and Tucker, 2012; Kendall-Ball, 2014; Sturtecky, 2018).

This book emphasizes the work of 38 photographers who participated in the 2019

Boonville workshop. Because the workshop was previously hosted in Boonville in 1953 and

1998, the book featured a longer history of the town, featuring images from the 1953 and 1998 workshops. The use of vintage images allowed for the book to move beyond the textual reference to the past. The edit gives a visual look into the last 70 years of Boonville’s history, as seen in the archives of the Missouri Photo Workshop.

Discussion

Previous Books Analysis:

In reviewing the previous MPW books, a particular emphasis was made on understanding the organization and design of each book. All books made up until this point in the MPW book series have been organized with the same general structure. Each book opens with an introduction to the town, focusing on its history, industries and how the people of the town have survived up to this point. The books progress into the images and stories produced during the workshop. All of the books use a story by story format where every story produced from the year is presented in its own chapter of sorts, including the story title, sometimes a brief description and then a collection of images from the story. The space and number of images varies from story to story dependent on strength and available imagery.

Each book opens with one of the strongest stories – oftentimes stories that are more light- hearted and can serve as a continued introduction to the town – and ends with one of the strongest stories – this time one that looks toward the future or questions what will come in future generations and years. Within this universal series structure, each individual book offers some variation as to the style, design and ordering of stories. The Clinton book began with stories that showed what the town was, transitioning then to stories of who made up the town and ultimately reaching a point of how the town was and how it existed (Hyunh, Pasek and Tucker).

Fulton and Crystal City, St. James, and Trenton moved between stories by similarities in theme and overarching concepts like age, business and home. For example, they weaved stories together using commonalities such as moving from describing the place, to the jobs that define the place, to the jobs people hold, to important people, and on and on. Macon’s book employed a similar string connecting stories but with more common use of ironies and opposites to link stories rather than just similarities (Wood). Cuba followed with similar ideas to the previous

books but additionally added a forward moving motion (Sturtecky). In other words, stories of history and nostalgia were used to open the book and then lead the viewer through time to the modern and forward-looking stories. These slight adjustments and differences used to organize and structure the books allowed for some diversity amongst the series. Each books’ edit becomes a logical fit to the entire package while still maintaining slight variations from the other books.

In contrast, an earlier (35 years) Rivertown series of books was created from graduate projects based on class projects and student work photographing small river towns in Mid-

Missouri. These books incorporated a combination of multi stories and single photos. The books are organized differently, employing a chapter format based on themes like Relationships, Faith, and Community to divide up both stories and singles. In this way, the book has only three or four different wide themes that contain still images and stories that best align with the given section.

These books covered the towns of Lupus, Berger, Arrow Rock, Glasgow and Rhineland

(Vidinghoff, 1976; Olson, 1977; Prouse, 1981; Graham, Hampton and Savoia, 1979; and

Holman, 1979). These two structures served as inspiration for the 2019 Boonville MPW book designed as part of this research.

The completion of the book can be split into two basic categories of work: the first, picture editing and the second, book design and publication. Both categories are discussed below in regard to the major considerations, challenges and discoveries that came of each separate segment of the work.

Picture editing:

The first segment of work completed for this project was my iteration of a book in this long series on Missouri towns, on MPW.71 held in Boonville in 2019. This process of image review and editing took place several months after the completion of the workshop. Because of the time gap between my seeing the images initially chosen for publication during the workshop

and then several months later seeing each photographer’s entire shoot from the week, I was able to achieve a minor amount of separation. I chose not to look back at the initial edits made until I had gone through the entire collection of images by each photographer and narrowed down to an initial edit. I was able to make these initial selections from memory. I remembered individual frames from the final edits but not every image and so making initial selections off of memory instead of immediate revision allowed me to choose an initial set of images to tell the story without being biased by the selection made during the workshop.

After this initial round of narrowing down images, I looked back at the original edit and more importantly at the captions and the summary descriptions that were written by the photographers. This information filled in any gaps in my memory about what the story was, at which point I thumbed back through the full dumps and pulled any other additional images that I felt told the story in a way that wasn’t achieved by my initial selection of images.

From here, the editing process fell into line with most of my experience as an editor.

While limited, my work as an editor helped to shape and develop my framework for looking at the images as a whole and narrowing down to the final selection based on a number of factors.

Some examples of these factors are visual appeal, visual variety, narrative development, moment, and emotion. After editing the rough selection, I narrowed further – to about 10 to 20 images for each individual story. For a little over half of the stories, we talked as a committee to discuss these narrowed image selections as a group, focusing on both image and story strength as a whole during our conversations. From here, final edits were made and placed into page designs for further revision by the committee and eventual approval of the book as a whole.

One of the major takeaways from these last two stages of the editing process was understanding the variation and changes that come in photo editing dependent on the format for which the edit is being made for. This conversation referenced not only the differences that

would likely need to be made between the original online edit and the new printed book edit, but also referencing the changes that come from editing for a photo story compared to editing for a book design. The strengths and weaknesses of each individual image change and morph depending on the publication format and purpose, therefore requiring adjustments and reconsiderations for creating different photo edits in each individual scenario. This idea was echoed during my interviews with MPW faculty editors MaryAnne Golon, Director of

Photography at the Washington Post, and Denny Simmons, Visuals Coach at the Courier Press in

Indiana. They both talked about how unique edits are made for different purposes. Certain images proved to be key across formats and remained at the heart of each story regardless of format, but others rotated in and out, gaining value or losing value as the format changed.

The shift in value stems, at least partially, from the idea of the third effect and image pairings. A long known and well recognized idea, the third effect in photojournalism builds on the concept that two individual images each have their own separate impact, value and meaning, but when the two images are combined and placed together, a third totally new meaning or effect is created for the viewer. One of the most basic elements of photo editing is determining the proper order and arrangement of individual images to create the final photo story or essay.

Making successful determinations as a part of this arrangement process relies on consideration of tools like the third effect to develop meaning both inside the images and in the space between them. Its implementation gives room for the future viewer of this book not only to connect with the images individually but to find meaning between them. We select multiple images to use as a collection because we want meaning to come from the whole of what the images say together, rather than what any one image says. Photo stories, in this way, have a sort of implied third effect in them. But intentional recognition and consideration of how each image plays off

another and how one changes the meaning of the next can add an increased depth and understanding to the package in its entirety.

In addition to the consideration of the third effect is the increased importance of opening and closing images when designing for a book format. In web or digital formats, we expect to have a bit of a delay, whether by scrolling or clicking the next arrow to get from one image to the next. But when editing for a print format, the impact of what is first encountered is immediate and therefore requires a sense of immediate gratification or explanation for the viewer. This may mean using one single image to summarize or open a story for the viewer, or it may mean needing one image to really pop and stand out from the rest using design tools like placement and size to give the image immediate play or greater impact. The work of photo editors constantly reflects on what it is the viewer should learn or take away from a collection of images.

However, the book format makes awareness and intentionality of that initial reaction ever more important.

While this idea is immediately recognizable when talking about each of the individual 38 stories that are included in the book, it is also of relevance when considering the ordering of the stories themselves and how they connect, relate and provoke meaning when placed in a certain order. When laying out the book as a whole and determining how to organize the stories, focus was placed on two broad ideas: first, that the stories should be varied in strength so that the viewer can have a smooth pacing and rhythm moving between stories that were really strong and those that were less developed, and second, that the pacing between stories should weave around common themes seen across multiple stories.

Beyond the quality of each photo story, the final organization was made with consideration for the images used in each story and more importantly the themes addressed by each piece. For a time, we considered organizing the book using chapters that would split up the

stories into four or five main sections determined by common themes in the stories. Ultimately, we decided not to not divide up the content into marked sections, however, the broader themes identified within the stories were used to organize the stories. In this way, the ordering of the stories in the book was intentionally created to move from piece to piece using similar overarching ideas or themes to create a motion and progression that moved the reader through the book from start to finish.

The four broad themes that arose were Community, Relationships, Land and Time. Each of the four categories were identified from the content of the stories themselves. While most of the stories could have been placed within more than one of these broad themes, the 38 stories were split somewhat evenly into the four groups to promote that idea of a directional movement throughout the book. The sections were placed in this order with the hope of opening the book as a conversation about the community. By immediately following the introduction and history of the town with stories of the community, the history section can connect and tie directly into the remainder of the book, emphasizing that the history is leading up to the community and the town of Boonville today. With similar intentionality, the idea of time was chosen as the concluding theme of the book. This centered around a hope that the idea of the future would be the concluding note of the book. This organization of working from understanding the past to looking at the present with questions of the future allows for a natural progression of time to be underlined throughout the book. While some stories were shifted between themes to better align with story to story pacing, the themes offered a sort of broad outline for working through the book with intentional movement and pacing.

Design and publication

Certain elements of design like image prominence and the third effect were discussed in the photo editing section. In addition, this section will cover considerations of the book that were

made specific to the design of the stories and to creating a final, publishable product. This book is the most recent in the series of MPW books that have been completed for graduate projects. As it will sit as a part of this series, the book needs to logically be presented and designed to match and fit in with the other books in the series. The design choices made for this book were aimed to create a book that would both fit in cohesively with the previous books in the series but also be somewhat unique and individual from the rest. Because 2019 marked the workshop’s third time in Boonville, this book offered the unique opportunity to have increased reference to the work created at past Boonville MPWs. The longer, enhanced historical section allowed for an inclusion of more images shot as a part of the workshop archive from 1953 and 1998 and allowed for a unique approach for the next book in MPW book series.

The book in general was designed, unsurprisingly, to center around the most important content of the book – the images. In this way, a number of decisions for the design of the book were made specifically with the intention of enhancing and complementing the images to be included in the work. Other decisions like font choices and cover design were made in order to reflect the work of past MPW books and to encourage the appeal and look of this book as part of the previous packages. The past MPW books have been printed in eleven 16-page signatures, each book resulting in a total of 176 pages, each with some variety as to how those pages were used. This book was organized to be this same length and used the same dimensions as the past books to create a consistency in external appearance and overall format.

Looking specifically at design decisions made internally to the book, conversations focused on maintaining consistency between stories from start to finish. These conversations discussed how to utilize and create visual cues that will communicate to the reader when stories have ended and new stories have begun. Additionally, we talked about how best to utilize image

sizing and incorporate bled images between stories and the use of additional white spaces as a divider when one story ended on the left page and another started on the right.

In an effort to maintain consistency throughout the book, I worked to standardize a design style that could be carried across all the stories so as to offer a sort of consistency between pieces throughout the entire book. In the form of text, this came the same typefaces, style and size, as well as the same kerning and leading throughout the book. By avoiding what is sometimes used as a cheat to get things to fit correctly on the page, the typographical rules allowed for a thorough sense of consistency across the entire book that felt more professional and comprehensive. In regard to imagery, all images are toned to be black and white, to match the style of the other books in the series, to limit cost, and to help promote flow and cohesiveness where color can sometimes accentuate separation and difference. Similarly, across the book, all images are separated from other images by one of two internal margin distances dependent on spread and number of images published. This specific element in the design helps to connect the stories and to make them feel like a whole rather than a bunch of separate pieces conveniently placed together.

There are certain images throughout the book that employ the use of a full or partial bleed off the edge of between one or more sides of the page. The bleeds were chosen and utilized intentionally for a variety of reasons including giving additional emphasis to an image, breaking up white space, offering variety in page design or simply to optimize image size in introducing or continuing a story from one spread to the next. The use of bled images also came up during conversations of how to best provide the reader with a visual cue that one story had ended and another was beginning. In some early versions of stories, a single story was good with a bleed but became confusing if used when starting or ending on the same spread as a different story. We

found that the use of increased white space helped to create these subtle visual cues that made clearer the transition from story to story.

This project required multiple design considerations in different stages. Before the designing had begun at all, decisions regarding universal elements throughout the book, including font and text styles, caption styles, and image treatment needed to be determined.

Other decisions were discovered as the process unfolded, like spacing, image sizing and location, and the creation of visual cues. These changes and adjustment continued throughout the designing and editing process all the way through to the end, with certain changes needed when seeing a full draft of the entire book. Similar to how editing decisions were made differently based on format and end product, decisions in regard to design changed as we shifted from designing individual stories to organizing an entire photo book.

Evaluation

As the work comes to a close and after reflecting on the process of designing and editing a photo book, I feel I have combined and expanded on skills that were developed over the course of my education in ways that can only come from practice and implementation. My experience with photo editing before this project was in newspaper and magazine edits where the majority of the content was shot over one, maybe two, visits, was edited quickly and turned around for publication almost immediately. The extensive length of time and depth of content that comes with editing a photo book reaches an entirely new level of process, focus and time, which I have come to understand over the past few months.

I came into this book project knowing that I wanted to create a book to go with the series but that I wanted some variation to it. I did not want to create exactly what we did in the past.

We tossed around a number of ideas about how to organize, edit and put together this final

product. All but one of them was thrown out or will be saved for the coming years, but the process of brainstorming and finding new ways to organize and think about the same large body of work that lives in the MPW archive is something that has changed how I think about editing and about storytelling in general. When I see a body of work now, I very intentionally look at the decisions that were made in terms of presentation and format. Often, I find myself looking through images twice, once to recognize all the choices and decisions that were made and then again to think about all the things that were left out or the alternative choices that could have been made. Why didn’t they do it this way? Why wouldn’t they have ventured into this idea in addition to this one? The questions that I am now asking of myself and of the work that I am looking at are far and away new, different and more complex than the questions I asked myself before and for me that feels like a success.

Editing a book was a feat and having done it once now, I cannot wait to do it again.

Again, that feels like a success. Throughout the process of the developing the book, I constantly would make a realization that I regretted not acting on or thinking of just a week ago or a month ago. For example, I made the theme lists early on in the editing process, before any of the stories were laid out on pages. But I didn’t make an order of the stories or a rough order of the stories before starting to design. Instead I designed based on the images, which was not necessarily a bad thing, and I designed with some intentional variety in page count and page alignment. I know that it would have saved redesigning time and reworking time at the end had I had a more developed and concrete plan for organization before starting the designing process and if and when I work again on editing and designing a photo book, I will be moving this step up on the priority list.

A very specific tool of narrative development and of picture editing that I have come away with is that of the third effect. This idea was explored thoroughly by Angus McDougall, a

former picture editor and University of Missouri photojournalism professor. He explored the topic in his books “Visual Impact in Print” (Hurley and McDougall, 1975) and “Picture Editing and Layout” (McDougall and Hampton, 1990). While I knew of the idea and had talked about it previous to the project, discussion of it with editors and the consideration and use of it in organizing and editing this book helped me to really understand what it means and what it can do for a collection of images and stories. My consideration and reference to this technique increased even as the project went on and I have found myself thinking about it openly in other editing projects since to make decisions and to develop narratives and stories in ways that I couldn’t have done before, at least not intentionally.

If I were to do the project again, one change I would have made would have been to complete the work on the introductory history section earlier on in the process. I anticipated my own procrastination of this section and surely enough I did push it off to be completed toward the end. The piece was able to come together and without any majorly detrimental hitches, but the piece would have been improved with time and more communication with people from the town that just couldn’t happen in the same way once contact and communication were limited by the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. I know now that I need to force myself to complete the tasks I want to procrastinate early so as to avoid unexpected difficulties like the pandemic. That being said, I like the way the final introduction came out and I am very excited about the increased use of the archival images in combination with new and historic images for a fuller and more comprehensive visual introduction to the town of Boonville and its history as a staple of mid-Missouri.

It is for the same reason that the history section was a challenge that I am most excited about the completion of this project. As I finish out this semester and my graduate degree in the

Spring of 2020 it would feel wrong to not at least mention Covid-19, a type of coronavirus that

grew rapidly in a matter of months to become a pandemic affecting nearly every country on the planet. I am lucky in that the project that I chose and am working on was relatively unaffected by the virus. The body of work I used was already complete and so completion of an edited and designed photo book was still possible despite the virus. As I said, limited communication at this time offered limitations to a section of the book, but it is the pressure and tension caused by

Covid-19 that makes me so happy to be completing this book now. The goal of this book is to share the stories of joy and happiness and sadness, but most importantly of everyday life in a small town in mid-Missouri. As we continue to live in a time where ‘everyday life’ and ‘normal’ seem like an unreachable dream, I hope that this book will remind us of the world only a few months ago and of the world hopefully soon to return. I hope that this book will help to document what normal looked like, because for all we know, normal will never look the same moving forward. I hope, in earnest, that we can enjoy these memories and these moments while we work through this unfamiliar time and experience.

INTERVIEWS COMPONENT

Introduction

In coordination with the professional component, I completed interviews of visual leaders in order to better understand the process of building narratives in visual storytelling. Previous research in visual journalism leaves a gap around understanding the mindset and even the use of narrative in visual storytelling. This research aims to begin addressing not only this gap, but further fill a second gap about the role and processes of the photo editor. While the photo editor is not completely ignored in academic conversation, research on their work processes and approaches is limited.

This research ultimately served as an informative conversation to be having throughout the process of completing the professional component. Insight, ideas and information shared in the interviews were things I was able to practice and utilize during my own workflows. Beyond my own expansion and learning, the information gathered as a part of these interviews has been condensed and reoriented in one version for discussion in this master’s project and in a second article format with hope for publication. The article is presented at the conclusion of the interviews section.

Literature Review

Defining narrative

In order to fully understand how narratives are approached, we must first define what a narrative is and what role it has in photojournalism. Most understandings of narrative are found in the scope of literature and the written and verbal word. Defined in the Cambridge Introduction to Narrative as the “representation of events,” narrative is the presentation of an event with additional discourse or presentation surrounding the events (Abbott, 2014, pg. 19). Marianne

Hirsch made note that there is no single way to present narratives, and that you can tell stories visually just like you can verbal (Hirsch, 1997, pg. 121). In other words, a narrative goes beyond an exact representation of the events revealed in the text, or in this case photographs, to give a fuller story or message. In a photo story or essay, Abbott’s definitions would suggest that each image is a single, stand-alone event and that a combination of images paired with factors like sequence, number of images, and presentation (Hirsch, 1997, pg. 134; Chapnick, 1994, pg. 32), among others, would be what forms the final narrative of the piece.

Finding visual narratives

In a visually driven world, there is an increasing amount of research into what the final narrative form looks like in photographic and multimedia work. Photographic narratives began, according to Howard Chapnick, with the era of photo special sections like LIFE Magazine and

Look (Chapnick, 1994, pg. 29). These publications provided an early home for longer, more in- depth photography narratives – dedicating more space and resources than would accompany the standard daily news story. Today, visual narrative research is focused in two primary realms: first, researching already developed and published imagery to retroactively understand narratives that were told in the past; and second, methodologies using images as a form of self-reflection by research participants. In the first case, researchers use stories and images from the past as the

subject of analysis to break down and understand the narrative of published works and how that narrative ties to the time and the society in which they were created. Pompper and Feeney analyzed the five Life Magazine cover images and stories that covered the Gulf War in search of themes, similarities and differences, and ultimately, to identify the narrative told in the five different magazine issues (2002, pg. 9). The narrative they identified told the story of the fight and efforts of the American soldier and his family as a part of the war.

Existing Research

Their content analysis is anything but an anomaly. Similar studies include topics ranging from the British press coverage of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon (Parry, 2010) to the

Associated Press’s presentation of Afghan women during the Taliban Regime (Fahmy, 2004).

These analyses and others like them take a retroactive look at collections of images to identify themes and narratives that may have been developed inside the works, but not on how or why decisions were made during the editing and publishing processes. Conversations about what kinds of images are okay for publishing, especially in regard to conflict and disaster situations have been explored, at mostly a micro level discussing individual images in relation to what the audience should see, The macro level discussions focusing on the overall packaging and displaying of photographic narratives is less explored.

The second category of existing research uses photography as part of the research methodology itself, instructing subjects to photograph their lives and environment. This technique is often referred to as photo voice and allows for a more direct and oftentimes intimate reflection on the photographer’s life (Clandinin, 2006, pg. 281, 283). This methodology frequents social science fields like psychology and anthropology as well as journalism, focusing on the subject and the images they use to tell their own narrative. Hirsh wrote about the idea of a visual narrative in her book Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory,

describing it as a way of achieving “self-conscious textuality” that allows researchers to ask about and participants to reflect on their realities with a tangible tool (Hirsch, 1997, pg. 8; Pierce,

2018,). This way of using photography as a probe for learning about people’s lives is different in methodology and practice from the research to be completed in this project but does suggest the value and potential of photographs as a tool for telling and sharing a narrative.

In order to explore the role of individual photographs as narrative elements, Caple matched single, still images with narrative paths (Caple, 2013, pg. 63). Caple paired ideas like action, interaction, and direction of behavior with images that matched these ideas. She identified press photographs specifically as images that reveal events and actions of change (Caple, pg. 69).

Her discussion considers how single images tell narratives about the interactions that exist between the image producers, the image itself and the viewer. This is tied closely to the ideas of

Kress and van Leeuwen, who say that the producer of the image (could be the photographer, the editor or the publication as a whole) is absent, or not consciously considered, by the viewer. In other words, the viewer interacts with the images they are seeing and reading but not with the people and the decisions that created and delivered the images (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, pg. 114). This suggests that the decision-making process and people implementing it are impactful but not always fully considered and talked about in reference to the narrative of a photograph or of a collection of photographs. This gap invites further research into this narrative building process and the participants of this process - the photo editors and the photographers responsible for putting these narratives together with photographs.

Just as written and verbal narratives are largely controlled by the authors or narrators delivering them, the photo editors and photographers creating photo stories and essays have an immense impact on the final product and the narratives that are ultimately shared. In Howard

Chapnick’s Truth Needs No Ally, he describes the work of narrative development by

photojournalist W. Gene Smith as “weaving pictures together like a tapestry, string images together to form a coherent story” (Chapnick, 1994, pg. 31). This figurative weaving of images together to create the final product is comparable to authors weaving plots and characters together to form a written narrative.

What is reality? Finding the voice of the narrator

The challenge of working with photography is that absolute reality is often assumed in the images. Often used as a sort of validation tool to prove that something was real or that it happened, photography over the past century - especially news photography - has come to develop a certain expectation that the image must be real because it was caught on film or in pixels. This myth of truth in images, as Hirsch calls it, can sometimes “dominate lived reality,” even if it is to the contrary (Hirsch, 1997, pg. 8). An essay by John Taylor on the problems in today’s photojournalism industry further emphasized this point. Taylor said that documentary photography specifically runs the risk of framing the narrative through the views of the photographers and editors who construct it and may then be used by viewers to confirm their own biases or expectations (Taylor, 2000, pg. 139). These assumptions of reality and bias challenge the role of the photo editors and photographers as they strive to find the narrative that is true and representative of the reality presented to them – not the perceived reality.

make the final narrative, and it is not entirely possible to remove the impacts of the image creators and editors from the narrative. One criticism of press photography made by Taylor is that news photographs rarely step away from the few narratives presented and so images become both thematically repetitive and run the risk of building and confirming viewer expectations for specific types of content.

Seeing these collections of research, we can identify the presence of research on visual narratives in storytelling and photojournalism. Photography has been used as a tool for understanding and identifying the narratives of people photographing their own lives. Beyond methodologies, researchers have analyzed visual projects and series in hopes of identifying the driving narratives and their connection to time and place. As mentioned above, the missing piece in research is the understanding of who is making the decisions to craft narratives (photo editors and photographers) and how these figures approach the process of packaging images together to create a final, presented narrative. This research is intended to help fill this gap.

Guiding Theory: Hierarchy of Influences

For this study, the primary theoretical framework employed was the hierarchy of influences model. Generally used in application to understand how multiple levels of external factors affect and shape media content, this theory worked to frame the internal and external motivations that shape the decisions of photo editors in their process for constructing a narrative.

Originally developed by Shoemaker and Reese (2014, 1996), they determined that the factors influencing an individual may include routines of work, organizational-level concerns, problems in the institution, or individual characteristics of employees and news producers (Reese, 2016).

Use of the hierarchy of influences allows analysis of how multiple external-to-self factors influence the decisions of photo editors and photojournalists in completing their work.

In a 2016 study, Shoemaker and Reese again considered the role of the hierarchy of influences model as the journalism industry evolves, this time with a specific look at advancing technology. The pair noted that the categories they once laid out were no longer as clear cut because of the constant changes that technology, specifically technology in media, is making.

The categories are becoming less distinct as technology allows for increased interaction between the influencing levels of the hierarchical model (Shoemaker and Reece, 2016). As research continues to grow and change, it has been claimed that the quickly changing nature of technology does “impact directly upon the practice of journalism and access to the profession”

(Spryidou, 2013). These blurring lines are part of what leads the authors to recommend emphasized study on the interaction of the separate influences, rather than the isolation and ranking of separate influences on the individual. In other words, how do different influences interact with each other and vary situationally rather than expecting a consistent, linear order to exist as a universal. Further, the model that was previously a somewhat stagnant pyramid is now suggested to be a more dynamic and mobile ranking system that offers fluid and constant

variation rather than a single ranking of influence. In this way, discussions with photo editors and photojournalists will be aimed at better understanding how multiple factors and thought processes affect the work they create and influence their decision-making process.

A case study completed on a Flemish newspaper and its process of visual gatekeeping found that while personal ethics played a major role in the process of image selection, the influence of industry standards and of newsroom hierarchies and routines strongly affected the decision-making process of photo editors (Smaele, 2017). The paper further detailed these influences by discussing the value that the photo editors placed in each root of influence.

Interviews with editors made it seem that the most influential of ethical determinants was individual decisions. However, on the contrary, the researchers noted that informal conversation and general newsroom observation suggested that the decisions were likely influenced more by organizational hierarchy and routine than they were by individual choices and decisions (Smaele, pg. 68).

My research was intentionally framed with this theory, using semi-structured long form interviews to explore factors that influence how photo editors think through their work internally.

These discussions referenced personal style and approach to the process as well as evaluation of the key parts of narrative that each person uses to guide their work process. Through this process, the research allows us a better understanding of the influences impacting photo editors and how they interact with the work situationally.

The use of the hierarchy of influences theory to analyze effects on communication style rather than what types of media is produced is a new, distinctive application of the theory. The shift in the application of this theory offers insight into its value in media research that emphasizes process rather than product.

The professional component of my project was the completion of designing the MPW book. In past years, this book has taken on varying presentations – most commonly, the displaying of images from each of the stories produced in the given year with a brief history of the town. Most recently, a book was completed by then master’s student Hannah Sturtecky about the workshop in Cuba (2017). Prior to Sturtecky’s completed project, books were designed for workshops held in Troy, St. James, Macon, Festus and Crystal City, and Clinton. MPW researchers have focused on topics like race in imagery (Duff, 2005), the role of the photo editor in storytelling (Sturtecky, 2017), and gatekeeping for digital and print intended imagery

(Kendall-Ball, 2015). These varying topics were researched in coordination with the designing of the MPW book, allowing for a deeper understanding of the role of the photo editor or the content being produced. My research finds a home with these previous projects in exploring the role of the photo editor to build a narrative, like the narratives crafted in the stories and essays created at each workshop.

The methodologies used for these projects paired with the creation of an MPW book varied, including photo elicitation (Bickel, 2009) or textual analysis (Duff, 2005) as well as some interviews. The use of the interview as the primary research method for this project, however, separates it from the works already completed for this series. Further, it pursues a topic of research not yet discussed within this context: the working process of photographers and editors to develop and define narrative. The interviews component of this research was aimed to better understand the process by which photo editors develop narratives in visual storytelling. This research completed served as a guide for the completion of the professional component.

Methodology

My research focuses on better understanding how photo editors craft large ideas or stories into a final, focused visual narrative. To gain understanding, I utilized in-depth, semi-structured interviews with individuals who work as photo editors, for others or for themselves. The professional component of my project was to edit photo stories, design and produce a photo book of the 2019 Missouri Photo Workshop hosted in Boonville, Mo. which was held in September

2019. The roughly 176-page book focuses primarily on the work produced by photographers at the 2019 workshop including stories about leaders and business owners in the community, students in local schools, and one photographer’s personal reflection on racial history in the town. The book begins with an introductory history of Boonville, shown through a combination of text and historical images. Many of the images and photographs used in the historical section were selected from images made during the two previous Missouri Photo Workshops held in

Boonville, in 1953 and 1998. This work will be completed over the course of the Spring 2020 semester for completion of the project in May 2020. The questions used as a guide for the interviews for the project are included at the end of this section, and as Appendix B.

The following methods section discusses both the background and previous usage of semi-structured interviews; their purpose and opportunity in relation to this research; and the specific design of this research study, including the guide questions used as a base for the interviews included in this research.

Semi-structured interviews and purpose for use

planned categorization or definition. This research centers around the need and possibility for gathering more broad information and allowing subject-determined contribution throughout the discussions. Further, this aligns with the gently guided direction from the interviewer to ensure discussion of the key broad topics and questions that are at the core of the research questions.

Interviewing as a method for gathering information and informing others has long been a source of data collection and a way to increase understanding about the people around us and the work they do. Whether researching through general populous surveys, as was used early on, or the basic, face-to-face directed conversation that we know today, interviews allow the collection of large amounts of information to be collected (Fontana and Frey). Described in a book on interviewing by Bingham and Moore, the method was labeled as a “conversation with a purpose”

(1959). As a staple of practical, field journalism and a common and impactful tool for social science researchers, the interview is a tool for journalism researchers and professionals alike.

The interview, in terms of academic research, is now divided into several different categories, dependent on style, format and intention. The most common interview types include formal interviews, semi-structured interviews, oral histories and focus groups. Each method offers different benefits and challenges and works to attain specific goals that must be tied directly to the intent and style of the researcher. Interviewing as a whole has become so integral in modern research that some have gone so far as to call us an “interview society” (Atkinson and

Silverman). This research will utilize semi-structured interviews of photo editors to explore their motivations and experiences in developing narratives in photo stories.

Semi-structured interviews differ fundamentally from other interviews not only in how the interview is conducted, but also in the relationship that the interviewer and interviewee are seen as allowed to share. At the core, semi-structured interviews are focused on conversation and understanding both what a person does in their work or life and how they go about doing it.

Traditionally this means asking open-ended questions that aim to inspire longer, in-depth responses (Fontana and Frey; Lindlof and Taylor). Beyond the content of the interview, a semi- structured interview style pushes the researcher to understand the discussion rather than simply explain it (Fontana and Frey). In this way, the researcher emphasizes the desire not just to regurgitate the information they are given, but to understand it. This desire to listen and understand rather than hear and repeat can create a fuzzy boundary for what kind of conversational relationship exists between the interviewer and interviewee.

Described as a “methodology of friendship” by Nowak and Haynes, the semi-structured interview pushes the boundaries set by formal interview processes – questioning how empathetic and responsive an interviewer can be when conducting an interview with a subject (2018). The standard, formal interview discourages bias or connection as a part of the communication, focusing more stringently on the idea of achieving scientific objectivity. Semi-structured interviews are said to move away from this rigid format and more toward an approach emphasizing more relaxed and free-flowing conversation. They aim to create an open conversation that encourages longer, more detailed and reflective responses from participants.

This seems to have been a benefit for conversing about complicated topics like narrative that would be hard to explain and define with a direct, predetermined question and answer format. In this way using a conversational style enables fuller and more detailed responses from participants to maximize breadth and strength of responses.

Holstein and Gubrium described interviewing as an “active process” (1995) that Fontana and Frey say creates a final project that is a “contextually bound and mutually created story”

(2018). The shift out of the formal interview format and into this looser and more personalized conversation has allowed for the creation of an even larger variety of interviewing styles – now including styles like oral histories and focus groups. The interviews conducted for this research

project were focused on personal reflection of past experiences in their respective fields as either a photo editor, photojournalist or multimedia producer. For this reason, these semi-structured interviews will have some similarities to reports in oral history – offering similarly extensive self-reflection, and the same interest in being both gentle and supportive with the subject throughout the course of the interview (Feldstein, 2004). While empathy was not something that was not as relevant to my research about work style as it is with other topics like trauma or health, empathetic conversation promoted confidence in sharing and continued discussion.

Interviews emphasizing self-reflection and discussion directed focus to how photo editors do their jobs and for what reasons. This encourages discussion about the internal motivations surrounding the decision-making process made by a photo editor while crafting a narrative.

The previous research on visual narrative development focuses on how participants use photographs to reflect on their personal narratives and results of that use – often seen with the method of photo voice. Beyond that, there is some research that retroactively identifies narratives and how they aligned with social conversation at the time of publication. But there is a gap, as previously mentioned, in existing research on how narratives are constructed in photojournalism and what approaches are taken by the photo editors and photojournalists creating them. This research aims to fill said gap by identifying factors influencing the decision-making processes of these photo editors and photographers. Most of the standing literature that exists on newsroom relationships and working relationships as a whole reflects methods of participant observation.

Some interviewing does occur, but the use of interviews without heavy reliance on observation is a different approach to researching this subject as well.

Research study design and organization

The primary, and initial, method of research for this project was semi-structured interviews. To increase accuracy and detail as a researcher, each interview was audio recorded

for later reference. One challenge met while conducting the interviews was including photo editors who were not within close geographical distance to Columbia, Mo., where I was located throughout the process, so I was forced to conduct interviews over Skype or phone. While the preference would have been to conduct the interviews in person, geographical location proved to require the above alternatives.

This change in setting between the interviewer and interviewee added some inherent differences to communication and openness of discussion, like distractions from their environment, which I kept in mind both while preparing for and during the interviews.

Ultimately, eight visually minded professionals were interviewed about their experiences with narrative development during the creation and editing processes. These voices emphasize photo editing experience, primarily for still photography, but also included one multimedia producer and one freelance photojournalist. The conversations did include and heavily reference the work of photojournalists and their process to identifying and developing narrative prior to the editing process. The inclusion of both types of voices allowed for a better understanding of how people communicate and how narratives are developed and altered throughout the entire documentary and creation process.

Found below and in Appendix B is the question guide that I used for my interviews. The questions match the open-ended style of semi-structured interviewing that allowed interviewees to lead the conversation in the directions they so choose, while still covering the same general topics. Each interview was audio recorded with the permission of the interviewee and then transcribed for reference and reflection. Partial transcripts reflecting the important and relevant parts of discussion are included as Appendix C. As a summary and completed understanding of the conversations, I wrote an article focusing on what photo editors and photographers should know about what their peers are thinking and doing with narratives. The article will be submitted

for publication following the conclusion of this project. Potential publications to submit the article to are the Reynolds Journalism Institute, PDN Magazine, Visual Communication

Quarterly or Poynter.

INTERVIEW GUIDE:

1. What does narrative mean to you for visual storytelling? Or how do you describe it? 2. What makes a narrative/process to building a narrative successful? What makes it unsuccessful? 3. Can you describe your approach to crafting the narrative? You can use an example if you like. 4. What factors dictate your narrative building? What do you look for first when working on an edit? What after? 5. What isn’t talked about enough in regard to narratives? What is talked about too much? 6. What is the most challenging part for you in this process? What is the most satisfying? 7. If you get stuck, who do you go to or what do you do to move past the roadblock?

Findings

These interviews were conducted in order to better understand the conversation surrounding narrative development in photojournalism and to gain insight into how photo editors and other visual minds create the narratives they produce. Interviews were conducted with eight visual leaders in the semi-structured format with only seven general questions to be answered over the course of the discussion. The interviews were designed with the intention of letting the participant determine the scope and direction of the conversation, while still covering the core topics of interest. Primary emphasis was placed on talking to photo editors, with two exceptions.

One photojournalist and one multimedia journalist were also included in the research in hopes of adding some breadth to the information gathered and, in an effort to create a fuller understanding of the entirety of the narrative construction process, beginning with the story pitch all the way through to the completed final edit.

In choosing who to interview as a part of this research, the hope was to include people who had a variety in experience in the field and represented diversity in race, gender, publication size, geographic location, and specialty. The eight participants included in this research were:

Alyssa Schukar - Freelance Photojournalist, Washington D.C. Brian Storm - Executive Producer and Founder of MediaStorm Becky Lebowitz-Hanger - Photo editor, New York Times Denny Simmons - Visuals Coach, Courier Press, Evansville, Indiana Marcia Allert - Director of Photography, Dallas Morning News MaryAnne Golon - Director of Photography, Washington Post Mike Davis - Chair of Photojournalism, Syracuse University Richard Shaw - Adjunct Faculty, Photojournalism, Univ. of Florida

The inclusion of a photojournalist and a producer allowed for a diversity in professional experience to develop the different approaches to narrative beyond the photo editors. Of the photo editors, four currently work in publications and two now teach photojournalism and freelance photo edit. Also, in regard to experience, each of these individuals is well established in their chosen field. The collective decades of experience in a range of areas makes their

commentary and participation valuable and relevant to establishing a broad understanding of visual journalism. Gender diversity was included to a successful level splitting 50-50 between male and female participants. The group was geographically well spread, with a slight focus on the north eastern cities of New York and D.C., and then with the rest spread to Florida, Indiana,

Texas and California. This geographic range hopefully encouraged a range in approaches rather than hyper focusing on a single city or part of the country. Similarly, the range in publication size was fairly well spread, with the working editors ranging from local with Denny Simmons, to state with Marcia Allert, to national and international with Becky Lebowitz-Hanger and

MaryAnne Golon. There was less racial diversity and minority representation outside of the gender category than was hoped for and that is one improvement to be made upon this research.

Those selected were accessible because of prior interactions through the University of Missouri through professional programs like the Missouri Photo Workshop, Pictures of the Year

International and College Photographer of the Year. In the future, this research could be further developed with an expanded pool of participants without any association to MU. The hope was to expand beyond the MU contacts, but time and responses maintained this final group.

All eight of the interviews were conducted via phone or skype and each lasted between thirty minutes to an hour. Of the editors interviewed, four still work in photo editing and two now work in academics teaching visual journalism. Publication size ranged from regional newspapers to state-wide and nationally distributed publications. Five of the eight participants are located along the East Coast, with the remaining three located in Indiana, Texas, and

California. This variation in location and in publication size was intentionally sought out to further diversify the voices and experiences of participants. The inclusion of diverse voices was further represented in gender and age but was unfortunately limited in terms of race. The challenges of this will be discussed further in the next section.

How do you define narrative in visual storytelling?

Each interview opened with a broad, general question asking each participant to define or explain narrative as a part of visual storytelling based on their own experiences. Multiple participants including multimedia producer Brian Storm and freelance photographer Alyssa

Schukar referenced the idea that visual storytelling stretches beyond just still images and into other mediums like film and audio – unsurprising from the video producer. Of the photo editors, several resorted to describing narratives in photo stories to be like sentences in written narratives.

The specifics of the analogies varied amongst each editor including the following ideas:

“(It) is more of a flow than anything, with a beginning, a middle and an end… You want to introduce people to who it is that you are doing a story on and lead them through to the conclusion of your story, whatever that may be.” – Denny Simmons

“The goal in the end should be able to have a series of images that does a succinct job at telling a story about a person, place or thing and without the use of words.” – Richard Shaw

“Visual storytelling involves collecting the pieces you need to tell a story without being dependent on words.” – MaryAnne Golon

“Visual storytellers are using their cameras and each image to build upon the narrative that someone is telling… You are informing viewers about a world and a reality that is not their own.” -Marcia Allert

It was also brought up that the definition of narrative and of visual storytelling is widely varied and dependent on the individual, however most explanations included a reliance on word- centered analogies and focused on ideas like structure, outcome and purpose. More than one editor pointed out that they didn’t like to explain visual concepts with written analogies. This hesitance to compare the work of photojournalism to traditional, written journalism is considered in the conclusions section.

What makes a narrative successful?

Multiple participants commented on the need of the photojournalist and photo editor to use the visual narrative to communicate with the viewer. Visuals coach Denny Simmons said that narratives were successful when they could communicate the intended meaning or message to the viewer. He continued to say that the difference between photography as an art and photography as part of visual journalism was its ability to convey the intended message rather than leave the viewer to self-interpret. For freelancer Alyssa Schukar, the goal lies in communicating the human experience through the lens of a camera in a way that can help others outside of that experience to better understand it. She said, “Visual storytelling is an opportunity to open people’s eyes to the unexpected and to amplify the voices of people who are often not heard” and continued to say that not taking the journalism side of the job seriously as a disservice (to ourselves). Former photo editor and now educator Mike Davis presented the idea that narratives are constructed across a storytelling spectrum. One side, entirely informationally driven and the opposite driven by a more substantive presentation of information. Put simply,

Davis uses the analogy of photographing verbs and nouns versus photographing adjectives and adverbs. For Davis the most advanced narratives “are trying to convey qualities of something, and really get at the essence of what is going on beyond the actual aspects of it.” He went so far as to say that “for the profession to continue to exist, we have to rise above that and say more, address more, than simply stuff happened.” Each of these understandings informs of an intention to communicate, as Simmons suggested, and of presenting the viewer with more than a predictable image of a thing, but an image that conveys a feeling or an emotion or sensation.

This importance of creating complex, impactful images was repeated by Richard Shaw when talking about what makes narratives successful. He said that visual journalists need to balance journalistic storytelling with aesthetic appeal, and that the images should go beyond

showing the “recipe of life” and should instead “dig below the surface” and “really capture the mood and feel and character of an individual. The emotion. The moment.” The need to balance story with imagery was a commonality in the answers provided by photo editors. Mike Davis went the most in depth to talk about the need of images to use tools like color, light, distance and other elements of composition to “elevate the moment value of what is going to happen within the frame.” He presented the idea that everyone responds to images first with their mind, second with their eyes, and finally with their heart, and a successful image must strike a chord for all three of these processors. Brian Storm describes video editing as combining the video track and narrative, instead of combining the A and B tracks. He defended this change in vocabulary in saying that each piece is equally important in telling a story and that “it’s when they (visuals and narrative) work together that it’s so powerful.” In this way, both still and motion picture narratives rely on a balance of strong visuals and strong storylines to be successful.

Beyond what is being shown, Marcia Allert talked about how the work is created and with what intentions. She talked about the need to work empathetically with a camera in order to treat people and tell stories with dignity and respect. She talked about the option to use the camera as a weapon, as it has been used in the past, compared to using the camera as a recorder where the camera is an “empathy machine” and the photographer is the “empathy maker.”

Similar to the need for empathy, Alyssa Schukar immediately pointed out the need for humanity because it is “the surest way to connect with an audience through photography.” This idea was expanded upon in saying that when narratives fail it is because of a disconnect to the human experience that comes from a lack of planning or time that prevents successful vision and relationship development. Brian Storm mirrored this idea in saying that his main goal in creating films was to get to “the truth of a person” and to connect the people in the film and the people watching it with one of those “big universal truths of life.” Intentionality of the process was a

topic that came up in all conversations, stretching the importance of communication as well as more technical aspects of the editing process.

Both MaryAnne Golon and Becky Lebowitz-Hanger talked in detail about the importance of consistent and open communication with the photographer throughout the shooting process.

The two talked of the value in being able to provide feedback and point out gaps they see in the story while the photojournalist is still in the position to shoot more and fill the gaps. Becky

Lebowitz-Hanger said that without strong communication during the shooting process, the editing process becomes much harder. MaryAnne Golon explained that her most successful projects were the ones where the photojournalist and herself “figured out a rhythm” of communication and collaboration in the process from start to finish. Golon also pointed out that while this was easier with staff photographers than with freelancers, getting all photographers to believe in their editors takes time and a lot of effort.

In regard to the more step-by-step process, Richard Shaw and Marcia Allert both talked about the importance of pitching and beginning a project with intentionality and focus. Marcia asks the same three questions of every pitch that is brought to her:

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

She pointed out that success is more likely if all three questions can be immediately answered and in a meaningful way. “It’s very hard to ask people to care, because you’re asking them for their time. And if there’s nothing on the other side of their time they’re not going to engage it.”

From the photojournalistic perspective, Alyssa Schukar said she won’t start a documentary project without first sitting down and writing a sort of pitch for herself to remind herself what the story is, what she expects from it, what it will look like, etc. Richard Shaw made clear the need for flexibility during the process and understanding when and how to adapt to changes in the

narrative, all of which is made possible with strong communication between photojournalist and photo editor. Alyssa Schukar spoke on this idea of flexibility, saying that while planning was key, shooting is about being present because “the reality of life is always so much more compelling than anything that I can dream up.” In this way, she points out the power of the situation in front of you and the importance of recognizing shifts and changes that come throughout the process of developing the narrative.

Can you explain your approach to editing and developing a narrative? What do you look for first or what is most important?

In order to more fully understand how the process works to identify and develop narratives, each participant was asked to outline their workflow and their process as they work through an edit from beginning to end, specifically in reference to larger projects that begin with a large body of work. Communication once again was a topic of conversation, as Richard Shaw described the importance of each role in the shooting stage. He said that photojournalists can become too close to their work, creating blind spots that an editor can help to point out before the shooting phase has ended– an idea that was echoed by Alyssa Schukar, Marcia Allert, Becky

Lebowitz-Hanger, Brian Storm and MaryAnne Golon. On the opposite side he pointed out that the photographer is the one in the scenario still and that “A good photo editor that’s not listening to the photographer is making a mistake.” Denny Simmons talked about taking a slightly different approach, saying that he doesn’t enter into a project or look at images with a photographer until it is about halfway underway. At this point, however, he picks up the same role the other editors talked about in that he looks for the questions that are answered in the images and what is still left unanswered. Marcia Allert, who pointed out the importance of empathy, made clear that it is healthy to keep a bit of distance from the story so you aren’t too personally engaged, as a photojournalist or as a photo editor. She and Denny Simmons both

talked about how you have to keep a clear head and focus on the success of the story no matter how much time has been invested, or how much you want to see members of your team succeed.

Time as a necessity for strong storytelling was supported by most of the participants, but not all. Mike Davis specifically pointed out his dislike of the idea that a lot of time is necessary, saying it is a matter of being present at the right times and having the right mindset to redefine what is valid. In part, this referenced the ideas that we should be rethinking what kinds of stories are acceptable in the news industry beyond what was acceptable in the past. While time was a valuable asset mentioned by Becky Lebowitz-Hanger, she also commented on the value in rethinking what role photojournalism plays in the news industry. She talked about the history of photojournalism as a sort of service-desk for traditional writing desks and how the future of the industry is working toward a more independent photo department that produces its own content.

Denny Simmons also talked about the need for images to stand as a message of their own that should complement the story but shouldn’t say the exact same thing as the text. This could come in the form of long visual narratives or maybe for non-traditional stand-alone photos in the past, like using a collection of images to show breaking news rather than a traditional written brief.

Future needs of the profession were touched on by several participants and will be discussed more in the conclusions section.

Time as a positive tool for the photojournalist was talked about by a few editors. Denny

Simmons talked about time as a way of getting to know people and building a relationship with people. He pointed out that spending time with people didn’t mean hours and hours on end, and in fact that he spent small chunks of time with people over a longer course of time, allowing you to better understand them and ultimately make images you couldn’t have before without that understanding. MaryAnne Golon talked about using time in two parts: first as a tool for removing the ‘awareness curtain’ that exists between the subjects and photojournalists so as to

create more honest and authentic images, and secondly as the opportunity to really simmer and deliberate over the final product as an editor.

In more technical explanation of the editing process, it was described that editing is unique to everyone. However, the approaches taken by the editors all offered several similarities.

From the start each of the people interviewed highlighted their desire to look through every single image or video clip shot for the story. Each person talked about looking through the complete collection of images or clips gathered and then working down in what Brian Storm described as a “subtractive process” to find the pieces that could best tell the story. After this initial sifting of content, most editors talked about what photos hadn’t been pulled forward first and what they were missing from the original takes. Marcia Allert expanded on this part of her process, saying that she asks her photographers to tell her from memory what images are missing. She reasoned that they should do it from memory because “if you can’t remember it, it’s not that good of a photo.” For other editors, this second look, literally came in the form of looking through all the images again, to find images that may have been missed in the initial edit.

Once narrowed, the two most common approaches used by the editors was categorization of images from a wider edit and printing out images to organize the final edit. The editors discussed using categories to group together the images from a wide edit based on type of image like detail or scene setter or based on the point conveyed by the image. In either scenario, the categories would separate the images by what they offered to the package as a whole, then a single image could be selected from each category to prevent repetition. Becky Lebowitz-Hanger offered up the most descriptive analogy for this process, saying “I like to edit the same way I pack for a trip.” She expanded this to say that she likes to group things by type first and then choose the best of each type. To explain, several editors justified the process by saying it helped make sure every single image had a discernible point that contributed uniquely to the story.

MaryAnne Golon talked about how the core images, or very best images, are seen in every version of an edit that is published and the rest of the images change based on platform or purpose. With hesitation to using word examples, most of the editors talked about how the images in a photo story worked like the words in a sentence or paragraphs in a story, each saying a new, important thing that when combined together tell the story without repeating the same idea or image more than once.

Marcia Allert made a distinction here, noting the importance of staying focused on the one question you are trying to answer and not trying to tell the story of someone’s entire life. The idea of answering a single overarching question was a commonality in the interviews. Every participant talked about the need for the narrative to focus on answering one main question. The central question was something that each editor expected to be understood from the start of the creation process. By allowing room for adjustment and change, the general framework and idea needed to be considered from the start of that initial pitching process.

Multiple editors talked about increasing visual literacy of audiences because of shifting technologies. Marcia Allert talked specifically about how increased visual literacy means there is less of a gap between the questions that we as visual minds are asking and the questions that viewers will be asking. The same questions that she asks are the same questions she expects viewers to have. Brian Storm discussed how his team defines narrative, which he defined as the spoken word in a film, and then they base everything else around that. He uses the narrative as the beginning, middle and end, and then finds the visual pieces that will most clearly and impactfully carry that narrative through the final film.

Repeatedly described by those interviewed was the use of small print outs of images when getting close to a final edit. Each editor talked about printing off images so that they could move the images around and experiment with order and organization by moving the images

around tangibly. Becky Lebowitz-Hanger said she uses the prints to see how people will encounter the images when they see them. This can come from either laying them out in categories to work toward the final edit or from printing out the accompanying story and laying the images down next to the story to better understand the presentation of the package as a whole. MaryAnne Golon said she was unsurprised by this commonality, saying you have a different relationship with the things that you touch. In this way, the direct touch that comes from moving printed images around and touching them with your hands instead of on a mouse offers a new sensational connection to the images that you can’t have working on a computer.

Finally, multiple editors ended by explaining how they knew the edit worked successfully in the end. Each described it in a slightly different way but all involved a sense of flow or feeling of fullness that came from looking at the final collection of images:

“I know I have a really good photo edit when I can hear, there’s a rhythm, there’s a beat to it. Each of the images … is carrying a beat and I know that either the edit or the sequence is off when the music stops.” – Marcia Allert

“We continue to make something better and better and better, but then there is this moment where we just start fucking it up, start ruining the film… and that’s when we publish” – Brian Storm

Both suggest in this way that there is a final end point that is reachable. This idea is something that was not fully explored in the context of this research and will be discussed with more consideration in the conclusions.

What is challenging about the process? What do you do when you get stuck?

As part of the attempt to understand the process in full, each participant was asked to talk about challenges they face and about how they work past roadblocks when they get stuck in the process. Challenges faced by the editors included knowing when to give up on a story that won’t happen, as Denny Simmons described. And Brian Storm noted the challenge of getting started when you have a massive amount of content to sort through. For Storm, having an organized

workflow allows for creativity to happen in the “last mile” or the final stages of the project when the biggest impact is made on the outcome. He also talked about keeping an open mind and knowing that change will happen, so you have to be willing to wait for “the lightning rod scene” that immediately tells you what the film will be about. Richard Shaw noted the biggest challenge as being able to “recognize where the story is in regard to a visual plateau… and what can be done to kick it up a notch to take it to that next plateau.” He said that finding that higher plateau is the ultimate goal and that reaching it may take any number of things like rethinking narrative, image order, or even reshooting and thinking about the vision of the photojournalist. Mike Davis talked about two challenges in the process. First, he spoke about the challenge of helping each photojournalist find their own unique path to success. Second, Davis spoke about making sure to create soulful images that are also successful technically.

In close connection to understanding the challenging parts of the process is understanding what editors and photographers do when they get stuck. For Alyssa Schukar, it is about staying connected with the original pitch by reading it back while shooting and looking through images to see what she may have missed in the moment. She went on to emphasize the importance of having good editors in which to work and collaborate with. Becky Lebowitz-Hanger called the big idea a gut check that can keep you in line and keep the content focused. The use of the printed photos was frequently referenced as a tool to get past being stuck. Other tactics included walking away from the project for a bit before returning with fresh eyes. This opportunity is obviously dependent on deadlines and whether or not time is available but was recommended by multiple editors as a way to not get buried and lost in the work. Both Richard Shaw and

MaryAnne Golon said that looking at other beautiful or impactful photography and photojournalism can offer new inspiration or rejuvenation. MaryAnne Golon noted that the thing that made her happiest is photography. So, when she is bogged down by one piece of

photography, she has to go look at another. In the same vein of external sources, Alyssa Schukar and Marcia Allert talked about looking to other mediums like film, novels and art history for inspiration from their interactions, emotions and expressions. Allert explained that this is valuable because nothing is totally new, everything has been talked about somehow, somewhere, so it is a matter of building on the legacy of past work. Shaw, Schukar and Becky Lebowtiz-

Hanger also talked about the importance of having external voices and minds to talk to, inside of the industry or outside of it that can offer the clarity that comes with a removed perspective. For each editor, being stuck is a part of the process they try to avoid. Storm, among other editors, talked about avoiding clichés and predictable ideas so that you can create something new, unique and valuable for the larger conversation. For Storm this comes in the form of keeping himself naïve to the subject and trying to come into every project as much like an everyday person as he possibly can, ready to learn like every other normal person.

Mike Davis took his response in a slightly different direction, saying that it is the process that prevents roadblocks and that if you work through the process of planning, shooting and coordination in the right ways you will avoid roadblocks in the end. He followed this up by saying that if you do hit roadblocks it is because you need to connect more and work more to understand what exactly the story is. He recommended taking a new path to the same end goal, like taking a different route to the same destination.

What narratives are being talked about too much? Not enough?

In addition to understanding what the field looks like in the present, conversations touched on what future changes should be made regarding the types of narratives that we should be telling in photojournalism. Both Denny Simmons and Brian Storm touched on the importance of telling stories about everyday people. Storm described this in saying “I’m a big believer that every single person that you’ve ever met on this planet is a story.” He explained that everyone

has something to say if done right, everyone has a narrative to share. Marcia Allert argued that stories can touch on the same topics and ideas a million times as long as they are done smartly and elegantly and in new ways.

In referencing the industry as it pertains to contest entries, Simmons and Richard Shaw are frustrated with the submission of essays or collections of assignment images under the ‘story label’ in story categories of contests. They both noted a desire to return to stories driven by central characters to explore and explain bigger topics while not becoming cliché or repetitive of already existing content. In contests, Mike Davis is seeing an increase in images that are center weighted and sacrifice photographic qualities to show basic information in a literal fashion. In a more positive direction, he talked about using the third effect as a tool to address new dynamics and ideas, and to create unique complexities in the way images are paired together as part of a larger edit.

MaryAnne Golon and Becky Lebowitz-Hanger focused their conversation on the content being produced and those who are producing it. Golon looked at the type of content that is being published, saying that we as an industry focus too heavily on imagery and stories that are sad and dark and soulful. She says that we need to work harder to balance this content with positive and less depressing content if we want to prevent people from looking away. Lebowitz-Hanger looked at those creating the content, saying that newsrooms are generally lacking in diversity.

She commented on how newsrooms are overwhelmingly white, more male than female, and in the case of photojournalism, more upper class due to higher costs of entry. All of these factors limit the types of voices which are telling the news and in turn limit the types of voices which are being sourced for the news. Altogether, this sets a limit to the types of, and diversity of, narratives that we as an industry are capable of sharing.

What is the most satisfying part of the narrative building process?

Similar to the commonalities that came with working through the process, there were commonalities in the most satisfying parts of the process. On the most technical side, Becky

Lebowitz Hanger and Brian Storm talked about opportunities to work on big collaborative projects with lots of people to create something you couldn’t have made by yourself. Richard

Shaw talked about the moment when the photographer and editor find a new unique way of putting the story together in a way they couldn’t have imagined a few minutes earlier.

In regard to impact and the end product, every participant said one of three things: seeing the project and the photojournalist succeed – like a proud parent watching their kid win an award or receive applause; when the message was successfully communicated in a way that made it understandable and relatable to viewers; or getting to connect with someone through photography and sharing their story. Mike Davis explained the first as helping someone create something they didn’t think they could, to set a new standard for them. MaryAnne Golon talked of the ability to communicate a message with images as a universal language. “We don’t need any language, we speak the same language. This is the language of the eye.” Marcia Allert, Brian

Storm and Alyssa Schukar all spoke to the final idea of connecting with people while sharing their story. Alyssa Schukar spoke regarding the earliest interaction saying that meeting people and learning about their lives was what she enjoyed. “To be present with someone in such an intense way that we get to do as photographers, it’s a pretty special thing and something that I would really miss if I were to ever walk away from the industry.” Marcia Allert spoke of the fun that her team has all because of the willingness of people to share their stories and time and spirit. She expanded this to say that in so many cases, people share on the worst days of their lives because they want to share in a real and authentic way that can be captured with a camera and the tools we use. Finally, and most simply, Brian Storm spoke of the moment when you

know that you’ve “told the story that is true to that person” and the subject is satisfied with the way you told their story. Each of these ideas ties to the idea of telling an honest and compelling story, and for the editors, doing it in a way that develops the skills and contributions of every member of the team.

Conclusions

The purpose of this research was to engender a deeper conversation about narrative in visual storytelling, and to better understand what factors editors are looking for in the narratives that they are helping to create. The central research question asked what processes and approaches editors are taking to build and finalize the narratives they work on. The hierarchy of influences theory was applied with the intention of understanding the priorities editors have in developing narratives to see if certain factors are sought after more than others. The conversation here is merely meant to be a starting block that could inspire further discussion with visual leaders in the community about the work that they do. Several editors mentioned the idea that conversations like these – on the idea of narrative in visuals specifically not writing – was one that should be had more often. They hope those conversations will continue to grow and develop in the future. In addition to discussing what editors look for most in the editing process, the findings will be evaluated for commonalities, oddities and other points that would benefit from further research and conversation.

One of the early trends seen in the interviews was the clarification between photojournalism and photography as art. The idea is that photojournalism does more than convey a message like photography as art does, going another step further to convey a specific, intentional message that has been crafted and developed by the photojournalist and the editor working on the project. This idea ties in some ways to the concept of crafting narratives in visuals to convey a message which all of the interviews touched on. But the separation from art as a medium was not entirely universal. There was talk of using art history and of modern art, whether in photography or paintings, or in films, movies, books or podcasts to inspire idea generation and development for photojournalistic narratives. Never was photojournalism synonymized with art but rather the two were tied to it by the presentation of humanity in each

platform. As viewers become more visually literate, as was noted in several interviews, this idea of separating photojournalism from art may become an increasingly relevant conversation both inside the newsroom and out. The term “art” is a common one in newsrooms used to reference the images or graphics that accompany text. But does this term of art cross over into the vocabulary of visual leaders? This question would serve valuable for future research expanding on how visual and non-visual minds talk, in the most literal way, about visual content.

More clearly established in these conversations was an understanding of the purpose of the photo desk in a newsroom environment. The idea of photo departments working as a service desk historically was presented and led to conversations of what a newsroom photo department should be responsible for and what kinds of content should be produced. Several interviews touched on the future of the industry, and specifically on the idea that photojournalists need to take seriously the journalistic part of the storytelling and to create narratives that can stand alone and communicate a message without relying on words. This goal of working without a reliance on words may stem from a variety of places. It may point directly to the lack of independence that photo departments have historically been given related to word stories. Alternatively, it may stem from a desire for picture stories to hold equal as words in communicating comprehensive ideas or stories. This interest in creating stand-alone content may tie closely to the very outward and conscious avoidance that certain photo editors had toward explaining narratives in visual storytelling using word-inspired analogies. After stating their hesitation, justification was often made in saying that people understand narrative as it pertains to words but not visuals, so they resort to these word analogies in hopes of clarity, not by preference. While many people emphasized that photo stories should speak for themselves, collaboration with other newsroom departments was a common theme among the newspaper photo editors. Working with other

departments to determine the best ways to present information across all newsroom content was presented as an ideal situation that should be the goal of both photojournalists and photo editors.

Another valuable topic of conversation brought up was the need to increase diversity of voices working in newsrooms and sources for the narratives that we are telling in photojournalism and in journalism as a whole. This concern is mirrored in the voices that are included in this research. Certain marks of diversity were more successfully covered with the inclusion of equally male and female voices, geographically distributed voices, and voices from a variety of positions and sizes of publications in the industry. However, there was limited racial diversity included and a wider variety of age could have been included to better serve the results of the study. This problem was anticipated from the start and a hope of increasing these types of diversity was intended but not achieved. An expansion of this research would be well served to add these less than adequately presented voices.

Repeatedly arising in conversation was the need for strong communication. The need for strong communication was discussed on a variety of levels, such as communication between photojournalist and subject, and between the photo editor and the photojournalist, the designers, the reporters and the rest of the newsroom. In terms of the newsroom, communication was generally referenced in the form of collaboration, but also ventured into the idea of advice.

Everyone included in this research spoke of looking to friends and seeking voices inside the newsroom and inside visual journalism for advice and clarification when stuck or when in need of assistance. The repeated emphasis on communication in the process and as a goal of visual storytelling suggests its importance, which is largely reflected in the amount of existing research covering communication between visual and non-visual minds.

When talking specifically of what was most sought after to create successful narratives, every person touched on two main things: strong visuals and an impactful storyline. Strong

visuals were talked about in an almost assumed way, saying that high quality imagery is implied in successful narratives. But a more detailed explanation was given to the idea of impactful storylines. Discussing things like structure and presentation, each person noted that powerful images connect people with other people by explaining and sharing realities that aren’t their own. Ideas like humanity, the human experience, understanding and relatability were presented as descriptors of what good photojournalism can make possible. The uniformity in core ideals that everyone presented seems to suggest a somewhat universal ideal that is guiding visual journalism. I would like to expand this research to include a larger pool of voices before making this statement in absolute, but the research here sets a solid platform for continuing and expanding research of these ideals.

One surprising difference that arose in the interviews came from Mike Davis’s solo commentary on time. All references made to time talked about its value in creating and developing a stronger final product with the exception of Mike Davis. Davis spoke directly to the contrary saying that time was oftentimes an unnecessary expectation for success in the industry that he thought could be worked around in a variety of ways. On no other topic did one voice speak so directly to the contrary of all the other participants. Further discussion of this idea would be valuable to more fully understand the constraints that may or may not exist for creating successful narratives both as a photojournalist and as a photo editor.

On the contrary, going into this research there was an expectation for variation between editors and producers on the more technical and literal approaches that they took to complete edits. An exception to the group was when the editor entered the project. All but one editor worked with the photographer from the start of the project, beginning with the pitch if looking for optimal success. Denny Simmons, however, talked specifically of waiting until the project was about halfway underway before joining into the conversation. Further explanation of

reasoning was not asked for but would be of interest in future conversations. As far as similarities go, the use of subtractive processes in the early rounds of editing was a commonality amongst all voices, as was the grouping and categorization of images to help narrow down to the final images. Techniques like printing out images in order to have tangible images to move around on a table was another commonality amongst all participants. These similarities were more universal than expected and future research could take interest in identifying if these are common amongst a larger group of editors and if so for what reasons.

The idea of knowing when a project is finished and no longer in need of tweaking is an interesting topic that came up in a few interviews. The idea that the process has a given end and that the end can be identified by a feeling or a boundary was suggested. This notion would be of interest for future discussion in understanding if and how editors and photographers know and accept the conclusion of projects that they have been working on for any amount of time. These conversations would benefit from an increased number of photojournalist voices considering the common practice of long-term personal projects that a photojournalist may work on for months, years or even decades.

Just as understanding the end goal is beneficial, there is growth to be seen in understanding what types of gratification people get from participating in the process of developing and sharing narratives. Several commonalities arose in these interviews. Satisfaction was gained from team members' success, from gathering the information and the stories, and from communicating a story successfully so that a viewer can understand and connect with it.

The similar satisfactions that come from the work and from the process might suggest that a certain type of person goes into the field of visual journalism. The relatively small scope of this study begs for additional voices to fully understand this idea and serves as a valuable concept for future research expansion.

The primary goal of this research was to set a baseline for future conversations on narratives in visual and photojournalism. The processes implemented by photo editors to create narratives successfully was explained in methods like printing images and categorization.

Questions focusing on the hierarchy of influences theory suggested that the most important thing in photo and visual narratives aside from high quality imagery is humanity and conveyed experiences. This information explored the main question of this research and set the path for continued future studies. While the future of the profession was touched on by a few editors, the outlook and change needed to keep it alive was not something covered by each participant. These discussions focused more directly on the present situation and future of visual narratives rather than about the profession as a whole. Because visual narratives as we understand them today rely on having a future in visual journalism, the idea of what will perpetuate and sustain the industry in an ever-changing world of media and imagery is likely a discussion worth having. This idea, like the others discussed in this section, offer room for expansion in this conversation.

Article for Publication

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

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.

WORKS CITED

Abbott, H. (2008). Defining narrative. In The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Cambridge

Introductions to Literature, pp. 13-27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511816932.004

Atkinson, P. and Silverman, D. (1997). Kundera’s Immortality: The interview society and the

invention of the self. Qualitative Inquiry, 3, 304-325.

Bickel, J.A. (2009). St. James. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

Bingham, WVD. and Moore, BV. (1959) How to Interview. Harper Brothers, New York. Fourth

Edition. Doi: 10.1177/002218566100300113

Breed, W. (1955). Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. HeinOnline, 33. 326-

335. Doi: 10.2307/2573002

Caple, H. (2013). Photojournalism: a social semiotic approach (1st ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137314901

Chapnick, H. (1994). Truth needs no ally: inside photojournalism. Columbia, Mo: Univ. of

Missouri. Pr.

Clandinin, D. J. (2007). Handbook of narrative inquiry: mapping a methodology. Thousand

Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Chapter. 11: Composing a Visual Narrative Inquiry.

Detenber, B.; Winch, S.P. (2001) The impact of color on emotional responses to newspaper

photographs. Visual Communication Quarterly, 8(3). 4-8, 14. Doi:

10.1080/15551390109363461

Duff, L. (2005). The “Other” Small Town America. Thesis in Photojournalism, School of

Journalism, University of Missouri.

Eliasoph, N. (1998). Routines and the making of oppositional news. Critical Studies in Mass

Communication, 5. 313-334. Doi: 10.1080/15295038809366719

Fahmy, S. (2004). Picturing Afghan Women: A content analysis of AP wire photographs during

the Taliban Regime and after the fall of the Taliban Regime. Gazette: The international

journal for communication studies. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi. 66(2). 91-

112. Doi: 10.1177/0016549204041472

Feldstein, M. (2004). Kissing Cousins: Journalism and Oral History. The Oral History Review,

Vol. 31, No 1. 1-22.

Fontana, A and Frey, J. The Interview: From Neutral Stance to Political Involvement. The Sage

Handbook: Qualitative Research. Third edition. 120-154.

Graham, K., Hampton, V.J., and Savoia, S.E. (1979) Glasgow: Story of a Missouri Rivertown.

Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

Hansen, K.A; Neuzil, M; Ward, J. Newsroom topic teams: Journalists’ assessments of effects on

news routines and newspaper quality. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly,

75(4). 803-821. Doi: 10.1177/107769909807500413

Hirsch, M. (1997). Family frames: photography narrative and postmemory. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

Holman, D. (1979). Rhineland: Winter in a Missouri Rivertown. Photojournalism, School

of Journalism, University of Missouri.

Holstein, J., and Gubrium, J. (1995). Active interviewing. In D. Silverman (ED.), Qualitative

research: Theory, method, and practice (pp. 113-129). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Hurley, G. and McDougall, A. (1975). Visual Impact in Print.

Huxford, J. (2015). Visual images in the media. International Encyclopedia of the Social &

Behavioral Sciences, 2. 169-174. Doi: 10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.95041-4

Hyunh, T., Pasek, A. and Tucker, S. (2012). Clinton. Photojournalism, School of Journalism,

University of Missouri.

Kendall-Ball, G. (2015). Documenting Trenton: Editing and Design of the 65th Missouri Photo

Workshop photo book. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

URI: https:hdl.handle.net/10355/47519

Kendall-Ball, G. (2015). Trenton. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of

Missouri.

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. New York.

Lindlof, T. and Taylor, B. (2010). Chpt. 6: Producing Data II: Qualitative Interviewing.

Qualitative Communication Research Methods. Third Edition. Sage publishing.

McDougall, A. and Hampton, V.J. (1990). Picture Editing and Layout: a Guide to Better Visual

Communication.

Olson, K.T. (1997) Berger: Life in a Missouri Rivertown. School of Journalism, University of

Missouri.

Parry, K. (2010) A visual framing analysis of British press photography during the 2006 Israel-

Lebanon conflict. Media, War and Conflict. 3(1). 67-85. Doi:

10.1177/1750635210353679

Peltier, M. (2010). Festus & Crystal City. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of

Missouri.

Pierce, M. (2018). Visual Storytelling in Native American High-Density Schools. Art Education.

Taylor and Francis Ltd.

Prouse, M.J. (1981). Arrow Rock: 20th Century Frontier Town. Photojournalism, School

of Journalism, University of Missouri.

Pompper, D. and Feeney, B.J. (2002). Traditional Narratives Resurrected: The Gulf War on Life

Magazine Covers. Journal of Magazine & New Media Research. 5(1). 1-12.

Reese, S.D. (2016) Theories in Journalism. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.

Doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.83

Reese, S.D. and Shoemaker, P.J. (2016). A Media Sociology for the Networked Public Sphere:

The Hierarchy of Influences Model. Mass Communication and Society, 19. 389-410. Doi:

10.1080/15205436.2016.1174268

Shoemaker, P., & Reese, S. D. (1996). Mediating the message: Theories of influences on mass

media content. 2d ed. New York: Longman.

Smaele, H; Geenen, E; Cock, R. (2017). Visual gatekeeping – Selection of news photographs at a

Flemish newspaper. Nordicom Review, 38(2). 57-70. Doi: 10.1515_nor-2017-0414

Sturtecky, H. (2017). Cuba. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

Taylor J. (2000). Problems in Photojournalism: realism, the nature of news and the humanitarian

narrative. Journalism Studies. 1(1). 129-143. Doi:00/010129-15

Wood, K. (2011). Macon. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

Vidinghoff, E.R. (1976). Lupus: Portrait of a Missouri Rivertown. Photojournalism,

School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

APPENDIX

______

APPENDIX A: Field Notes

DEC. 1-7, 2019 1. Week Highlights: Started. But really I spent time looking through past MPW books as well as other photo books of varying topics to get more of a feel for how they are put together and what kinds of tools, ideas, and transitions are used to move throughout the images and texts. 2. Week Challenges: Hard to totally imagine the project still without going through the images again so I think once I do that I will feel better about the organization of the book. 3. Project Progress: Researching previous projects and other photo books to consider potential approaches to organizing the book. 4. Research Progress: None this week. Focusing on project this week. 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Continue research on projects and dig into previous students final project submissions to see challenges and tools that they used to be more successful. Set a more final deadline schedule for spring semester.

DEC. 8-14, 2019 1. Week Highlights: Nailed down a more specific schedule and plan for spring semester with Brian. Talked through a potential organization method pending look into photos over break. 2. Week Challenges: Still need to just sit down and look through images from the workshop. 3. Project Progress: Made a copy of all images from the 2019 workshop for me to sort through from home and begin looking through. Talked through page delivery for Spring once we start looking at pages and edits. 4. Research Progress: None this week. Focusing on project. I have two interviews that may be usable from the workshop but will know for sure once I listen back. Made a plan for delivering the final paper in sections to Brian for editing so we don’t do it all in one giant chunk at the end. 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Dig through the photos from the first two MPW Boonville workshops to get a feel for what is there and have a comparison in mind for the third, 2019 workshop images.

DEC. 15-21, 2019 1. Week Highlights:

Dug through archived images from the first two MPWs. 2. Week Challenges: Managing volume of content in a productive way. But I took photos and some notes to reflect on and look at again next week to sort of double check and reconsider a second time my thoughts and the images. 3. Project Progress: Sorting through the first two MPW workshop images and getting a feel for some of the standout images in my mind as well as some of the common themes, groups, and ideas that are repeated in coverage of the town. 4. Research Progress: Began looking through contacts and through media coverage online to find potential interview sources. 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Next week will be a bit slower with Christmas but I want to continue looking for interview sources for the research.

DEC. 22-28, 2019 1. Week Highlights: Less Progress this week with holiday but have more ideas for potential interview subjects. 2. Week Challenges: Slow with holiday. 3. Project Progress: None this week. 4. Research Progress: Looking in new places for ideas for potential interviewees. 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Pick up work again. Make a rough edit of the historical photos that I like but still wide so as to give room for alignment and coordination with historical text. Search for potential people from Boonville to write the introduction like we talked about (Did we want this person to be writing an introduction or the historical background - or are we bundling the two?)

DEC. 29 - JAN. 4 1. Week Highlights: Happy New Year! This week I picked up again with the search for historical writers to collaborate with as well as potential interviewees. 2. Week Challenges:

Getting started on finding people for both of the above searches but I felt better toward the end of the week. 3. Project Progress: Started to dig through the images from the 2019 MPW workshop. Started looking for historical people that could potentially write the beginning sections. 4. Research Progress: Put together a solid list of potential interview subjects, both photojournalists and photo editors. Drafted email to reach out to people with explaining the project and interest in involving them. 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Transcribe interviews that I did during MPW to determine value and usability and then continue digging through workshop images from 2019.

JAN. 5-11, 2020 1. Week Highlights: I am really starting to feel like I am actually being productive and getting stuff done on both elements of the project so that is encouraging. Biggest win is just starting to get into all the images and the edits that were initially made to understand the narratives that were determined and told during the week of the workshop. 2. Week Challenges: Mass of images from this year's workshop and just managing everything in a logical way. It was slightly easier after looking through the old ones first but the change in format from negatives to digital files still made for some challenges. Getting the hang of it. 3. Project Progress: Continued looking and sorting through the images and stories of the 2019 workshop to really get a feel for what is there and start to identify some standout images. 4. Research Progress: None this week. Focused on Images 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Start emailing editors and photojournalists about interviewing them for the project and setting that up. Put together beginning ideas for fonts, style guides and a visual guide/plan for the book itself based on previous years and ideas with this book. Begin working on updating/adjusting the methods section of my proposal to send to Brian for new editing and thoughts.

JAN.12-18, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Methods section work and beginning to think about design for the book. 2. Week Challenges: Figuring out how to split time between research and project elements of the work. Working on figuring out how to divide time in a valuable way between the two. 3. Project Progress:

Drafted up style guide and ideas for design. Also began to lay out a page guide for the entire book. 4. Research Progress: Worked on a list of people to email for interviews. 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Email a few more potential research sources to expand search and options for interview. Finalize style guide with committee for beginning of page designs. Finalize organization style with committee. Deliver final methods section to Brian and begin looking at Literature Review for edits and redrafting for Brian.

JAN. 19-25, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Working with the images again and getting used to the information. 2. Week Challenges: Slower week in general with the start of school and being at the paper so much but will pick up again with more speed next week. 3. Project Progress: Continued work on a page guide to layout the entire book. And continued searching through stories and refreshing with material. 4. Research Progress: More edits on Methods section and sent that over to Brian for review. 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Set up meeting time with Brian and David to keep working and begin working on story edits and historical image selects.

JAN. 26-FEB. 1, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Meetings for the rest of the semester are scheduled and we will start meeting next week - very helpful to have that nailed down and set. Really working on historical images and getting those narrowed down to a smaller number - final set to be determined with the historical section. 2. Week Challenges: Making tight edits on the historical section has been a challenge that I am temporarily setting aside to make sure that I don’t spend too much time on it without having the text to also look at while making that edit. 3. Project Progress: Have one photo story edited down to look at with Brian and David next week during our meeting hopefully and to start getting stories on pages. I want to just make sure we seem to be on a similar page about stories and design as a whole before I start designing a ton of pages. 4. Research Progress: More edits on Methods section and sent that over to Brian for review.

5. Goals for the upcoming week: Nail down design guide details as much as possible and then really start to crank out a bunch of pages. With a book page guide layed out, I would like to make the final calendar of how many pages have to be done each week. Email everyone about interviews and nail down/clarify the historical section/intro section to get that moving ASAP. Will also begin edits/updates to the Lit Review and theory sections of the paper so that those are working and underway.

FEB. 2-8, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Nailed down style stuff and started print page designs. 2. Week Challenges: Getting lots done on design and edits without our next review session. Got much faster as I started doing more sections but will just keep getting faster from here on out. 3. Project Progress: Started designing pages for the book and have a few edits nailed down. 4. Research Progress: Drafts for emails ready to go and emailing people about interviews next week. We also discussed adding a section to the lit review analyzing the past MPW books and maybe the rivertown books and the successes and struggles of the designs and organization styles of the books and how that affected and determined the approaches we took for this book. 5. Goals for the upcoming week: Begin emailing and scheduling interviews for the research section of the project and work on finalizing the Lit Review to send to Brian for review. Plus designing and editing more pages.

FEB. 9-15, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Page designs and edits working well. Started reaching out about interviews. 2. Week Challenges: Once I forced myself to send emails about interviews I got over the main challenge which was to just to get started on that. But I have sent the first couple interview emails so hoping for some responses. 3. Project Progress: Started designing pages for the book and have a few edits nailed down. Hoping to finalize and really get that moving. 4. Research Progress: Emails/calls to set up interviews, finalize lit review by end of week to send to Brian, and check in on methods section review. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week:

Make a more organized plan for the sections of the book and see which stories in general need more space and which can run a bit shorter. Make more edits and figure out how many stories need to be designed each week to be done on time. Interviews!! Get them done.

FEB. 16-22, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Finished rough edits on all stories. Completed three interviews for the interviews section. 2. Week Challenges: Determining amount of space for each story without going through each story a lot more in depth and knowing how much space to give each story. 3. Project Progress: All images are down to about 10 max per story. We have as a group made it through just more than half of the stories as a group so that is good and I am going to start designing pages more this week. 4. Research Progress: Great! Three interviews completed on Friday and several more scheduled for the next two weeks. Hoping to have all the interviews completed for analysis by the second week of March so I can have the analysis and conclusions sections of the book written by the end of March. Plus I have finished editing and adding to the theory section so will be sending that to Brian as soon as I add a few paragraphs to finalize the also edited Lit Review section. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: Design a million pages. But really just go full into designing a bunch of pages based on the stories that we have already looked at as a group and continue interviews.

FEB. 23-29, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Designed pages for about five stories and reviewed those. Feel good about where they are at. 2. Week Challenges: Getting started with designs and figuring out how to get started in a productive way and not waste time. 3. Project Progress: Began to play with and identify some good and bad design elements and interior styles to potentially use throughout the process. Designed the first five or six stories to look at with the group. 4. Research Progress: Lots of interviews this week and scheduling the last few for next week. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: Really kick up designing pages since a good base has been established. Finish interviewing photo editors.

March 1-7, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Finished all research interviews! Yahoo! Also designing more pages and getting through some more designs with everyone before people head out of town. 2. Week Challenges: Figuring out where to go next with interviews. 3. Project Progress: Lots of pages designed. Finished rough drafts for about half of stories to be reviewed next week. Made corrections based on conversations this week. 4. Research Progress: Finished up the interviews this week. All 8 are now complete to analyze as we move forward. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: Transcribe interviews for the interview section and begin to focus attention on both project and research again starting next week hopefully.

March 8-14, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Finished with about ⅔ of photo stories now for both with rough draft designs to review. 2. Week Challenges: Finding a groove and not spending too much time on each individual spread. Trying to push through and make good designs/edits/spreads that are unique but not so unique that they don’t all fit together. 3. Project Progress: Finished lots more designing of photo spreads about ⅔ of photo stories designed this week which is a major relief. At this point the designs and the images are starting to just fit together in a much more natural way. I think that the experience of doing so many up to this point is finally making it quicker and smoother and hopefully this will continue on through the remainder of the spread. 4. Research Progress: Put this off this week to work on the project section but will work on this in full next week. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: Finish all page designs and review them with committee. Return attention to interviews.

March 15-21, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Have finished designing all but the last five stories so that is great and the book is in a good place. All corrections and adjustments made at this point have been made. 2. Week Challenges:

Figuring out what else is left to be done for the book and working through all the interviews to do full transcriptions. 3. Project Progress: Almost done with page designs for story spreads. I am moving through designing much more quickly and that is really helpful and I feel like they are looking more and more consistent between packages not just inside of each spread. Starting to wish I had ordered the stories in advance so I wouldn’t have to make more changes to spreads to be able to fit all together but will cross that bridge next week. 4. Research Progress: Welp I have once again put it off so next week I really really will get this going. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: Next week I will transcribe all interviews for the interviews component, finish designing all spreads and finish the history/introduction section.

March 22-28, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Finished story spreads and history section, layed out the first draft of the entire book and started working on transcribing interviews. 2. Week Challenges: Figuring out how to combine the stories together and not change too drastically designs of spreads we already liked and the order of images from our previously liked edits. 3. Project Progress: The book is in a very good place as of this week. History section is done with hopes still of adding in local voices if anyone will call me back. Full book is in draft and now just waiting on the acknowledgments section and sending it off next week to Hannah Hoffmeister to do the full copy editing of the book. All images were toned for black and white and have been replaced in the draft for revisions once the images are toned and in black and white rather than seeing in color previously. 4. Research Progress: Sent all interviews through a transcription service for free to do the initial transcribing. Will listen and correct the full transcriptions next week. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: Go over the full draft of the book and make updates and changes for the second draft. Finish draft to send to the copy editor next week and finish the academic work I left to do with the interviews.

March 29 - April 4, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Finished transcribing and narrowing interviews and finished draft of final paper. Finished second draft of book and sent off to copy editor. 2. Week Challenges: Getting a hold of photographers for caption info and contact info for cover image.

3. Project Progress: Made a second draft of the book and have reached out to all photographers for the additional information that is needed. The history section has been revised and all information has been sent to the copy editor for her to begin reading through and editing the text of the book. Finished the draft of the text section about the project as a whole. 4. Research Progress: The interviews were transcribed and narrowed down to what is important for inclusion in research. The text sections were completed for the findings and the conclusions as well as the overall introduction and the introductions to each section (project and research). The full paper is combined into one master document draft for the defense and has been sent in a compiled form to chair. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: Finish the article for submission to add to content, contact people about front cover image permissions and add in the information that has been added from photographers. Talk to historical society about how to authorize their images and then finalize and source some of the information in the history section.

April 5-11, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Full draft of information is to brian for commentary and editing. Book is in a good place and working on continual adjustments. 2. Week Challenges: Figuring out options for publication (printing) for the book considering the state of the world mid-pandemic. What is the plan for how we are going to publish? Getting money from school seems out considering major budget cuts and getting money from the community would make me sick considering how tight everyone is having to be with money right now, especially after casino layoffs and such. Not sure we just need to talk and brainstorm next week. 3. Project Progress: Updated with corrections from last week’s revisions, from Brian’s notes on history section, swapped a few images out and made final adjustments to page ordering and design. The photographers have all responded so I was able to update all of that information. Need to swap out one image for lack of permission but otherwise is looking good. Changed up back cover images again so will talk about that next week. 4. Research Progress: Waiting on commentary from Brian and just making edits and adjustments on my end in the meantime. Didn’t get the article done so I need to finish that next week. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: Finish article for publication and continue tweaks and adjustments to everything. Send an edited and updated draft to everyone in full by Friday next week.

April 12-18, 2020 1. Week Highlights: Continued minor revisions in everything. Took another deep dive look through everything to check for internal book consistency and updated drafts for research with Brian’s commentary. 2. Week Challenges: Figuring out publication options and researching what we can do there. 3. Project Progress: Continued revisions. Have made revisions and copy edits on the history section per notes from the copy editor and have finalized the images to be used in that section. Need to talk about adding still images to the front of the book or if we are skipping that for now. 4. Research Progress: Making edits and last adjustments to text and research components before sending out to the entire committee on Friday for their revision. Interviews article is complete and ready to go for revisions before we figure out who we want to submit it to - which is the only blank left in the paper to be filled in. 5. Goals for Upcoming Week: We are meeting on Thursday to do what will hopefully be the defense. After all drafts were sent Friday just waiting for commentary and corrections/changes that are suggested from the committee.

MPW BOOKS ● Fulton and Crystal City ○ Opens with intro to town: weaves people, place, and happenings in with text ○ Then history section of the town ○ Then stories, themes weaved to move from place, to jobs defining place, to jobs, to people to generations and age, and on. Break in the middle for images about faith. Then more stories ordered based on transitioning themes and topics. ● Macon ○ Transitions by topics again in story by story ○ More irony used in the placement of stories here, making transitions with opposites rather than similarities all the time. ○ Organized by themes: time, age, what’s dying, what's growing, etc. ○ Liked the movement and the irony here… something to be considered here for changing up movement and flow maybe. ● St. James ○ Like the others, they start with one of the strongest stories if not the strongest story and end with a really strong story and bury the weaker ones or shorter ones in the middle. ○ End on a note of the future or the outlook of the town, etc. some kind of idea that matches a fairly stereotypical ending and accepted end point of a story.

○ Themes change in each based on the stories and how they can fit and move together. ○ Students filled the gaps they found in this town's coverage. ○ Generally, I was a bit more confused by the flow of this book on first look than I was on the other two books. ● Clinton ○ Opens with history section then breaks into stories ○ Stories kind of follow either a what is the town, who is the town and then how is the town. Categories of movement are a bit looser and all encompassing. ○ Begins with a fresh and young excitement sort of feel to it, ends with an older, passing feeling ● Trenton ○ History with old photos like the other books ○ Story by story like the others ○ Same general movement ● Cuba ○ Opens with images showing the place and the people before going into the history section ○ Then stories starting with topics like the past and building into the new ○ Similar use of themes to organize and order the stories for a sort of movement

PREVIOUS BOONVILLE MPWs NOTES ● MPW 5: ○ Themes in images: family, entertainment/daily life, friendship/relationships, ag/industry, work, community leaders, military academy, youth/childhood, time, age ● MPW 50: ○ “The world has never failed me” - Mary Beth Meehan ○ Monday’s Advice: “I get disheartened at the end of the week, looking at all the photographs, when I can’t tell what town we were in. Show us something of Boonville.” - Bill Marr ○ The town then: ■ 7000 population ■ Key Industries: Transportation, agri-business, retailing, tourism ■ 450 sites on the national registry of historic places (something that was less talked about in the 2019 workshop if I remember correctly) ■ 6 Bed and Breakfasts, 20 restaurants, 6 motels, and 100+ antique dealers (also kind of missed antique dealers - although we did see the jeweler) ○ Comparatively, more racial variety than MPW 5 ○ Themes: youth, age, military academy, trust/religion/faith, caregiving

RIVERTOWNS BOOKS ● Lupus ○ Themes broken up into sections ○ Movement: people - industry (ag) - life (faith) - older age - youth - wheres (store, porch, etc.) - challenges (river) ● Rhineland ○ Themes broken up into sections ○ How to survive the cold - how to survive - people (prominent) of the town: in individual feature profiles and individual snapshots - religion - business - relationship ● Arrow Rock ○ Themes broken into sections ○ Stories layered inside the themes they fit in and then complemented by individual images ○ Portraits and quotes in the back ○ I LIKE THE IDEA OF GOING BACK TO Boonville AND GETTING QUOTES FROM SUBJECTS IN THE IMAGES. CLOSE PROXIMITY HOPEFULLY MAKES THIS MORE DOABLE WITH THE HELP OF A FEW LOCAL PEOPLE HOPEFULLY. (NEED TO START THIS ASAP IF WE LIKE THIS IDEA) ○ ^could especially work with individual images or even if not paired with images but just as part of the introduction to sections and themes. ● Boonville ○ Organized by stories but with heavier emphasis on text than other books ● Dirt Meridian by Andrew Moore ○ The variety of image pairings and full double truck bleeds makes for visual variety. The image pairings evoke more emotion and thought in each individual image than a single image would create by itself. ○ Elements for below comment: repetition, shape, pattern, flow, direction, number ○ Maintain a consistency of color and presentation throughout the book that makes the images pop, the theme more apparent and the visual appeal more impactful.

THE 2019 MPW Boonville BOOK ● I like the idea of breaking the book up into sections or categories that more broadly can summarize the themes and content from this year’s workshop. ● I don’t want to totally throw out the story format. The photographers shoot with the intention of delivering a full photo story or essay and with my research emphasizing narrative it especially doesn’t make sense to throw out the tool that they used to drive, understand and tell the stories that they did. ● Missing pieces to consider from what exists and is already shot: Casino, River (although touched on in flooded store closing story), interstate maybe? ● Project component thoughts:

○ Thematic chapters that hold both stills and stories. ■ Will include a bit of text introduction to identify the theme and explain if need be and potentially inclusion of quotes from townsfolk, subjects, photographers, editors, etc that connect to the given theme. ○ Themes will be determined based on the images from the 2019 workshop and the commonalities or ironies identified. ○ For historical section if I am writing it: ■ Consider talking to faculty who were there for both workshops and maybe see what they remember and what they saw differently between the two years. ■ Talking to local townspeople ○ Use the thematic sections and the flow of the book to create a sort of narrative of the town. Tie this in with research on narratives. ○ I want to talk with a design mind or two (Renee if she would be interested) for thoughts and ideas/advice on the overall design and style guide and then maybe again after we get started and have a few spreads to show to help pull in that knowledge base in addition to our photo mindset. ○ Making a guide for book style that develops ideas for consistency in typography, design, spacing, captions, text, etc. so aligns with past books but also brings something new if possible. Talked about colophons and included that in the guide. ○ As far as actually printing the final product, I know we don’t want to/can’t print a bunch of physical copies like we have in the past so I want to look into differences between printing on demand and press printing. See if there are some options there that we can explore for this and future projects where ordering bulk amounts of books maybe won’t be as productive and cost effective. (to be included also in the discussion/what I have learned section). ○ Overall, I want it to be cohesive to the MPW book collection while also bringing a new feel in subtle ways or organization perhaps. ● Final research article: ○ Unlikely that this final product will be heavily academically intended. The point of the interviews and research is to better understand their process and how it can be developed, improved and changed personally and in the industry. ○ Therefore logically the final presentation piece would be a more constructive and applicable piece for working photojournalists and photo editors. ○ Intended publications could be Poynter, RJI, PDN News Photographer, etc. ○ We had to submit proposed abstracts to Tom Warhover (RJI editor) and said it seemed like it is something they could be interested in and to stay in touch so will reach out to him again when I am starting to put that together for ideas/thoughts/to touch base again.

2019 MPW STORY THEMES Story Themes:

People: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Family: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Relationships: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Community: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Age: OOOOOOOOOOOOOO Business: OOOOOOOOOOOO Land: OOOOOOOOOOO Leader: OOOOOOOOO Service: OOOOOOOO Health: OOOOOOO

CATEGORIES OPTION 1: Land GJOPRdgjlm Y Community ABDHKQVXZcdefh NI Relationships DEFGKLMOPRWabdegik NI Time/Age CEGMORSTZegijk

CATEGORIES OPTION 2: Family BCDFHIJNOQSZcfghijkm LWY Community ABDHKQVXZcdefh YWb Commerce/Business BCKPVYachlm WY Time/Age CEGMORSTZegijk L

CATEGORIES OPTION 3: Land GJOPRdgjlm Y Community ABDHKQVXZcdefh NI Commerce/Business BCKPVYachlm WY Time/Age CEGMORSTZegijk L

● Team Lee ■ Trouble ○ A Lifetime of Community ■ Ending Service - Jeff Dean ---A ■ Future ■ Service ■ Leader ■ Community ■ Family ■ Leader ○ Donut Palace Queen - ■ People Keshab Raj Thoker ---C ○ A Local Institution in Limbo ■ Business - Craig Hudson ---B ■ Leader ■ Community ■ People ■ Business ■ Youth ■ River ■ Generations

■ Family ○ Tomatoes Can Wait - Katie ■ Future Jett Walls ---H ■ Hope ■ Leader ■ Age ■ People ○ Family Comes First - Angela ■ Community Douglas Ramsey ---D ■ Family ■ Family ■ Work ■ Community ● Team Cliff & Vi ■ People ○ 103 Mile-an-Hour Man - ■ Land Nathan Gibson ---I ■ Relationships ■ Service ■ Generations ■ People ■ Technology - or lack ■ Loss of ■ Future ○ Home, Complicated - ■ Business Germina Garland-Lewis ---E ■ Family ■ Youth ○ Future Farmers of America - ■ People Caroline Gutman ---J ■ Relationships ■ Family ■ Future ■ Land ■ Work or lack of ■ Future ■ Art ■ Faith ■ Health ○ Good Food, Good Company - ■ Age Liv Paggiarino ---K ○ Marsha’s Way - Stephen ■ Community Swofford ---F ■ Business ■ Health ■ Relationships ■ Family ○ Ho’o Maka Hou (To See Life ■ Relationships with New Eyes) - DaShaunae ■ Happy Jackson-Lewis ---L ■ People ■ Relationships ■ Future ■ People ○ The Skoolie Homesteaders - ■ Health Heather Khalifa ---G ■ Future ■ Technology ○ Kenden Baskett: Behind the ■ Relationships Mask - Moriah Ratner ---M ■ People ■ Youth ■ Land ■ People ■ Work ■ Relationships ■ Youth ■ Age ■ Age ○ No Good Deed… - Rachel Wisniewski ---N

■ People ■ School ■ Health ■ Youth ■ Future ■ Age ■ Family ■ Loss ■ Optimism ■ Future ○ Old Air, New Wind - Zack ■ People Wajsgras---O ○ A Mia Vita Americana - ■ Land Madeline Jorden ---T ■ Relationships ■ Student ■ Youth ■ Youth ■ Age ■ People ■ Health ■ Age ■ Family ■ Future ■ Generations ■ School ■ Future ■ Travel ○ Together - Yuvraj Khanna --- ■ Friends P ○ Never the Same - David ■ Community ‘Dee’ Delgado ---V ■ Leaders ■ Community ■ Business ■ Business ■ Relationships ■ People ■ Land ○ Once Upon a House - Piero ● Team Cox Desopo ---W ○ A New Day for Aby Bruce - ■ Relationship Jacob Moscovitch ---Q ■ Beginning ■ People ■ Future ■ Leader ■ History ■ Community ■ Work ■ Family ■ Rebuilding ■ Future ○ Revisiting Boonville’s Racial ■ Service History - Gabriella Angotti- ○ Beauty is Everywhere - Jones ---X Danielle Da Silva ---R ■ Race ■ Art ■ Future ■ Age ■ History ■ Relationships ■ Community ■ Technology (lack ○ The Equine Therapist - thereof) Alejandro Prieto ---Y ■ Land ■ Service ○ Growing Up Early - Morgan ■ Family Timms ---S ■ Person ■ Family ■ Business

● Team Chapnick ■ Age ○ Being Bobby - Sarahbeth ■ Future Maney ---Z ■ Community ■ Youth ■ Relationships ■ Age ■ People ■ Future ■ ■ Sports ○ Upwardly Mobile Mom - ■ Family Veronica G. Cadenas ---f ■ Community ■ Community ○ Molly’s Jewelry - Nadav ■ Leader Soroker ---a ■ People ■ Business ■ Family ■ People ■ Work ■ Relationships ■ School ■ Community ● Team Eppridge ○ Old Dog, New TRichards - ○ Birdie and Buster: For the Bing Guan ---b Love of the Land - Sarah ■ Future Jane Holden ---g ■ People ■ Age ■ Service ■ Old ■ Rebuilding ■ Relationships ■ Challenges ■ Family ○ Susie Embraces Life - Rosem ■ Land Morton ---c ■ Generations kinda ■ Business ○ Brad Woolridge: Boonville’s ■ Leader Lawyer Entrepreneur - ■ Community Lathan Goumas ---h ■ People ■ Business ■ Family ■ People ■ Health ■ Family ■ Friends ■ Community ○ Touched by Velma’s Love - ■ Generations Kale Wilk ---d ○ Going Home to Holy Mount ■ Service Zhyaughn - Nina Riggio---i ■ Community ■ Youth ■ Leader ■ Relationships ■ Relationship ■ Family ■ People ■ Health ■ Land - secondary ■ Future ○ Twelve in Boonville - Chloe ■ Age Ellingson ---e ○ Home Grown - Bear ■ Youth Goldstein ---j

■ Youth ○ The Taxidermist - Jesse ■ Family Winter ---l ■ People ■ Land ■ Future ■ Service ■ Age ■ Work ■ Land ■ Business ○ Life Without Judy - Denise ■ People E. Silfee ---k ○ Wiley McVicker’s Animal ■ Age Kingdom - Jessica Lee---m ■ Old ■ Business ■ Family (absence) ■ People ■ Loss ■ Work ■ Relationships (lost) ■ Land ■ People ■ Service ■ Future ■ Family

Book Layout - Page Planner ● 1 Intro (right) ● 1 print ● 1 Dedication ● 1 Table of contents needed if we do sections ● 8-10 pages of stand alone images from 2019 (maybe this is shortened to allow the space to house these images in the different sections? ● 10-15ish pages of historical section 21-28pages of beginning

● 140-150ish pages of 2019 workshop images ● 1 workshop and book teams ● 1acknowledgments ● Afterword? 176 total

So if 150 pages of workshop images… Four sections with varying pages but around 30-35 ish based on size and # of stories Plus ideally one spread or two to open the section with stand alone images that describe the section and a touch of text written to match.

______

APPENDIX B: Interview Guide Questionnaire

INTERVIEW GUIDE:

8. What does narrative mean to you for visual storytelling? Or how do you describe it? 9. What makes a narrative/process to building a narrative successful? What makes it unsuccessful? 10. Can you describe your approach to crafting the narrative? You can use an example if you like. 11. What factors dictate your narrative building? Do they have a ranking? In other words, what are the things you look for first and then what comes after, or is it fluid with every story that you work on? 12. What isn’t talked about enough in regard to narratives? What is talked about too much? 13. What is the most challenging part for you in this process? What is the most satisfying? 14. If you get stuck, who do you go to or what do you do to move past the roadblock?

______

APPENDIX C: Partial Interview Transcripts

______DENNY SIMMONS Visuals Coach at the Courier & Press/The Gleaner; Interviewed via phone: March 9, 2020

Q: How would you describe visual narrative? A: To me narrative is more of a flow than anything. You know the story you want, a beginning, a middle and an end. And then essays, you know are kind of different. You don't really have a beginning middle or an end, but you have to have they have to feel like they go together and one picture leading to the next.

*talks about using visual variety*

Visual narrative that's one of the things that is kind of a personal thing to anybody who's editing is just who they are and what they think works.

*story is simpler to edit than an essay*

You want to introduce people to who it is that you are doing a story on and lead them through to the conclusion of your story, whatever that may be.

Q: What makes a narrative successful? A: *each photographer brings unique things to their own photographs* So, I guess successful is they're able to say what they want to say visually so they communicate.

Our job is to communicate.

*talks about how we are journalists not artists and if you don’t communicate meaning and just let it be interpretable then you are an artist not a journalist*

I think that as journalists, we have to communicate and if we don't communicate. We're kind of artists.

So when it's successful is usually when the photographer puts in the time that generally can lead to success. The amount of time that you spend on the subject is going to translate into the images. I believe. You can go in and you can do a cookie cutter story with a beginning, a middle and an end. And you can do it in a couple of days probably, but if you spend six months with a subject, I think, you can get a deeper understanding. And I think the pictures show a deeper understanding because the more you spend with somebody, the deeper you're looking into who they are and to communicate their story.

*time makes you more thoughtful. What you do in the beginning is superficial compared to what you do when you understand more because of the time you have spent*

It stands to reason that the more time you spend with people, the more you're thinking, the more you understand them, the more you think you see certain things in an image you wouldn't (have) even realized before

*doesn’t mean spending all day but rather spending small chunks at a time*

We call them POMS - people of my stories - people say don't call it subjects somebody said characters and I'm like character sounds like it's fiction to me that doesn't really sound like the right word

*talks about how times have changed and how we are shifting away now in the industry from words like subject or shooter*

Q: Can you describe your approach to the editing process? A: *I don’t sit over their shoulder*

I basically, they may have been a couple of months before I even take a look at it unless they want to show it to me ahead of that.

*Looks at it about halfway through and looks again and begin the conversation about what the story is from the images they have versus the actual story, what they still need, etc. *

Never is it that same story at the end, you know, you always learn something new or you've come up with a different angle or you know, you just never know so it's always it's an evolving kind of thing.

Hopefully every picture makes a point or else it's probably not needed.

*talks about the format that works specific to his paper for publication and size of story*

*photographer shoots more, we continue to look at images every few shoots until it is done*

*once down to like 50 or 60*

We make baseball cards, although we don't do it prints anymore. put the ones that are similar or saying the same thing together. finding the best situation for each of those set of images and pick one. *collaborative process between photographer and him as editor and the other photographers if they are around*

(look at) what kind of flows that they would have if we ran a certain way.

print is different than online

*talks about their publication specifically* there is an edit for page one and an edit for that little section that's on the front feature section and then you have to think about the double truck edit. And although you know, they're one big edit, but they're all you have to see how the pictures work together that's usually the most difficult part for me.

It's easier for me to see them like a slideshow format, like you would see online. You know, just like picture to picture the picture. It's got that flow and it's uninterrupted.

Q: other challenges in the process for you? A: *talks about having to think about presentation over the images themselves… like a conversation with MaryAnne about how the Washington post doesn’t use verticals because they are like a roadbump*

*shifts to relationship between pictures and stories* our pictures are separate from the story. We don't want it to be basically regurgitating what the story is saying. We don't we don't make our pictures to match their story and they don't like their story to match our pictures. Hopefully they mesh together and they complement each other. *talks about letting photographers work on their own and take responsibility to work with reporter – he doesn’t babysit them wants them to work independently and on their own*

Q: Narratives we talk about too much or not enough? A: *people stories* we like to show people, the other people that they live with in their community.

*help see that differences aren’t so different and that we are all people. Just everyday people* I don't see a lot of that type of a story anymore. I see a lot of essays, I see a lot of assignment event coverage,

*talks event coverage. Then talks about contest entries as essays in story categories*

I would have people doing more actual stories, you know, where they spend the time getting to know their subject, You know, saying who they are, and I just think that.... I don't know I think it’s more honest.

Q: Where does this change need to come from? A: *Not sure we do it in hopes that people will like it and it will catch on. Some people do it but I would like to see more. It is a big time commitment, ….*

Q: What do you do if you hit a roadblock in the process? A:

we just drop back and take a couple steps back and then we'll move forward on it. We, you can't make pictures happen, and you just kind of have to hope that eventually you're gonna get those pictures. And sometimes you just don't you know, just you just gotta go with what you got.

*Can push a story back if it isn’t ready we don’t push things out before they are read* we all go out there and preconceive pictures that we think are going to help tell the story. Yeah. And you know, those are the ones to start on. And usually, at the final landing, none of those pictures are even in the story they are just a way for us to kind of start thinking about story is,

* you get better and unexpected images as you learn more and when you know more about the story than you came in knowing*

*sometimes you just have to cut a story that isn’t going to happen and gives a personal example*

Q: What is the most satisfying part for you? A: When it gets published. And when the photographer shares it on their social media, and their proud of it.

And one of my photographers, actually this year, Sam Owens, yeah, she won Indiana Photographer of the year.

*talks about her background*

You know, for me, it's like I feel like a proud papa. It's like it's like one of my kids doing well you know.

*talks about photographers staying or not staying at his paper*

It's my job is to get them to be as good as they can be. And just have them keep improving until the point where they can do whatever they want to do.

*talks about setting them up to be successful wherever they want to go* ______Richard Shaw Former photo editor, former POY director, Adjunct Faculty at UF College of Journalism and Communications; Interviewed via phone: February 28, 2020

Q: How would you describe narrative in visual storytelling? A: *different if for someone in journalism or not in journalism* the role of visual journalism is to show not to tell. Our job should be to, you know, give a visual representation of the story as a storyline much the same way, that a our textual story would present the same story, with the beginning, the middle and then transitional paragraphs in the middle.

(has) pacing and flow.

And the goal in the end should be able to have a series of images. That does a succinct job at telling a story about a person, place or thing. And without the use of words.

Q: What do you think makes a narrative successful? A: *multiple things there*

(on the basic level) balancing a good story, a good journalistic story with high highly successful aesthetics.

(on another level)I think the visual journalist has to be able to do it in a unique way to not rely on what I call point pictures, but to dig below the surface and to really capture the the mood and feel the character of an individual, the emotion, the moment. *do more than just showing their* recipe of their life, capture a sense of who they are as an individual, and as a personality.

*step outside the comfort zone and zone, creativity and to push the boundaries of aesthetics and to challenge the norms of conventional vision, and not relyon cliché photographs and repeating vision* to bring something different to the table or unique or different in a very visually impactful way,

Q: What narratives do we not talk about enough, what do we talk about too much? A: I think it's easy to fall into the traps of cliches, that cliche story topics that have been done in the past, don't bring some something new to the table.

*hard to to an issue story with a new voice and a new perspective well*

I think too much of the time we latch on to the stories that have become trends and issues stories from the past, and we do them the same way over and over again.

Q: Where can this change come from? A: *changing nature of profession* we photo editors are becoming a rare commodity. photographers sometimes are too close to their work

*so having someone to be an extra set of eyes and serve as a sort of photo editor is important*

I think right now we're in a difficult time because photo editors aren't there to push photographers, outside of the photo group and into photo stories.

*same idea of entering essays or groups of photos into story categories when they aren’t stories*

Q: Can you explain your editing process? A: a two-way communication between the editor and the photographer for sure.

A good photo editor that's not listening to the photographer is making a mistake.

The best photo editing begins at the very beginning with the with the pitch of an idea. Having a well thought out, well researched. Story pitch is critical to a successful photo story at the end. But that doesn't mean that that pitch idea shouldn't evolve. It absolutely should. *things change unexpectedly and you have to be able to adapt to that as a photographer and as a photo editor* starting out with a good pitch and having a good communication and rapport between the two is critical.

I want to see initial takes, every image of the initial first set of images. After a look at the images, I don't select anything at that point. What we talked about at that point is, do we still feel like the trajectory of the story is on the on the same path that the pitch had intended it to be? Okay. And if it is, fine, if it isn't, then how do we change that? Then we start talking about what are the what are the must haves in the story visually. What are the wish list images?

*don’t previsualize but mental storyboarding is valuable*

*still looking at every image as the shoots continue. Talking about what is good visually and what has good storytelling. Finding balance between the two and which you are willing to sacrifice for the other on certain images. Work together to determine the absolute best images, the strongest images.*

*sit with photographer and with 20-25 images and working it around to find things like the transitional images, identifying the story arc, the point of conflict, the resolution*

*after this “rough draft of that storyline” goes back through all images to see if they missed anything or if something now works better than they thought it would. “In the end, we probably won't use any of those but we might.”*

The editing process begins at the very beginning with the relation Between the photographer and someone who could serve as an editor, and then work as a mentor, and coach from the pitch of the story idea, all the way through to elbow to elbow scuttle editing and moving those images around.

Q: What is the most challenging part of the process? A: Recognize where the story is at in regards to a visual plateau and the challenging thing and what can be done to kick it up a notch to take it to that next plateau.

*hard to put into words could be a lot of things like rethinking how the order of the images goes with the evolution of the narrative arc, or maybe it's going back and actually reshooting some, maybe encouraging photographer to take chances with their vision

It can be any, any of those variables within a photo story that can take a really good photo story and take it up to a higher plateau. And that's the ultimate goal.

Q: What is the most satisfying part of the process? A: The part when the photo editor and the photographer, find a unique way to put the story together, that they hadn't thought of seven minutes earlier. And it worked.

*And its this epiphany of the light goes on the angels sing and the violins start to play its just this... Why didn't we think about this before? Why didn't we see this before? It absolutely works. And this is the way to do it.*

Q: How do you move past getting stuck in the process? A: *2 ways*

One is sometimes to close all the images, shut everything down. And just go back and look at great pictures from any number of sources

*from any place may be about the same subject or not* Just looking at great photos can sometimes serve as an inspiration or an idea.

*other thing* I will bring in a neutral party to come and say without any background, without any discussion about what the story is here is a collection of 12 or 15 images.

*just asking people who aren’t invested to explain the story back to see where the story is and what other people are getting out of it.*

Q: Anything else to say? A: the current documentary photojournalism workshops that are out there like MPW and others are a valuable exercise for any photographer to experience you know many most of the documentary photojournalism workshops are purists.

They really believe in telling stories about people who whose daily life touches on a important social topic or cultural trends and being able to tell the story of that broader issues in a much more micro approach through the eyes and personality of one person, and it's an art form that quite frankly, is becoming more and more rare.

______Mike Davis

Former photo editor, Alexia Tsairis Chair of Documentary Photojournalism; Interviewed via skype: February 21, 2020

Q: How would you describe narrative in visual storytelling? A: *two ends of the spectrum* at one end is a purely informational approach and choosing topics based on the informational aspects of them, choosing how to photograph, what to photograph and how to photograph it based on representing the informational parts of what's in front of you.

At the opposite extreme is you're trying to engage with something that is rises above purely informational, more consequential, typically more substantive generally. *approach to image creation is dramatically different as well*

*simple version* is difference between photographing verbs and nouns, versus addressing adjectives and adverbs.

Another way of saying it is the difference between linear and nonlinear storytelling

*the way that narratives tend to be formed and then selected and sequenced is informational process or lyrical. So if information is what you're choosing to address, and like most National Geographic stories fall into this, you choose what to photograph based on the information that the setting represents.*

*about what you show more than what is said about what is shown. Reductive process… “you've compromised most of the medium to convey information.”* the opposite extreme would be if you are trying to convey qualities of something, and really get at the essence of what is going on beyond the actual aspects of it.

*“To produce images that could never be described in words, was what John Berger said, images that can't be addressed by a dictionary.”*

*this is about using tools for how you express color, how you respond to color, how you respond to the light and setting how far you decide to stand or put the camera from what it is you're photographing. Then how you build the frame once you've decided those kinds of things. composition is a simple version of that then how do you elevate the moment value of what what is gonna happen within the frame.*

*someone said photos are time and light, so think in terms of moment value, photographs can represent a moment but how do we get them to show the complexity of the before and after of that moment*

If you're sensitive, even make photographs that are far more than the moment they capture - an extension of time.

*this is complex, ideas of universality, big question*

it's just a matter of going beyond the informational of what's in front of you and saying something.

*difference between being about teller and about what is being shown. Brings in debate of style or voice – he likes neither term “Given that every photograph ever made is an expression of the person who made it as much as it is the subject… just that a lot of people are really boring, making pictures. There is no style, there is no voice.”* the uniqueness of how you say things about what's in front of you should be celebrated more and more.

* “As long as it's not about you.” Try to convey something, bring meaning to setting… but whose meaning, the photographers or what that setting person usually feel is important to convey, to say about themselves. Some people use the short hand praise of collaboration with the subject. As if, you know I'm granting you permission to have a voice in my image. Same principle as using the word inclusivity. That implies that I'm going to include you in my work. Don't use that word.*

Q: What narratives do we not talk about enough, what do we talk about too much? A: *book that changed how he things* (too often we let) the approach and the presentation of information creates the structure.

I let the topic generate the narrative in a unique approach to each setting.

The simplest form these days is image, to image to image sequence. And I started creating that narrative flow, simply by choosing whatever image seems like the best one to start with.

*it is the third effect talks about original use of photos paired with text*

Now I think it's redefined into what happens when images sit next to each other, or one following another. So its something and there scores of dynamics that you can address in making them talk to each other.

*talks about TV sequencing and Pulitzer awards, talks about how different topics have different movements* there's so many other ways to tell the story and anybody can do what photojournalism has done. So for the profession to continue to exist, we have to rise above that and say more, address more, than simply stuff happened.

Q: Do you think we can incorporate these changes in faster passed projects or is it only possible in longer term, more time projects? A: I’ve always fought against that notion that you have time a lot of time to be thoughtful … it's not about time it's just being there at the right time and and then tweaking your thinking and redefining what is valid.

*reflects on old memory of a story shot by an intern about an elderly couple telling a story that was emotional and relatable and what we should see but doesn’t fit the standard news mold*

Q: Can you talk about a project that really did narrative successfully? Maybe one that didn’t’? A: *challenge he gave to photographer to photograph this 10 minute period of lap swimming when the light was beautiful*

*you have to do things for light and for photographic qualities as much as for content* Informational processes tend to forfeit two thirds of the photographic process because you've compromised composition to be able to show something,

*compromise light and distance and moment and everything. Talks about judging and how people lean toward oval center compositions*

Q: Are there things that you look for first in the editing process before others? A: Sure, I'd like to slow down the millisecond that it takes to respond to a picture a lot.

*emotive response*

You have to feel something or have a response to the image.

*not about showing alone*

*abunch of things lead to how we react to things but the order is* mind, eye, heart

*explains mind eye heart process* So if you introduce more than just showing stuff if you're like, this is ironic, this is tragic. This is whatever your mind gets a kick and your heart says Me too.

Q: What do you wish you knew before that you know now? A: Like, I mean, we tended to get beat in our head that it was the informational aspects of photographs that made them interesting. Jim Richardson said, Richardson says, if your photograph is interesting, it's because what's in front of you is interesting. I think that's bullshit. Most of the photographs in museums do not have the interesting subject matter.

“It is the making of the image that makes it interesting. That leads people to what is photography, then gates fly open, and potential becomes unlimited. And life gets better, because nothing you ever photograph will be the same as anything you've ever photographed.”

*all the things and tools are constantly changing and moving* you can therefore see and build frames differently, endlessly.

Q: What are the most challenging and most satisfying parts of the process for you? A: Helping each person figure out that path uniquely is the best challenge it's also the hardest.

*2 sides to every coin always a beginning and an end… You can teach technique without substance. A lot of places do, you end up with technically driven images that have no soul. Hardest is the best. Almost always.

Q: What do you do when you get stuck? A: *talks about what makes images good things like: “Color, light, composition, distance, moment value notion is that as you produce work, you elevate what is successful given the context of why they were created”

I think a better way to ask it is what makes the photograph successful?

*every circumstance changes the parameters for success. Your own bias as the photographer can limit your success and create roadblocks from what images you worked for and what people you did or didn’t like*

*talks about approach of picking strongest images as you move forward, then uses printed images. Create rows of like qualities or aspects. Usually like I start with x number of rows… shows the range of the work and then can pull the best image from each row and you know what you need to shoot more of and what you are shooting too much*

So the process, generally if you do it right, prevents dead ends roadblocks, or what you call them.

If you hit a road block… it usually means that you don't either don't know enough or you haven't exerted yourself enough. You haven't engaged.

If things aren’t working use the process to figure out what you aren’t doing enough or just change things up and take a different path to get there.

Q: *talks about people he likes in industry for a while and things he doesn’t like about industry.* A: But I really do think it's the next evolution of the profession to rise above that, to engage in ways that are more complex than simply based on information, experiences.

*random talk about schools and papers and things*

Q: *reflects back to most satisfying question* A:

(when) someone has produced something they didn't think they could, is one way to say it. So on an individual image level, but also as I set of pictures, a body of work, a project or story and to have that become a new standard for that person. That's the best it gets.

______MaryAnne Golon DOP Washington Post; Interviewed via phone: February 28, 2020

Q: How would you describe visual storytelling? A: I see visual storytelling as a combination of things, but I've come from the still photography background.

*what still photographers can do in their medium and what can be done in film as equally valid* visual storytelling involves collecting the pieces you need to tell a story without being dependent on words.

Q: Describe your editing process? A: editing a project is, is dependent upon how well you've planned the project.

* maintaining communication throughout the project like happened when film was shipped. They don’t see everything like they do at the National Geographic. So constantly asking for more – easier with a staffer because you can look at them all together in person and ask what do we have, what do we need, what could be stronger, etc. (harder with freelancers unless you have developed a really good relationship with them)*

It takes time for photographers to believe in their editors…

Q: What are some of the challenges in the process? A: *so many variables: characters in narrative cooperating, circumstances beyond control, breaking news, divided attention – which makes it harder on the photographer.*

The photographer's that I have successfully worked on long term projects with have we we've like figured out a rhythm, a way to make it work where we can then get to the end of it.

*gives example of year long piece done by photographer and editor at WaPo. Talked constantly and made many trips and they would recovenen after each trip to see what was there and what wasn’t. kept building favorites folder*

*time changed the quality of the images. Basic to complex. The curtain was lifted they adored him and trusted him totally* “curtain, like not literally, not literally a curtain, but a curtain that those of us in the visual field can see that it just goes away, you know, all of a sudden, its seamless and beautiful.”

*look through everything again, add to favorite folders if we missed something, then put together different edits… a final edit of like, you know, 20 frame edit, and a community awareness edit and other edits it was really interesting because our core folder, that core folder that had our like, very favorite pictures in it, they were in every edit but then we filled in around it with different other images.

Q: What are some of the first things you look for and what comes next? A: the core images can be are the very best pictures. *sometimes the best images don’t fit though and you can’t force them into a narrative just because you like them*

*It's sort of like when you're writing a story, but I hate using Word analogies, but people understand it more. When you when you talk about photography, like words.*

So when you're writing a story, you every, every word you're using, every word you're using in the sentence has to make sense. And so if you look at a tight narrative of like, say, eight to 12 pictures, that's a sentence, you know, so you have to be taking that each image has to be doing an important job… it has to explain to you why it’s there.

*talks about judging experience and explaining a photo story by understanding what work each image represented as a collection reflecting depression – in a contest about mental health judged by half photo people and then a podcast editor, brain surgeon, and psychologist*

Q: What is the most satisfying part? A: The most satisfying part is when people get it.

*story about presentation on visual storytelling in China – showed images instead of talking to group and then talked after… laugh in the write places, shock in the right places, surprise in the right places* we don't need any language, we speak the same language. This is a language of the eye.

*So what you have to learn how to do is take the work that you're doing, and make a story and show it to me and I don't speak Chinese, and I know what you're talking about. *

It's a universal language, that when it's read as a universal language, I'm joyful.

Q: What narratives are we telling too often and what aren’t we talking about enough? A: okay, I think that we're way, way, way, way, way, way, way too stuck in the dark. And when I say in the dark, I know that it's our job as journalists to shine a light. And I know we have to do that. I'm not saying that we take anything away from that, but I think we need to balance journalism more. All we do is darkness. And what we do is make people turn away.

after 35 years as a photography editor, what I feel like is that we have to balance the light with the darkness.

You have to do joyful stories, and soulful, important sad stories, but if we only do sad, dark, soulful stories, we actually push people away. *explains that after she is deep working on a horrible sad project or dark, souldful project that in order to not get stuck in it she goes and looks at Vogue and beautiful photos of beautiful things that make her happy to clear and freshen her own head* of course the only thing that makes me happy is photography so I have to look at some other kind of photography

*so as to avoid getting stuck in the dark and sad parts of the it all*

Q: How do you move past getting stuck? A: you go away from it.

*get down to a tighter edit and they’ll get stuck so she says let’s stop, take time away from it anc the come back. Obviously doesn’t count in news deadlines where you have to makea a choice but if on project than can take time. With some photographers she will print out little copies of images for photographer and herself and they will take them home make edits and then compare and usually they are almost exactly the same.*

All you have to do is go away from it, and then come back to it, or spend time with it. Do a version of it, leave it there, let it simmer. You know, like you're like you're making a really good stew. You know, you can't take it off the stove before it's ready. You know, you got to like keep letting it simmer.

*editing a book is like a gourmet meal compared to a regular news edit that is like a sandwich. You spend ages perfecting it because you want it to be perfect so sometimes you let it simmer*

You put it on the wall, you look at it, you change it, you look at it again, you put it back to the way it was you put it the new way you try a different way. And you just keep looking at and looking at it and looking at it. And you have to go away from it. You can't look at it so much that you get lost in it.

*after working her whole life in a fast paced world, that is such a luxury the ability to simmer* there's a different relationship you have to something you touch. And I don't think you're really touching it when your hand on the mouse. You know, you're actually touching the picture. *talks about curating a festival where the images hung in the trees and built a mini replica on her dining room table and printed the images so she could see and feel and experience it in a way to what it would look like*

*explains doing prints idea with photographers like James Nachtwey from across the planet* ______

Marcia Allert DoP Dallas Morning News; Interviewed via phone: March 2, 2020

Q: How would you describe narrative in visual storytelling? A: Visual storytellers are using their cameras and each image to build upon the narrative that someone is telling,

Photos, in essence become the words and so each photo is building and informing and through layering in individual images and creating a series of images.

You are informing viewers about a world and a reality that is not their own, empathetically, of course.

Q: Can you explain what you mean by empathetically? A: I am a firm believer in the camera as empathy machine and photographer and image maker as empathy maker.

I think when you give people dignity and respect, I think you can be give people clear eyes and a clear look at somebody but do so with dignity and respect. And I think empathy sort of ties into that very closely.

When you're showing someone's reality in an honest way, I think there's a way in which you can use and photographers historically have used the camera as a weapon but there is another way in which the camera becomes recorder which, you know, empathetic human making choices of lens and light to inform.

Q: What makes a narrative successful? A: *what makes all stories successful* ask three questions when they pitch a story: Question 1 is why do you care about the story? Question two is why should I care about the story? Question three is why will readers care about the story?

I think if you can honestly answer all three of those questions in like a meaningful way, *not in a everyone cares about this way. Identify conflict of any kind internal, family, external, etc*

I think it's very hard to ask people to care, because you're asking them for their time. And if, if there's nothing on the other side of their time, they're not going to engage it.

Q: Are there things that cloud the ability to answer those three questions? A: Yeah, I think the thing that makes those great questions hardest to answer in my professional time has been when a journalist has been too close to story, when they have sort of lost the ability to see it very clearly. And to see it from multiple sides and when they are too personally engaged in the subject life.

I think it is healthy to know your subjects. It is healthy to empathize with them, but for a number of reasons. I think it's healthy To keep a little bit of distance if only for the storytelling,

Q: What is the most challenging part of the narrative development process for you? A: *Again, it's maintaining objectivity. Talks about her bias for seeing her team succeed. Making sure to ask tough critical questions and enough questions regardless of how much we want thes tory to succed to make sure it is actually successful*

Being able to have that clear mindset and know when the story is truly ready, not based on the amount of time or energy someone put into it.

Q: What do you look for immediately when you are building a narrative? What next? A: *talk about lots of benchmark like, the original pitch, time spent, what the story is, leaving that idea open enough to understand that people are nuanced enough to understand more than we think they may get, and understanding when moments happen. Making sure the images answer all those questions and that the photographer knows all those answers so the viewers questions can be answered when they see it*

*answering the one question we are interested in* we're not trying to tell the story of somebodies complete life. We're oftentimes dipping into somebody's life for a very small segment of it

(summary) building up a narrative through conflict and resolving it in one way or another; making sure that there is a strong beginning, a middle and an end. Because if you leave people feeling squishy on it, it's like, What was that for?

Q: How do you balance the questions you have and the viewer might have? A: *we live in a visual world where people understand images more than in the past…”luckily, or unluckily” visuals are part of everyone’s vocabulary now.

So I feel like if it's a question for me, it's a question for the readers.

And just making sure that we are delivering elevated work that that takes into account how smart they are the viewer that is and speaks to them on that level.

Q: Can you describe you approach to the editing process? A: I'm that person who looks through all the images once

*after a good way in ask self:* what are the images that I really remember

*ask questions about who they are photographing: What are the dynamics? Who are the key players? What is the tension point? Where are the children? asking those sorts of questions. If

they're struggling financially, did you see them paying bills? Sometimes will go back to looking at outtakes to see if something was missed or if it is worth it to pull in for story*

I'm also very big proponent of the idea of if you are showing me a family in their living room. I need I need to see where I am in the world. Like I don't like just being dropped in the middle of a room. It feels like a 70s sit com... but you have to see the outside of the house.

I do feel it's important to take people on a journey and take them into this space. And so that you, they are walking that path with a photographer.

*questions of what did we miss, what did we get kill, what do we bring back*

And I'll say to them, you can't look in the folder you have to tell me which one it is. Because if you can't remember it, it's not that good of a photo.

*that’s the process and conversation and wrestle back and forth sometimes but* I know I have a really good photo edit when I can hear like, there's a rhythm, there's a beat to it

Each of the images while I'm looking at the images are carrying a beat. And so I will know that either the editor the sequence is off when like the music stops, if that makes any sense.

Q: How do you push through getting stuck? A: Sometimes we talk about “the work that inspires us or the body of work that was done similar to this that we're building on because none of this is new.

*always building on a legacy of past work. Whether the the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi or art historical references around this, and then also the whole medium of like, television and video and, and even podcasts and what that means for us, right?*

I start actually thinking about each photo as being a paragraph in the story. *right lead, right end, does it read right, what do we reconsider, do we say anything twice?*

Q: What narratives do we talk about too much or too little? A: *goes in waves depending on time and where you look* every narrative, you can't tell it too much if their doing it differently and You're doing it elegantly and doing an amazing job of it.

*San Francisco Chronicle example on domestic violence and Time magazine example on refugees, use new technologies and formats to help make unique ways to consume photography*

So if I go into stories done well and done differently. You can show it to me a million times.

*talks about podcasts and how they approach things in new and smart ways*

Q: What makes the process the most satisfying? A:

A little secret about my job and the job that my team does is we have a lot of fun doing it.

You know, we, we get to tell peoples stories.

the amazing thing is…. when you have a camera in hand or an audio recorder in hand, people open up to you in a way And they are so generous with their time. They're so generous with their spirit

*reflects on what she would do if strangers asked her to open up* by virtue of having these tools in your hands, people want to share with you in a real, and in an authentic way. *gift of what we do*

They say yes and I think in many cases, too, they say yes on the worst days of their lives.

They say yes on what is what is a traumatic day (whether loss of home or of a loved one) and it's that reason more than ever I think it's super important that my team of people are empathetic, graceful, kind, you know, and you can be honest with in all those spaces. But you give everybody the same respect. ______Brian Storm Founder and Executive Producer, MediaStorm; Interviewed via phone: March 4, 2020

Q: How would you describe narrative in visual storytelling? A: *different ways of thinking about it from still photos to other platforms*

I tend to think about narrative as the spoken word. And you know, an interview or actualities in video footage is going to cover a film, right. I think about it slightly differently.

*ironically I discovered this thorugh MPW 1993 in Bolivar through still imges. I audio recorded interviews with each photographer and then made the narrative… first real big introduction into interactive work.

We as photographers are really good at making pictures, but we're not so great at writing. You know, what I learned is if I just ask someone a few questions and record what they say that basically would write my caption for me.

*found transition from pictures and sound together make video and films and led to today*

Q: What makes narrative successful? A: *Narrative to me again is spoken word. What most people call interview A roll and visuals B roll, I call visual sequence and narrative “because A is somehow more important than B when you say it with those words. I don't think that's right. I think they're equally important to telling the story.”

100

I've come to understand that they really have to be in balance to, to tell the story you're trying to tell, you know, it's when they (visuals and narrative) work together that it's so powerful.

That's what, you know, film is such an amazing palette to work with. So for me, narrative is the spoken word. And visual sequences is also part of telling the story, but I wouldn't call it narrative. Personally.

Q: Can you explain your process from big idea to small topic? A: *in the early stages of a few films, developing interview questions. We do a ton of research and try to create some flow through the interview so that it builds on itself, “Save the hard questions for the end and all that stuff.” Interview experience is our primary narrative and then “build the entire thing off that line”

Q: What do you look for first in the process and what comes next? A: *all projects are different*

I mean, we're trying to get to the truth of that person. You know, the thing that matters most to them. And also find the thing that's going to be universal that the common person is going to learn something from know like those big universal truths of life.

*how they interview, tRichards like double barreled questions; don’t ask them to rephrase or resay cause that is like saying you didn’t do well enough, instead use things like silence or dumb dog head tilt when really desperate but use that sparingly so they don’t assume you are dumb*

Q: What do you look for first in the process while in editing stages? A: *stay organized to promote and enable creativity*

Well, yeah, we have a 265 step document that we use, right that we've fallen over hundreds and hundreds of films now to try to figure out like, how do we, how do we enable creativity in the process, like our workflow is super extensive around organization.

I call it the last mile. The last mile is like the difference between a B and B+ plus on a film is usually like it's one idea that connects two things that aren't connected yet.

*big on versioning things, many many versions using different softwares depending on whether it is in transcript text form or video form*

*keep different transcripts: a raw transcript, a themed transcript, the final transcript

When we're producing I know, most of the time, I'm like running transcript. I'm like, you know, reading ahead and trying to see if things make sense. And, you know, and then I'll be with an editor who's, you know, working the visuals and the timing and all that stuff.

Q: What are the challenging aspects of the process? A:

101

For me, the most challenging is the very start when you have like a, you know, enormous amount of content

We take when I call a documentary still photographer ethos to our films, which means I actually look at every single thing that’s shot.

*subtractive process: first get rid of things that aren’t interesting, (always keep copies of everything – nondestructive). Once to the compelling stuff, get rid of things we don’t want to publish or just bad shots*

I don't really know what a film is going to be until, frankly, we're done

I've done like, 350 films now, its still a mystery to me until the very end,

So in that subtraction process, one of the big things I look for is these just like, wow, kind of moments (the ones that “are something that's so memorable that someone's gonna want to share it on social”)

*Example of film with Brenda Ann Kenneally on kids after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans… then changed what it was about as the process went on. Found one wow moment shot and we knew that that was what the story was about, not what they originally thought. And it was love, and that is one of those universal themes that you can build something around* sometimes you get that you get that, that lightning rod scene and you're like, Okay, this is what we're making this film about.

*how do we give the “information that it needs for that moment to be as amazing as it actually should be? And how can we give it the informational arc to land as a moment?”. Ask reflective questions: do we know enough about the characters for this to land, how do we resolve from this peak, whats the conclusion from here?, etc. Talks about never getting specific training on this or wanting to hear about specific things like hero’s journey or others…*

I want to be human about a story *there are techniques and things obviously* It means that I'm not, …, borrowing on, … conventions that are understood by everybody else. And that way you come up with different things in the process.

*difference between tv and documentary storytelling. TV becomes just putting a face on an issue and can become like acting*

In my opinion, you've lost your ability to get something that's actually true about who that person is. I think that's a tragedy.

Q: What narratives do we tell too often and what don’t we tell enough? A: I'm a big believer that every single person that you've ever met on this planet is a story. You know, everybody's got something to say, I truly believe that.

102

*Talked about examples of stories that worked because they were human or things that fell flat because they were human. Doesn’t do stories about famous people or celebrities. Only real life people.*

*technique side: he hates that he feels like he has done enough films now that he knows immediately how he can do a project on a deadline. He says he hates that he has lost the “naiveness about, you know, having a fresh mind to a story” and instead lean on*

So I try to I try to keep myself naïve

*team will do all the learning about an issue and he doesn’t want to know… “I'm like, the common dude from the Midwest. I don't know shit about shit I want to experience it as a human.”*

*tries to avoid the biases that come with extensive topic research and that come with shooting something. He wants to see it fresh as a producer not shoot it and be biased by the shooting process so when he sees the footage he can see what story is really seen in the content.*

Q: What do you do when you get stuck? A: You gotta like take breaks, you got to pivot. *talks about how you just take a break and unless there is an insane deadline you take a break. Avoids those deadline situations with their no deadline format.

Any given publication time isn’t always an absolute: “it's not the way the medium works, it's like you put some out and better be great. in our process, where we continue to make something better and better and better, but then there's this moment where we just start fucking it up, start ruining that film. Like we keep tweaking it to a place where it's like, okay, we're making it worse. And that's when we publish. we, at this stage do not have the skills to make this film any better until we put it out in the world.

*talks about how you look back at old work and you know you can do better now with new experience and skills. One example that they reedited, “I made that film better, tighter and published it, we republished. We've had over a million people watch (on the version with a minute taken off). That means I gave 1 million minutes of cognitive resource back to the planet. And that is the goal of editors. You know, it's not to make 22 and a half minute film a 21 and a half minute film...... *

Q: What is the most satisfying part for you? A: is use the collective skills of the team filmmaking is not a solo thing for me, it's a team sport. when I know we've told the story that is true to that person.

103

*example of film about Karl Ove Knausgård who wrote a book called "My Struggle." Was very quiet and didn’t say much off camera but after seeing it he said only “it was good.”*

He said it was good. And that was everything for me. You know, like, okay, we just busted our ass to make this film, you know, and, you know, the audience was blown away by it's a really compelling film. And his response was, it was good. Like, what else could you ask for? What else would be better than the subject of your film saying, You got me right? You know, you told my story in a way that mattered. That was compelling, that moved other people. They learn something about me through the film that you made, that's awesome when that happens. ______Becky Lebowitz Hanger Photo Editor, New York Times; Interviewed via phone: February 21, 2020

Q: How would you describe narrative in visual storytelling? A: *people understand storytelling as it pertains to words so I use that idea to explain it to them*

*visual storytelling is how do you tell a story without words? How you present a subject, move a narrative, provide a sense of place, delve into characters, provide other visual elements that might cause a reader or viewer to have a sensory reaction. “Like a photo, one might describe how something smells, a photo that can help someone understand how something smells, all of those things with photos.”*

Q: Can you describe what makes a successful narrative? A: First and foremost is good photos and really all the things that I said before So, if the story is successful, you've helped the reader to understand something

*they use the term visually driven story* you need to first of all explain something you have to have something to say.

*You have to say it you have to explain it. So you have to give the reader a sense of place to understand the characters. “Give them a sense of like a storyline to follow or the crux of the issue that's happening.”*

Summary: Beyond that it has to provide some sort of emotion. “It has to delight you, or it has to tickle you're funny bone, or it has to You know, it has to move you. And I think Usually, it has to surprise you. It’s not a successful photo story if all the photos are expected. There has to be a lot of hidden treasures there and I think In order for it to be surprising that's where it gets to good photographer part, the photographer has to get beyond the superficial.”

Q: What do you look for when you are building these narratives? A: Usually you want to go into the story knowing what the story is, or at least what the central question is

104

*example about the homecoming queen/caption of football team. Go into it knowing story or with main question. Sometimes there is a declarative sentence you are crafting sometimes it is a question you are asking, then everything else stems from that. More questions and more answers that need to be given in the photos*

*so most simply and first off you are trying to answer questions, then gets technical*

(You want) variety. I don't want every photo to be composed the same (don’t want all center balance or middle distance or broad daylight. Just like with words you don’t want every sentence constructed the same way or it would be repetitive and boring).

Q: Can you walk me through what your process looks like? A: I am a super hands on editor.

*I’m not micromanaging the photographer, but I think its easier to get through the process. Editors can come in with a clear head and see what is being done too much what isn’t happening enough, what variation you need to do with equipment or angle or subject matter. Example of photographer who got hooked on making a perfect mirror photo and she had to say no more, move past this one. You are spending too much time on this.

So I like to look at work on a very regular basis and talk to the photographers

Q: Can you walk me through what your process after it is shot while you are editing? A: *depends on how hands on the photographer is after shooting. Some want to totally help with edit others just ship it and are done with it*

I like edit the same way I pack for a trip.

*puts photos into categories in a big massive edit, example: all family at dinner table shots, all detail shots, etc. then pick the best in each categories.*

*then once down to looser edit starts working with the other people on the project, sometimes web designer, sometimes page designer, sometimes reporters if they are good to work with. Not all reporters but some it works well to be able to bounce edits off of them and make sure that the package as a whole is going to move progressively forward in the right direction. Example of working with reporter* sometimes you need to kind of talk about the logistics with the other people involved to make sure that because nothing exists in a vacuum,

It's like a giant symphony, and we all have to be working together for it to work. And that's actually the part that I like the most like I love. Huge collaborative projects, where there's like a dozen cooks in the kitchen. I think that's really challenging and really fun.

Q: What is most challenging? What is most satisfying?

105

A: *changes with every project*

If I'm not having good communication with the photographer during the process, especially on a longer term thing than I think that the end result like the editing process becomes much harder. If there's something missing, I want them to know about it when they're still out shooting.

*In her experience at the times, lots of ideas, especially the visually driven ideas come from the photographers an then they pitch ideas to her*

Q: How do you go about understanding a story when it is pitched to you and figuring out what it will be/look like? A: *when first hearing a pitch you are thinking about what will the photos be, what will we see, what kind of access do we need to understand the story? If not that access, is there an alternative. Example of story on Derek Boogaard, a Rangers hockey player who died and they were writing a story about him after his death. Worked with photographer who wanted to do the story but was like ,what are we doing to photograph for a series on a man who is dead. Had to become “just evocative, moody stuff to make this work.”*

So I think “what is the photos” is a really is a really good and important question. And sometimes it takes really thinking outside of the box.

*another example about Everest and the money shot was going to be something the photographer couldn’t shoot, had to be someone else… how to make it work and what is worth it. So that is where the crazy logistics come in and beign creative*

Q: What narratives are we telling too much? Which not enough? A: (Bigger question we are talkin about more now than in the past) it's the whole idea of who has the right to tell a story?

Newsrooms are overwhelmingly white and more male than female. And certainly in photography where there's a barrier to entry because of the cost of the equipment

(none of these hard fast rules) the photographers tend to be people who had the means to buy the equipment or take an internship that didn't pay very much.

I think that limits the stories that are told, because of the people who are telling them

*something we need to think about. Example of surprise in 2016 election*

But I also think that part of that is because there isn't enough diversity and the people with the people who are telling the stories, so they aren't going out and asking a diverse enough group.

MY SUMMARY BACK TO HER: No, no, I think that makes a lot of sense. We're not the sourcing that we're using to come up with these stories and to find these stories isn't diverse enough, nor is the group of people telling them if I understood you correctly? Yes.

106

Q: What do you do if you get stuck? A: I have coworkers who I bring stuff here, like, you know, trusted people here who I bring things to. And I ask them to help me figure it out. (photo editors and photographers, but also a designer I have a good relationship with, and a former sports editor who has good sense)

I always get stuck, like, as a rule, when I'm working on a project, there's always a point where I become paralyzed, and I have no idea what to do.

*shifts to prints instead of computer photo mechanic*

Print and lay out in a corner and “walkthrough and see how people will encounter them.” if there's a draft of the story written, I print out the whole story and I take it together and then I start taping photos into the story. It's like such a waste of paper and super old school, I find it helps.

Q: What is the most satisfying part of the process? A: seeing it publish is super satisfying. watch people react to it.

I feel like those stories and the photographers become like my children (another proud parent moment) it's so gratifying when you see it published and then you see people reacting to it out in the world.

A: Things to add on about how we start *first if they start with an idea… bunch of editors in a room – word, photo, graphics editors – offer an idea and they figure out what medium will best tell the story: photos, video, traditional 2000 word story with a few photos, what is it? That I the first question? And then if it if it's visual, what does it look like? How do you want to experience it? Talks about example. Do you need to experience multiple images at once to understand what's going on? Does there need to be movement to understand what's going on? Does there need to be the audio *

So I think it should start with this question of like, What is it? What is the most effective way to tell this story that you want to tell? the second thing I wanted to say, which doesn't have anything to do with that,

Historically… the photo department has been a service department that writers come up with the story, they tell the story, and the photographers make pictures to go with the stories. And I think that in our society now in 2020, that is, so people are, are much more visual as readers and just people in the world are much more visually literate and, and more adept at understanding visual

107

stories. I think there we have the freedom and should be pushing ourselves to not do that as much anymore.

*looking at are these stories better told with photos in full than a text story at all. We are talking about Corona Virus and how do we really tell this big important story and how do we tell it in a visual way? Do we shift some breaking news into just visuals. Apply our thinking in new places of the newsroom we haven’t in the past

Q: Where does this change come from? A: All of the above (viewers, newsroom, photographers). All of the above, but I think I think the wider world that's how they experience things and how everybody used to looking at, you know, social media that is mostly visual. And so I think it's sort of a change that we should be making.

Q: Do you reference back to the big idea or how do you reference back to the main idea? A: I think you have to go back to the big idea. It's sort of like your gut check throughout. What's the thing we're trying to say? Or explain or shed light on? Or a “what's the question we're asking readers to ask themselves?

*has this photo been made, how do we make it, should it be included, “does it bring us any closer to the understanding of the greater idea”*

*example of current story about badminton in Indonesia that hasn’t published yet. Pitched as a story about how the sport is part of Indonesian national athletic identity but the images at first were inside and could have been taken anywhere… in Queens. She pushed to make images outside so reader new immediately this is about Indonesia? ______Alyssa Schukar Freelance Photojournalist; Interviewed via phone: February 21, 2020

Q: How would you describe narrative in visual storytelling? A: The kind of beautiful thing about it is it can be a whole slew of things. It continues to evolve in the way that people create images and the way that people do documentary work, is this sort of an ever changing thing, even if the medium doesn't necessarily alter that significantly.

There's a lot more collaborative work being done with communities, which I think is really exciting.

*desire amongst especially younger photographers to go into a community and “to be like a positive force in the community” not just get what you need to benefit your own story and leave*

*the majority of the work I do is done in two or three days and “it's kind of a rare joy to be able to spend time with someone beyond those two or three days” “photographer has to really be like pretty intentional about and make the time to do it”*

108

*many of the projects that I did I did on my own time… not the easiest thing, I had little work coming in so I could do it then and dedicate a lot of time. Hard to motivate yourself when you don’t know what it will be but could really think about the project in the long form and being able to return to it in more creative ways.*

*this year will do lots of politics and have to find creative ways to make the unexpected picture*

It was like one of the few genuine moments I was able to catch, but it's like that's kind of why you do it because you're putting in the time basically, to get the unexpected picture that maybe humanizes someone beyond what the debate certainly can do.

*this year is thinking of political work that can be kind of stage-y and performance like as a way to fund personal projects she is returning to. Hoping to do some in Nebraska – her home state – where there is more visually storytelling.

And those are really more visual storytelling where I'm digging in with a community in both instances, and trying to get a get a sense of like, what their life is like in this moment in time. And, you know, beyond just pretty photographs, images that really, hopefully, ideally communicate something about the human experience

*communicate that experience of the middle section of America to other people that may not fully understand what life is like in the middle of the country or see it as a monolith instead of having its equal complexities as other places*

So I think visual storytelling is an opportunity to open people's eyes. To the unexpected and to amplify the voices of people who are often not heard.

Q: What makes a narrative unsuccessful or successful? A: I think anytime you're able to communicate the human experience. There's something innate in other people that they will respond to that.

And I think that when something fails, it's because there is something that doesn't ring true about it, or there's a lack of sophistication or there's a lack of time. good photography is a product of time put into making those pictures and developing that relationship.

*hardest part about 2-3 day assignments, or a day or half an hour is the time you don’t get* that's also why so much of assignment work for magazines and newspapers ends up being portraiture because it's something that you can do quickly.

*documentary work requires more time… not to say that portraiture isn’t valid, you are just trying to get at more documentary work, correct?*

More often than not a lack of timing leads to failure and a lack of vision.

109

*example for her project in April. I’ve written a body of text for it about who the main people are and what scenes I expect to capture and these larger themes that I’m thinking about. Another part is not having the time to sit down and think with paper and pen about hwat a story is about. More analog approach, more methodical about how to approach this in a way that isn’t just photographing what is in front of us* can we how can we approach this in a way that isn't just like photographing what happens in front of us but thinking about symbolism and thinking about new ways of communicating an old thing or, or a common thing.

Q: Are there things you look for first when you are trying to tell a story? A: humanity is the thing that I look for first. Because I know that that's like, the surest way to connect with an audience through photography.

*composition helps but at the end of the day photography relies on people noticing a picture*

Style and approach help but approaching it in a sophisticated way is what makes moves

*symbolism, takes time to understand for her, have to really think about why an image resonates with her and why things within the frame are so important to the bigger picture*

Q: What about the process is challenging for you? A: I wasn't like, terribly good right off the bat. I think like, it took me a while to become a better photographer. And it took me a while to become a better journalist.

*talks about how she didn’t think of herself as a photojournalist at first but as a making photos to complement the stories.*

But I think that we do ourselves a disservice when we don't take the journalism side of it very seriously.

*talks about her barriers to becoming confident enough to do journalism with a camera and approach people with a camera.*

I wasn't able to make immediate connections. But it also meant that I don't force it. I kind of approach it in a way that's true to me. And I think people respond to that, because I'm not coming across as somebody who's just trying to get the foot in the door so I can make the picture.

Q: Can you describe your process of finding the narrative and working through it? A: I really don't like to work on a story without knowing where it's going to go. Because I don't like the idea of making pictures just for myself.

110

It's always been about amplifying the voices of others. I think one of the advantages of being in a position where I'm writing pitches is that I can I then have to like put it down in writing what I want to do

*talks about a pitch working on recently, took three hours to get together but feel much more confident about the project as a whole now*

I don't necessarily like I don't like to look at what people have done before, I think sometimes that can be valuable,

*example looking at old portraits of people to make sure you don’t do what has been done or to learn about the person and how they interact with the camera – about talking with a photographer who had recently photographed Pelosi*

I think there's value in looking at whether what other images exists, but then you also have to then carve your own path, making sure that the images are your own.

*especially relevant with politicians or celebrities who create an image and know what they want it to look like.* working against that to find something different and unexpected and create your own. Your own take on something because we don't want to just do the same thing over and over again. That's kind of boring.

*you can’t throw out everything of course, “you can't like throw out the baby with the bathwater in that regard.” You still work in the medium but there is value in approaching something differently.

But so much of it for me is like, I have an idea of a picture that I want to make going into a story, but then the reality of life is always so much more compelling than anything that I can dream up so that, you know, keep it in mind. be there be in the moment, that's the biggest challenge is being in the moment.

*Especially important in a digital age where work comes through on phone, especially as a freelancer, etc. Be present*

Q: How do you kind of reconnect with the original pitch while you are working? A: (for me) it's about being centered and about getting some quiet time.

I've started doing this thing in the last year where, especially if I'm on the road, I get, I get back to my hotel and I make myself a cup of tea. And like having that ritual where it's sort of like this, like, Okay, this is the conclusion of the day. You know, it's very comforting. Just having a little bit of a time and a little bit of silence

111

I usually do look through images, unless I have very little time for sleep. But I find that that's helpful for me because I can, I often notice things in photographs that I didn't necessarily recognize in the moment. *will reread stuff, can bounce ideas of trusted editors to get an outsider perspective, off my husband who is a writer cause he sees big picture stuff really well – doesn’t get distracted by the nerdy photo things*

I think especially with documentary and like, documentary, and long term, storytelling, you've got to have people that you can bounce things off of.

Q: How do you move past being stuck? A: *example about a story last year, sometimes just have to push through it and keep showing up*

*keep camera at chest or chin so the people you are photographing think you are interested and ready to make pictures and focused on doing your job*

*good to reset with outside things like novels -use the relationships and human tendencies that come from novels or movies to help you think through an idea you are trying to really mull over “Especially if I'm really thinking over something that will spark an idea in my head or it'll kind of give me an opportunity to look at something in a different way.”*

*talk to photo friends but don’t want to abuse that and annoy them too much to make it seem like you aren’t getting things done*

Q: How do you think about the editing process and narrowing to a final edit? A: I have big believer in making little four by six prints.

*talk about moving prints around on wall, editing workshops and using big prints to talk thorugh things as a group; asking photo friends or non photo friends to see what resontes with them.* That can be really helpful because you can see what resonates with people.

*I’m not an editor but I can loosely order and mostly I can see what resonates with people. I feel like my mom is probably the most brutal, if she doesn't get a photo, she'll be like, that's trash. Finding those people that will give you that really honest feedback. *

You need that honest feedback to because as photographers we get like very attached to our work because we were there in the moment. We know like, these little details that aren't shown in the photograph that make it relevant. And that's why you need a good editor.

*get editors who I did work for to help me make a bigger edit after the fact but again with limitation. They are busy too and don’t want to overload them and annoy them. Going to New York to just sit down and talk with editors*

*even just sitting down to see what resonates with them is really important*

112

you can see what their reactions are to the pictures. And I think that that's really important to pay attention to what resonates.

As far as the actual editing goes, I don’t know it isn’t my thing… You also don't want it to be something that's like too obvious, or pedestrian, but you know, this entry point into a story and then sort of finding those images that play off of each other and have a rhythm. Yeah, it's not easy, and that's why I think that editors are so valuable, and so important to have good relationships with.

Q: What narratives do we use too much and what do we use too little? A: I think that photographers are attracted to the stories that they're able to tell.

*lots work in vulnerable communities, I have too, but often they end up painting the communities in a bad light. Oversimplifying them.*

And so, you know, that that concerns me about narrative photography. I don't think that that means that those stories shouldn't be told. And I think often what we do as photographers is to shine a light on something that needs to be changed. But I do think that it's important for us to, to do so in a thoughtful and intelligent way.

*example of a photographer who realized his work in an undocumented community wouldn’t be able to publish for a decade maybe but not now And had to think about whether or not It was worth it and whether or not we are using the editorial power that we have in the right way*

*she works a lot on environmental degredation and environmental injustice, economic injustice, which is important “but I also find that there's not a whole lot of interest for them in publications”. Depressing. Want to see climate change stories done in a new way that is different and unexpected. It all looks the same right now and people are tired of looking at it.*

We have to do it in a way that's more sophisticated. And that surprises the readers too, and makes them see things in a different way.

Q: Where do you think this change needs to come from? A: *part of the struggle. So many stories to be told. Have to answer the why now question.*

I think it's a responsibility as a photojournalist to figure that out (and other types of journalists) to find compelling ways to tell a story

Cool and awful part of freelancing is you can do what you want but no guarantee it will make it.

*example of her work in East Chicago and how she was working for a long time and then when the story broke she was already embedded and had connections and could help tell the story really well in a non drop in and leave kind of way. And bring it to national attention.*

113

*talks about work in food banks outside of journalism and how hard it is to get published so you have to find a reason for it to be important now to find the news peg to make it relevant to the now and to the publication.*

Q: What is the most satisfying part of the process for you? A: I just really like meeting people. I really like getting a sense of what their lives are like.

*the journey is the destination I like that idea*

I really find a great deal of joy in being in the moment. to be present with someone in such an intense way that we that we get to do as photographers it's a pretty special thing and something that I would really miss if I were to ever walk away from the industry.

Once you submit images to publication once it goes out in the world and publishers like, I honestly think that the pictures are no longer yours. And I think that maybe they never were yours.

*idea that when you are making them you feel some ownership but once they are given to the world and to the viewers they become the property of the viewers. But it's always fun to connect with someone through photography. – sometimes because of it being published Random people reaching out because they felt a tie to an image. It's all about the human connection sharing what makes humanity so compelling

114

______

APPENDIX D: Original Proposal

The Photojournalistic Narrative An examination of the approach of photojournalists and photo editors in creating longform visual narratives.

Jessi Dodge University of Missouri Masters Project Proposal 11 November 2019

Committee: Brian Kratzer, Chair David Rees INTRODUCTION:

115

The majority of my life to this point has been spent in a town of less than a thousand people. Agriculture was a string connecting the surrounding areas, but it was a few hundred people in an even smaller number of homes who ran the community. Too small to be completely self-sustainable, necessities like groceries were purchased in neighboring towns, and resources like pools, theatres and stop-lights were something you drove at least 30 minutes to find. But beyond these holes from ‘normal,’ it was the shortage of vibrant, local news that left the biggest gap. Gas station shelves were stocked with county and regional newspapers, but only one ever covered familiar towns or talked about the schools and community members – people that “my people” knew and visited on a daily basis.

I started working for this weekly newspaper, the Elbert County News, in high school, sending the best action photos I got during football and basketball games. At the time, I was excited to make print and to contribute. Now I look back and realize that the stories our town had to tell were rarely seen in print. A three-man newspaper didn’t have time for storytelling or for spending entire days documenting the life of someone’s neighbor who taught in the school for forty years only to retire and drive the sports bus another twenty. Or to see the tireless work of a century ranch – one of only a handful left in the county. The stories that defined the town and the people who made it were overlooked because of resources the paper didn’t, and still doesn’t, have.

I didn’t realize until coming to college just how much of a loss this was – for the town now and for the town in the future. This was confirmed year after year with my participation as a volunteer in the Missouri Photo Workshop, MPW. The photographs created over the course of only a few days in a different small town each year and the final edits that are made create a record, a story of the most everyday people and the roles that they play in their families, communities and sometimes beyond. Watching and listening to this process of photographing

116

and editing helped me to realize that the importance and value of storytelling is not only for community leaders, but for the familiar neighbor everyone knows but never sees in print. This coverage can both define the community and help to build a stronger community.

As a five-time crew member working in closer proximity to the faculty of photo editors at the workshop than the photographers themselves, I have become most interested in the role of photo editor. This fascination with the role of the photo editor grew further in my role as a photo editor and Assistant Director of Photography at the Columbia Missourian and Vox Magazine.

This work has pushed me to develop and challenge my skills as an editor in crafting and developing a final narrative from images created by our team of photographers. As the workshop’s editors continue to deepen my understanding of the role of the photo editor, I am looking to my master’s project to explore how both photo editors and photographers’ approach construction of visual narratives, photo stories and essays.

By better understanding the motivations driving photo editors while working to craft narratives in photo projects, this research aims to increase consideration of the processes taken to create the final narratives seen in publications. A deeper dive into understanding the work process and the factors influencing decisions will fill a gap in the current research on how narratives are created by photojournalists and editors.

The product of such enhanced communication has potential, optimistically, to inspire more productive, forward-moving discussions on visual narratives and to increase understanding of the motivations of photo editors. In building a further understanding of these working styles and approaches, we can optimistically increase discourse amongst industry professionals on their approaches to the work they do.

Driven by an interest improving my own approach to narrative development in longform visual storytelling, I will connect this research to my professional component: the editing and

117

creation of the 2019 Boonville Missouri Photo Workshop book. The workshop has been hosted three times in Booneville, Mo – 1953, 1998 and 2019. The book I will be creating will place primary emphasis on the work created as part of the 2019 workshop and will then use work created in the earlier two Boonville years to enrich an historical introduction of the town. The research on the approach to narrative building combined with the creation of the photo book, driven by a narrative of the town, aligns the interview research with the professional project. The research will specifically look to answer the following question:

RQ: How do photo editors and photojournalists approach visual narrative

construction for long-form photographic stories and essays?

118

HIERARCHY OF INFLUENCES:

For this study, the primary theoretical framework employed for the research is the hierarchy of influences model. Generally used in application to understand how multiple levels of external factors affect and shape media content, this theory works to frame the internal and external motivations that are shaping the decisions of photo editors in their process for constructing a narrative. Originally developed by Shoemaker and Reese (2014, 1996), they determined influencing factors on an individual may include routines of work, organizational- level concerns, problems in the institution, or individual characteristics of employees and news producers (Reese, 2016). Use of the hierarchy of influences allows analysis of how multiple external-to-self factors influence the decisions of photo editors and photojournalists in completing the work that they create.

In a 2016 study, Shoemaker and Reese again considered the role of the hierarchy of influences model in changing journalism, this time with a specific look at changing technology.

The pair noted that the categories they once laid out were no longer as clear cut because of the constant changes that technology, specifically technology in media, is making. The categories are becoming less distinct as technology allows for increased interaction between the influencing levels of the hierarchical model (Shoemaker and Reece, 2016). As research continues to grow and change, it has been claimed that the quickly changing nature of technology does “impact directly upon the practice of journalism and access to the profession” (Spryidou, 2013). These blurring lines are part of what leads the authors to recommend emphasized study on the interaction of the separate influences, rather than the isolation and ranking of separate influences on the individual. Further, the model that was previously a somewhat stagnant pyramid is now suggested to be a more dynamic and mobile ranking system that offers fluid and constant variation rather than a single ranking of influence. In this way, discussions with photo editors

119

and photojournalists will be aimed at better understanding how multiple factors and thought processes affect the work they create and influence their decision-making process.

By intentionally framing my current research with this theory, semi-structured long form interviews will be conducted to explore external and internal factors that influence how photo editors think through projects internally and when collaborating with others. These discussions will reference personal style and approach to the process as well as evaluation of the key parts of narrative that each person uses to guide their work process. In doing so, it is hoped the research will allow a better understanding of the influences impacting photo editors and allow for a deeper breakdown of what role the photo editor has in creating the final published product.

The use of the hierarchy of influences theory to analyze effects on communication style rather than what media is itself produced is a distinctive application of the theory. By shifting the theories application, this research will offer insight into whether or not the theory is applicable here and whether or not it is useful.

120

LITERATURE REVIEW:

In order to fully understand how narratives are approached, we must first define what a narrative is and what place it has in photojournalism. Most understandings of narrative are found in the scope of literature and the written and verbal word. Defined in the Cambridge Introduction to Narrative as the “representation of events,” narrative is the presentation of an event with additional discourse or presentation surrounding the events (Abbott, 2014, pg. 19). Marianne

Hirsch made note that there is no single way to present narratives, and that you can tell stories visually just like you can verbal (Hirsch, 1997, pg. 121). In other words, a narrative goes beyond exact representation of the events revealed in the text, or in this case photographs, to give a fuller story or message. In a photo story or essay, Abbott’s definitions would suggest that each image is a single, stand-alone event and that a combination of images paired with factors like sequence, number of images, and presentation (Hirsch, 1997, pg. 134; Chapnick, 1994, pg. 32), among others, would be what forms the final narrative of the piece.

In a visual driven world, there is an increasing amount of research into what the final narrative form looks like in photographic and multimedia work. Photographic narratives began, according to Howard Chapnick, with the era of photo special sections like LIFE Magazine and

Look (Chapnick, 1994, pg. 29). These publications provided an early home for longer, more in- depth photography narratives – dedicating more space and resources than would accompany the standard daily story. Today, visual narrative research is focused in two primary realms: the first, researching already developed and published imagery to understand narrative retroactively; and the second, methodologies using images as a form of self-reflection by research participants. In the first case, researchers use stories and images from the past as the subject of analysis to break down and understand the narrative of published works and how that narrative ties to the time and society they were created in. Pompper and Feeney analyzed the five Life Magazine cover images

121

and stories that covered the Gulf War in search of themes, similarities and differences, and ultimately, to identify the narrative told by the five segments (2002, pg. 9). The narrative they identified told the story of the fight and efforts of the American soldier and his family as a part of the war.

Their content analysis is anything but an anomaly. Similar studies include topics ranging from the British press coverage of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon (Parry, 2010) to the

Associate Press’s presentation of Afghan women during the Taliban Regime (Fahmy, 2004).

These analysis and others like them take a retroactive look at collections of images to identify themes and narratives that may have been developed inside the works, but not on how or why decisions were made for publishing series of images as narratives themselves. Conversations on what kinds of images are okay for publishing, especially in regard to conflict and disaster situations have been explored but largely in regard to individual images or to what the audience should see, not in regard to how to package narratives.

The second category of existing research is that uses photography primarily is that which uses photography as part of the research methodology itself, allowing subjects to photograph their lives and their environment. This technique is often referred to as photo voice and allows for a more direct and oftentimes intimate reflection on the life and environment in consideration

(Clandinin, 2006, pg. 281, 283). This methodology frequents social science fields like psychology and anthropology as well as journalism, focusing on the subject and the images they use to tell their own narrative. Hirsh wrote in her book, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory, about the idea of a visual narrative, describing it as a way of achieving “self- conscious textuality” that allows researchers to ask about and participants to reflect on their realities with a tangible tool (Hirsch, 1997, pg. 8; Pierce, 2018,). This usage of photography as a probe for learning about people’s lives is different in methodology and practice from the research

122

to be completed in this project but does suggest the value and potential of photographs as a tool for telling and sharing a narrative.

Her discussion considers how single images tell narratives and the interactions that exist between the image producers, the image itself and the viewer, and is tied closely to the ideas of Kress and van Leeuwen, who say that the producer of the image (could be the photographer, the editor or the publication as a whole) is absent, or not consciously considered, by the viewer. In other words, the viewer interacts with the images they are seeing and reading but not with the people and decisions that created and delivered the image (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, pg. 114). This suggests that the decision-making process and people implementing it are impactful but not always considered and talked about when in reference to the narrative of a photograph or collection of photographs. This gap invites further research into this process and the participants, like the photo editors and the photographers responsible for constructing the narratives.

Just as written and verbal narratives are largely controlled by the authors or narrators delivering them, the photo editors and photographers creating final narratives of photo stories and essays have a large impact on the final product. In Howard Chapnick’s Truth Needs No Ally, he describes the work of narrative development by photojournalist W. Gene Smith as “weaving pictures together like a tapestry, string images together in to form a coherent story” (Chapnick,

1994, pg. 31). This figurative weaving of images together to create the final product comparable to authors weaving plots and characters to form a written narrative.

123

The challenge of the working with photography is the reality that is often assumed in the images. Often used as a sort of validation tool to prove that something was real or that it happened, photography over the past century, especially news photography, has come to develop a certain expectation that the image must be real because it was caught on film or in pixels. This myth of truth in images, as Hirsch calls it, can sometimes “dominate lived reality,” even if it is to the contrary (Hirsch, 1997, pg. 8). An essay by John Taylor on the problems in today’s photojournalism industry further emphasized this point. Taylor said that documentary photography specifically runs the risk of framing the narrative through the views of the photographers and editors who construct it and may then be used by viewers to confirm their own biases or expectations (Taylor, 2000, pg. 139). These assumptions of reality and bias challenge the role of the photo editors and photographers as they strive to find the narrative that is true and representative of reality – but not of perceived reality.

However, it would also seem impossible to entirely remove the voice of those crafting the narrative. Cambridge’s Defining Narrative makes it clear that the voice of the narrator will always exist in the narrative itself. In the case of photo packages, the narrator is the photo editor or photographer responsible for crafting the final product. Further developed in the chapter was the idea that narratives are different from events because they combine events with narrative discourse, or the way in which the story is conveyed (Abbott, 2014, pg. 15). In other words, it is the combination of events and an overarching discourse or presentation that make the final narrative, and it is not entirely possible to remove the impacts of the presentation creators from the narrative. One criticism of press photography made by Taylor is that news photographs rarely step away from the few narratives presented and so images become both thematically repetitive and run the risk of building and confirming viewer expectations for specific types of content.

124

Seeing these collections of research, we can identify the presence of research on visual narratives in storytelling and photojournalism. Photography has been used as a tool for understanding and identifying the narratives of people photographing their own lives. Beyond methodologies, researchers have analyzed visual projects and series in hopes of identifying the driving narratives and their connection to time and place. As mentioned above, the missing piece in research is a look at who is making the decisions to craft narratives (photo editors and photographers) and how these figures approach the process of packaging images together to create a final, presented narrative. This research aims to help fill this gap.

This research will work in complement to the MPW book that I will be editing and designing as my professional component. The Missouri Photo Workshop began in 1949 when

Clifton Edom brought photographers and photo editors to Columbia to explore photojournalism and how to document a community with a camera. Over the course of the next seven decades the workshop has spread across the state to photograph 50 towns and the people who make them.

Beginning with a collaborative group documentation of the town selected for the year, the workshop approach has shifted to its current form, drawing roughly 40 photographers to a town to collaborate and learn from editors and photographers from across the world in order for each to create a photo story of their own choosing. The first photo book of projects completed at a single workshop was done in 2008 for the St. James workshop. Since then, books have been designed for workshops including Festus & Crystal City, Macon, Clinton, Trenton and Cuba

(Bickel, 2009; Peltier, 2010; Wood, 2011; Hyunh, Pasek and Tucker, 2012; Kendall-Ball, 2014;

Sturtecky, 2018). In the past, students who have created this book as the professional component of their master’s degree utilized other methodologies like photo elicitation (Bickel, 2009) or textual analysis (Duff, 2005) as well as some interviews. The use of the interview as the primary research method for this project will separate it from some of the works that have already been

125

done and pursue a topic of research not yet discussed within this context. This research approaching narrative development will help to drive and inform my work in the development and completion of the professional component of the project. METHODOLOGY:

My research focuses on better understanding how photo editors craft large ideas or stories into a final, focused visual narrative. This will utilize in-depth, semi-structured interviews with individuals who work as photo editors, for others or for themselves. The journalistic component of my project will be to edit photo stories, design and produce a book of the 2019 Missouri Photo

Workshop hosted in Boonville, Mo. in September 2019. The 176-page book will be focused primarily on the work produced by photographers, including stories about leaders and business owners in the community, students in the local schools, and one photographer’s personal reflection on racial history in the town. It will also include an introductory history of Boonville, shown through a combination of text and historical images and photographs from the two previous Missouri Photo Workshops held there in 1953 and 1998. This work will be completed over the course of the Spring 2020 semester for completion of the project in May 2020. A detailed timeline of the professional project is provided below, in addition to relevant research materials, including sample interviewees and a sample questionnaire.

The following methods section will discuss both the background and previous usage of semi-structured interviews and their potential for combination with textual analysis; their purpose and opportunity in relation to this research; and the specific design of this research study, including the proposed interview questionnaire to be used as a base point for the interviews used throughout the research.

Semi-structured interviews and purpose for usage

126

With an emphasis on learning and understanding what the role of the photo editor is and how it works, the utilization of semi-structured interviews rather than formal interviews will allow the research to develop based entirely on the personal reports of the individuals interviewed. This is different from the style of formal interviewing which relies on previous categorization or definition. This research centers around the need and possibility for gathering more broad information and allowing subject-determined contribution throughout the discussions. This aligns, also, with the gently guided direction of the interviewer to ensure discussion of the necessary broad elements and questions at the core of the research questions.

Interviewing as a method of gathering information and informing others has long been a source of data gathering and a way to increase understanding of the people around us and the jobs that they do. Whether researching through general populous surveys, as was used early on, to the basic, face-to-face directed conversation that we know today (Fontana and Frey).

Described in a book on interviewing by Bingham and Moore, the method was described as a

“conversation with a purpose” (1959). The interview has since become a staple of practical, field journalism and a common and impactful tool for social science researchers. The interview in terms of academic research is now divided into several different categories, dependent on style, format and intention. The most common of the interview types include, formal interviews, semi- structured interviews, oral histories and focus groups. Each method offers different benefits and works to attain different goals that must be tied directly to the intent and style of the researcher.

Interviewing as a whole has become so integral in modern research that some have gone so far as to call us an “interview society” (Atkinson and Silverman). This research will utilize semi- structured interviews of photo editors to explore their motivations and experiences in developing narratives in photo stories.

127

Semi-structured interviews differ fundamentally from other interviews not only in how the interview is conducted, but also by the relationship that the interviewer and interviewee are seen as allowed to share. At the core, semi-structured interviews are focused on conversation and understanding both what a person does in their work or their life and how they go about doing it.

Traditionally this means conducting the interview with open-questions that aim to inspire longer, in-depth responses (Fontana and Frey; Lindlof and Taylor). Beyond the content of the interview, a semi-structured interview style focuses the researcher understanding the discussion at hand rather than simply explaining it (Fontana and Frey). In this way, the researcher emphasizes the desire not just to regurgitate the information they are being provided, but instead to understand the information. This desire to understand, rather than just listen and repeat can create a fuzzy boundary for what kind of a relationship exist between the interviewer and interviewee.

Described as a “methodology of friendship” by Nowak and Haynes, the semi-structured interview pushes the boundaries set by formal interview processes – questioning how human or empathetic an interviewer can be when conducting an interview with a subject (2018). The standard, formal interview discourages bias or connection as a part of the communication, focusing more stringently on the idea of achieving scientific objectivity. Semi-structured interviews are often said to move away from this more rigid format and towards an approach emphasizing more relaxed and free-flowing conversation. This methodology therefore aims to create an open conversation that encourages longer, more detailed and reflective responses from the participants. This will likely help when conversing about complicated topics like narrative, that may be hard to explain or define with the more direct question and answer format. In this way using a conversational style enables fuller and more detailed responses from participants.

Holstein and Gubrium described interviewing as an “active process” (1995) that Fontana and Frey say creates a final project that is a “contextually bound and mutually created story”

128

(Fontana & Frey, 2018). The shift out of the formal interview format and into this looser and more personalized conversation interviewing has allowed for the creation of an even larger variety of interviewing styles – now including the oral histories and focus groups as well. The interviews conducted for this research project will largely be focused around reflection of past experiences and projects worked on as a photo editor. For this reason, these semi-structured interviews will, I suspect, have some similarities to reports in oral history – offering the same extensive self-reflection and the same interest in being both gentle and supportive with the subject throughout the course of the interview (Feldstein, 2004). Interview’s emphasizing self- reflection and discussion intends to direct focus on how photo editors do their jobs and for what reasons. This encourages discussion about the internal motivations surrounding the decision- making process of a photo editor when crafting a narrative.

The current research on visual narrative development focuses on how participants use photographs to reflect on their personal narratives and results of that use – often seen throughout the method of photo voice. Beyond that, there is some research that retroactively identifies narratives at work and how it may or may not have aligned with social conversation at the time of publication. As previously mentioned, the gap in the research of how narratives are constructed in the world of photojournalism and what approach is taken by the photo editors and photojournalists who are creating them will be addressed by this research, aiming to help fill that gap by identifying the factors influencing the decisions of these contributors during their work process. Most of the standing literature that exists on newsroom relationships and working relationships as a whole reflects methods of participant observation. Some interviewing does occur, but the use of interviews without heavy reliance on observation is a different approach to researching this subject.

Professional Project: Editing and designing the MPW book

129

The professional component of my project will be the completion of designing the MPW book. In past years, this book has taken on varying presentations – most commonly, the displaying of images from each of the stories produced in the given year. Most recently, a book was completed by then master’s student Hannah Sturtecky regarding the workshop in Cuba

(Sturtecky, 2017). Prior to Sturtecky’s completed project, books were designed for workshops held in a number of other towns including Troy, St. James, Macon, Festus and Crystal City, and

Clinton. MPW researchers have focused on topics like race in imagery (Duff, 2005), the role of the photo editor in storytelling (Sturtecky, 2017), and gatekeeping in terms of digital and print intended imagery (Kendall-Ball, 2015). These varying topics researched in coordination with the designing of the MPW book allow for a deeper understanding of the role of the photo editor or the content being produced. My research finds a home with these previous projects in exploring the role of the photo editor in building a narrative, like the narratives that are crafted in the projects created at the workshop.

Research study design and organization

The primary, and initial, method of research for this project will be semi-structured interviews. To increase accuracy and detail as a researcher, each interview will be audio recorded for later reference and transcription. One challenge to the conducting of the interviews is that I intend to include photo editors who are not within close geographical distance to Columbia, Mo., where I will be located to complete my professional component, so I will need to conduct some interviews over Skype. As often as possible, the interviews will be conducted in person, however. Given my experience with communication over the phone and via long-distance technology like Skype, I am confident that I will be able to complete the interviews for the project.

130

This change in setting between the different interviews will add inherent differences to the type of communication and openness of the discussion – or so I suspect – so I will need to keep this in consideration during both my preparation for the interviews and the interviews themselves. Approximately eight photo editors will be interviewed, with the requirement for participation being their prior experience as the editing voice in a photo project – their own or someone else’s. I would like to diversify the editors to include voices from both newsrooms and independent freelancers. The inclusion of both voices will allow for a better understanding of how people communicate coming from two different work styles and backgrounds.

After completing the interviews, each interview will be fully transcribed for analysis and summary in the form of an article that can be summitted for publication in places like the

Reynolds Journalism Institute, Poynter, NPPA’s News Photographer Magazine or Photo District

News.

Listed below are the questions that I have prepared as a broad guide for my interviews.

The questions match the open-ended style of semi-structured interviewing that will allow interviewees to lead the conversation in the directions they so choose.

131

INTERVIEW GUIDE:

1. What does narrative mean to you for visual storytelling? 2. What are the most successful narratives you have helped to create? What are the least? 3. Why did they succeed or fail? 4. Can you describe your approach to crafting the narrative? You can use an example if you like. 5. How do you rank factors that dictate narrative building? You have things that drive your narrative, is there an always-matters-most factor or is it fluid with every story that you work on? 6. What isn’t talked about enough in regard to narrative building? What is talked about too much? 7. Most challenging part for you? Most satisfying? 8. If you get stuck, who do you go to or what do you do to move past this road block?

PROPOSED TIMELINE:

September 22-28: 2019 MPW workshop dates During this time I will speak with faculty members to locate, and ideally schedule at least two, interviews for the research component. December 13: At least two interviews completed by this date. December 13: Style and general outline for MPW book completed and approved by committee. January 24: Historical introduction section of professional project should be completed by the beginning of the spring semester and ready for review by committee. January 24-March 6: Design book in sets of five spreads that are turned in each week to review with the committee. Edits from myself and committee members are due the following week along with the new set of five spreads. All pages should be reviewed by March 6 for final edits. February 3: At least four interviews completed by this date. March 2: At least six interviews completed by this date. March 30: Final edits complete for final review with committee. All interviews completed. April 10: Book is complete and approved by committee. Draft of completed research to committee. April 13: Completed research and professional project delivered to committee. Schedule final project defense. April 30: Defense completed before this date. May 4: Corrections completed for final committee approval. All paperwork turned in.

132

SAMPLE INTERVIEWEE BIOs*:

Melissa Farlow: freelance photojournalist, self-editor for book publication: According to her personal website bio (https://olsonfarlow.com/about/about-melissa-farlow): “Melissa Farlow has worked extensively for National Geographic magazine in the American West for stories on public lands, environmental issues and wild horses. Primarily known for her personal approach when photographing people, Farlow documented diverse cultures and landscapes while in South America, Quebec, Alaska, the Alps, and the Okefenokee Swamp in over 20 National Geographic projects” “Farlow’s National Geographic books include Wild Lands of the West and Long Road South on the Pan American highway. She photographed in Ecuador and documented women’s roles in three African countries—Ethiopia, Mali and South Africa—for Women in the Material World. Her images are printed in over 70 books including Day in the Life series and a number of Geographic’s books including The Photographs, Best 100 Wildlife Photographs and in Women Photographers at National Geographic.”

Nick KirkpatRichard: Washington Post, Investigative/Special Projects Editor: According to his Washington Post bio (https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/nick- kirkpatRichard/): “Nick KirkpatRichard is a photo editor at The Washington Post where he collaborates across the newsroom on special projects and stories, including with the paper's award-winning Investigative unit. Nick's work has been recognized by numerous awards from the Overseas Press Club of America, Best of Photojournalism, the National Press Foundation and Pictures of the Year International.” “After graduating from the Corcoran College of Art + Design and The Danish School of Journalism, Nick worked as a freelance visual journalist for The Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera English and The Post. He joined Washington's premiere newspaper in late 2013 as a founding partner of Morning Mix, The Post's overnight breaking news and general assignment team where he produced visually driven stories contributing to the section's massive growth in readership.” “Since joining The Post, Nick has worked with the foreign desk as the International Photo Editor and has launched a number of innovative projects and initiatives. Most recently, he was part of a small interdisciplinary team working in close collaboration with Google to develop a visual storytelling format tailored to mobile audiences.”

Brad Smith, Freelance Photo Editor: According to the Photography at the Summit website: (https://www.photographyatthesummit.com/portfolio/brad-smith/) “Brad Smith is an award winning photo editor, with 35 year’s experience in visual storytelling. He’s the former DOP at Time Inc., Sports Group, which included Sports Illustrated and Golf Magazine. He was also with the New York Times as the Senior Sports Photo Editor and Assistant Director of Photography for the White House during the Clinton administration. He’s on the Board of Directors for the NPPA, Photo Start and the Eddie Adams Workshop, as well as the Creative Board for NYC Salt. He’s on the faculty for the Summit Photo

133

Workshops, FOTOFusion and SWPJC. He’s the founder and director of Brad Smith Creative, a visual consulting group. Currently, he’s the Vice President for Photography, for the WWE.”

Beth Nakamura: Photojournalist, Oregonian According to her LinkedIn Profile: (https://www.denverpost.com/author/matt-swaney/) “Multimedia journalist at The Oregonian. Instructor, Univ. of Oregon School of Journalism (multimedia graduate program).”

Dave Cole: Photojournalist and Photo Editor, The Wall Street Journal According to his website: (https://www.davecolephoto.com/about-1) “I am a Photo Editor at The Wall Street Journal. Before that I was a Visuals Editor on the Emerging Media team at WSJ. Here are some of the projects I built there. I have shot pictures and video stories that have been published in places including; The Wall Street Journal, McClatchy Newswire, Pittsburgh Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, China Daily, CNN, and A&E IndieFilms. Previously I've worked on EveryBlock and edited Onward State, the most followed student news outlet in the U.S.”

MaryAnne Golon: Director of Photography, Washington Post According to her Washington Post Profile: (https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/maryanne-golon/) “MaryAnne Golon is the Director of Photography at The Washington Post. Before joining The Post in 2012, MaryAnne was the director of photography at Time Magazine and a senior photography editor there for more than 20 years.”

*These are ideas and possibilities for now that will likely be changed later based on access and timing. This list in general needs more development as far as designers and more inclusion of diversity in the final interviewees included.

134

WORKS CITED:

Abbott, H. (2008). Defining narrative. In The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative (Cambridge

Introductions to Literature, pp. 13-27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511816932.004

Atkinson, P. and Silverman, D. (1997). Kundera’s Immortality: The interview society and the

invention of the self. Qualitative Inquiry, 3, 304-325.

Bickel, J.A. (2009). St. James. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

Bingham, WVD. and Moore, BV. (1959) How to Interview. Harper Brothers, New York. Fourth

Edition. Doi: 10.1177/002218566100300113

Breed, W. (1955). Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. HeinOnline, 33. 326-

335. Doi: 10.2307/2573002

Caple, H. (2013). Photojournalism: a social semiotic approach (1st ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave

Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137314901

Chapnick, H. (1994). Truth needs no ally: inside photojournalism. Columbia, Mo: Univ. of

Missouri. Pr.

Clandinin, D. J. (2007). Handbook of narrative inquiry: mapping a methodology. Thousand

Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Chapter. 11: Composing a Visual Narrative Inquiry.

Detenber, B.; Winch, S.P. (2001) The impact of color on emotional responses to newspaper

photographs. Visual Communication Quarterly, 8(3). 4-8, 14. Doi:

10.1080/15551390109363461

Duff, L. (2005). The “Other” Small Town America. Thesis in Photojournalism, School of

Journalism, University of Missouri.

Eliasoph, N. (1998). Routines and the making of oppositional news. Critical Studies in Mass

Communication, 5. 313-334. Doi: 10.1080/15295038809366719

135

Fahmy, S. (2004). Picturing Afghan Women: A content analysis of AP wire photographs during

the Taliban Regime and after the fall of the Taliban Regime. Gazette: The international

journal for communication studies. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi. 66(2). 91-

112. Doi: 10.1177/0016549204041472

Feldstein, M. (2004). Kissing Cousins: Journalism and Oral History. The Oral History Review,

Vol. 31, No 1. 1-22.

Fontana, A and Frey, J. The Interview: From Neutral Stance to Political Involvement. The Sage

Handbook: Qualitative Research. Third edition. 120-154.

Hansen, K.A; Neuzil, M; Ward, J. Newsroom topic teams: Journalists’ assessments of effects on

news routines and newspaper quality. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly,

75(4). 803-821. Doi: 10.1177/107769909807500413

Hirsch, M. (1997). Family frames: photography narrative and postmemory. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

Holstein, J., and Gubrium, J. (1995). Active interviewing. In D. Silverman (ED.), Qualitative

research: Theory, method, and practice (pp. 113-129). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Huxford, J. (2015). Visual images in the media. International Encyclopedia of the Social &

Behavioral Sciences, 2. 169-174. Doi: 10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.95041-4

Hyunh, T., Pasek, A. and Tucker, S. (2012). Clinton. Photojournalism, School of Journalism,

University of Missouri.

Kendall-Ball, G. (2015). Documenting Trenton: Editing and Design of the 65th Missouri Photo

Workshop photo book. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

URI: https:hdl.handle.net/10355/47519

Kendall-Ball, G. (2015). Trenton. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of

Missouri.

136

Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design.

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. New York.

Lindlof, T. and Taylor, B. (2010). Chpt. 6: Producing Data II: Qualitative Interviewing.

Qualitative Communication Research Methods. Third Edition. Sage publishing.

Parry, K. (2010) A visual framing analysis of British press photography during the 2006 Israel-

Lebanon conflict. Media, War and Conflict. 3(1). 67-85. Doi:

10.1177/1750635210353679

Peltier, M. (2010). Festus & Crystal City. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of

Missouri.

Pierce, M. (2018). Visual Storytelling in Native American High-Density Schools. Art Education.

Taylor and Francis Ltd.

Pompper, D. and Feeney, B.J. (2002). Traditional Narratives Resurrected: The Gulf War on Life

Magazine Covers. Journal of Magazine & New Media Research. 5(1). 1-12.

Reese, S.D. (2016) Theories in Journalism. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.

Doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.83

Reese, S.D. and Shoemaker, P.J. (2016). A Media Sociology for the Networked Public Sphere:

The Hierarchy of Influences Model. Mass Communication and Society, 19. 389-410. Doi:

10.1080/15205436.2016.1174268

Shoemaker, P., & Reese, S. D. (1996). Mediating the message: Theories of influences on mass

media content. 2d ed. New York: Longman.

Smaele, H; Geenen, E; Cock, R. (2017). Visual gatekeeping – Selection of news photographs at a

Flemish newspaper. Nordicom Review, 38(2). 57-70. Doi: 10.1515_nor-2017-0414

Sturtecky, H. (2017). Cuba. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

137

Taylor J. (2000). Problems in Photojournalism: realism, the nature of news and the humanitarian

narrative. Journalism Studies. 1(1). 129-143. Doi:00/010129-15

Wood, K. (2011). Macon. Photojournalism, School of Journalism, University of Missouri.

138