Building Blocks in Visual Storytelling

Currently listening to: Irina by thelovesong

During the first week of June, I spent time shooting Gene Boyle’s final week as principal at St. Matthews School. Boyle has been in eduction for over forty years, with a dozen of those at St. Matts (CLICK HERE to view the audio slideshow). Here’s a few of the best images from the week along with my take on how I did and why it’s critical for me (and other photojournalists) to excel in telling stories with multiple images.

To put it plainly, I spent the week shooting and not looking analytically enough at my takes. I need to pick out what images emphasized certain points better and go into the next day looking for something else to support the story’s “thesis” in a more compelling, intimate manner (not to mention with more visual variety). In the case of this story, Boyle’s way of connecting with kids and bringing out their best quality stood out from interviews with parents, teachers, and students. While I have the image of Boyle playing basketball and talking with a student, I needed him in other settings, such as in the classroom or in his office. I also needed to mix up the visual variety more. Pretty much all of these images would constitute a “medium” shot. They only show Boyle from one perspective but needed to show him in multiple ways doing different things as a way of connecting the audience more with the story. Shooting things the same way in the same places makes everything static. 

With the advent of multimedia, I’ve used collections of images with audio working as a guiding narrative rather than looking for stories to spend more time on. When shooting multimedia, I try to make sure I get a good introductory image and a closing image. While that’s important, I forget about getting images that work in between – images that build upon one another to visually communicate a concept. Looking back, the ideal first few images would give the audience of an understanding of who Boyle is, which would be how well he interacts with kids and how much love and respect they have for him. Toward the end of the story, it would of been good to show Boyle doing familiar duties for the last time and end with him saying goodbye to his students. Of course, that’s all in the ideal world. This story was shot during my week as the only staffer at the paper, so I give myself a tad bit of slack. Besides, I can only plan out part of the story, that’s part of what journalism is – playing things by ear but having some type of outline to frame the story and images around. In my mind, further developing and refining this skill in the age of the internet is of great importance to visual journalists.

The web is far more of a visual medium than print newspapers, making quality visual communication even more important. And with everyone taking and sharing individual images, the idea is that anyone can take a good picture. Sadly, to an extent that is true with how cheap “good cameras” are now. However, it takes a photojournalist to understand the story and capture a moment that reflects the story. The availability of using various mediums has allowed for the creation of deeper and more intimate levels of storytelling. For myself, using one medium to tell more of the story and have another part just look or sound cool isn’t enough. Photos should feed off of the audio and vice versa. Each sound bite and image should posses an element of the story that can be built upon by the next portion of audio of visuals. By understanding the process of being in the moment and capturing it along with how the moment translates into the other portions of media contributes to awesome storytelling. Need proof? Check out the links on the side of the page, particularly MediaStorm and the New York Times Photo Blog, “LENS”.

Anyway, I of course hope to refine the idea of using portions of media as building blocks in stories I assemble, whether they are a quick few images from an event or a story I’ve spent a good amount of time on. I do have a few ideas at the moment for long-term photo projects. Once I get started on one of them, I’ll be sure to blog a bit about my progress. Look for another entry next week with some images from the past week. Nothing overly interesting has happened yet but there is a Gay Pride parade in town on Saturday. As for now, I’m off to shoot another baseball game. Adios.

Route 66

Currently listening to: Jigsaw Falling Into Place by Radiohead

In all honestly, the reasoning behind this post’s title was just that the pun fit easily enough. This past week I was the sole staff photographer at the paper and accumulated 66 hours in 6 days. The moments to breathe or “stop for gas” were few and far between and mostly spent in fast food drive thrus between assignments. 

Legion Baseball

Despite the long hours and short amount of time I had to come up with shots at assignments, the pace of everything proved to be a reminder of how lucky I am to be doing what I am. Meeting new people, getting access at various events, witnessing intimate interactions – I caught myself smiling with these romantic realizations of my job in my car throughout the day. Don’t get me wrong, one week of this much work was enough for a good while – I crashed hard every night. Besides, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Having gone through and seen others experience burnout in positions that they were extremely passionate about, I know keeping an appropriate balance between all of the different parts of my life makes good old fashioned sense.

 

Click Image for link to Graduation Gallery

I did have one very interesting thing happen to me this week that I hope doesn’t repeat itself. I had just finished shooting a feature assignment about a woman who does some beautiful needlework pieces and was about 8 miles out of town. I turned on the scanner as I got closer to the city limits and heard there was a fire. I pulled the scanner closer to pay closer attention to find out the fire was on the same blockas my apartment. Following this, I grew increasingly aware of how much slower the driver in front of me was going compared with the speed limit. On top of that, I was greeted with a red light at each stoplight once I got into the city limits. I thought I had missed the event by then but hadn’t. The house was a full 6 houses away from my apartment and the flame hadn’t really spread very far (as you can see in the image to the right, there weren’t any flames). Regardless of that and like I said earlier, I don’t wish to hear of that ever again on my scanner. 

 

All Smiles

A large portion of my week was spent at a local school documenting a principal’s last week on the job. Creating images at a school isn’t the easiest thing, with kids jumping in the frame with an exaggerated grin or telling you they want to be in the paper when you’re trying to gather some NAT sound. It would have been nicer to dedicate a bit more time to the project as well in order to get a more intimate look at what the principal’s relationship has been with the school, not to mention the field of education. The paper is holding the story until next weekend so the blog will have to wait to show those images. Look for an entry with images from that project next week. 

Latest Record

Currently listening to: Ebon Coast by Andy Mckee

I’ve waited long enough to post. To keep myself from putting this much time in between posts, I think the most logical thing to do is to turn this into a more traditional photo blog, with way less text. I’m not much of a writer as it is – I take pictures for a living for a reason. Seeing as it’s been six weeks since my last post, here’s six in no particular order.

Discovering Bees

State Tennis

Balance Beam

  The next eight days will be a bit of a marathon. Our lead photographer will be on vacation, making me the sole staff shooter around for the week. Mix together the final day of the State Track meet tomorrow, documenting a long time principal’s final week at school, multiple graduations happening around the same time next Saturday in addition to daily assignments will make for an insanely crowded week. Despite all of the work I’ve got ahead of me, I’m very excited to see what I come out with.

Weed Whacking

Out at Second

Food Bank Donation

That’s all for now. Look for an updated blog after next week’s chaos. 

Capturing Intent

Currently listening to: Lessons by Damiera

 Spring sports have begun and this includes track, which works incredibly well visually , given the lines of the track, the layers of color on the field, and the action that takes place. Despite the visual depth that can exist at a track meet, what has stood out to me is that, with the exception of relays, each event has individuals competing against one another. It’s something I hope to bring out in my images, whether it be emphasizing solitude (see image at bottom of post) or of the will and determination of athletes to push themselves on their own. While getting an image of a long jumper drenched in sand or a close finish in a race make for great, eye-catching moments, illustrating the concept of “why”  from an event apart from just “what” and “who” allows for a moment to literally be defining. 

 Images are intended to create a connection by conveying a particular element of a moment. This is what sets the pros apart. They know how to communicate elation with bright colors and lights or define anger by framing a subject tightly (these are, of course, just ideas and not formulas that work to convey feelings). The firefighter to the left, as an example, went next to the truck to pull the hose out from it. The line the hose creates allows for viewer’s eye to go back to the truck and the smoke  in the background with the firefighter leading the frame in the foreground. 

 

Piecing all of these components together worked to explain the situation. But the frame is nothing without the firefighter’s expression. The human element allows for the situation to be identified with rather than just seen as something that happened. The same is true with the image of the runner on the right. He’s exhausted – holding onto a cup and leaning over with no one near him.  All of those things are emphasized with the framing, the light, and more importantly, the moment that was captured. I’m in the business of capturing moments to tell a story. The challenge is capturing one that speaks to the story in an explanatory manner but also to the subject(s) humanity.

Taking the good with the bad

Currently listening to: Sagaba by Blue Scholars

Evergreen Fire Station Controlled Burn. Click image to view audio slideshow.

I’m a competitive person – it’s in my genes. Anyone that has met my family or watched a Red Wings game with us knows how intense we can get (speaking of which, I know we’re not going into the playoffs all that strong but I believe simply being in the playoffs will rejuviante the team towards the Cup. But enough about that). Just as I’m passionate about hockey, I’m even more  obsessed with perfecting my work. I want my images to convey the story that leaves a mark on the viewer. Anything that hinders this lofty goal, whether it be lack of interaction between subjects or not finding an appropriate emphasis of light, is cause for ruthlessly critique myself.

 

Take for example last week. Our lead photographer was assigned to shoot a funeral for a state trooper that passed away in a traffic accident the previous week. I was assigned to be a secondary shooter once the people would begin arriving at the cemetery. Law enforcement from across the state and beyond filled the scene and a decent amount of media personnel were present for this somber occasion. The emotion of the event had to be documented delicately. It was not an easy shoot. I came away feeling like none of my shots communicated the scale and the sentiment that was evident. I headed back to the office to process my weak images and then headed home, hoping that the day wouldn’t be a foreshadow of the rest of my assignments for the week. Thankfully, it wasn’t.

Flathead Boxing Club. Click image to view audio slideshow.

The next day, I shot a sports feature story on a boxing club that was preparing to hold it’s first boxing tournament (check out the audio slideshow I made on the club by clicking here). The club practiced in a facility that had pockets of light in some great places. I could barely contain myself from hitting the shutter with all the action that was taking place during the club’s training. After getting some quality action shots, I began to actually look for images that would set themselves apart from ones of two gloved opponents hitting each other. Looking for just anything to happen didn’t seem to allow for any sort of visual connection to be made to the story so I started to take my time a bit more and look around for a stronger storytelling moment to capture. The majority of club members were children so I wanted to try to communicate their innocence against the backdrop of the rough sport. No luck. I turned around to the boxing ring and saw one of the younger kids watching the two pros going at it and made the frame. I wish I had been more creative with the image by going in tight on the action and putting the kid in focus in the background or something along those lines but I like the sense of place the image gives, let alone the expression the kid has on his face. And lucky me, the kid in the image told me later he wants to go pro when he turns eighteen.  

Whitefish Pond Skimming - Click image to view gallery

 Some days moments seem to evade me, other they fall into my lap. Like hockey, I can’t let how great or pitiful your success or failure feels get to me (My dad has to be proud of me making a sports to life reference). Becoming complacent about my images isn’t going to make them stand out. Even if they are good shots, they’re going to be the same after a while (Check out SI Photographer Robert Beck’s article “Take A Risk: Be DIFFERENT“). By dwelling on how boring and static my is work instead of trying something new only allows for the pitiful cycle to continue. 

Photojournalism is a career that takes patience and yet anticipation. This is not only true for how to go about shooting images but also with regard to possessing a philosophy that helps in developing stronger images.

Connect the dots

Currently listening to: Micah by Russian Circles

So much of communication, especially today, is about control and access. RSS feeds allow people to pick what they want to know about. Twitter lets someone share information for others to access. Journalists are having to adapt to this model and thus carry an approach that is more conversational apart from the old model which simply addressed the audience. 

But what specifically do these changes mean for the photojournalist? 

Last week I drove up to a saw mill that was closing after over fifty years of production. A lot of different angles could of been taken on the story. Many employees have done the job for over twenty years and are either planning on retiring early or trying to get a late start in another career since the mill is the last one in the county. Others mentioned how they disagreed with the parent company’s decision to close the mill while others talked about how close the community of workers at their job was. 

 

Seeing as the text story carried enough factual information, I knew it gave me the leeway to create an audio slideshow that let the respective mediums do what they best – create an emotional connection and humanize the story. From how deeply a worker felt connected to his coworkers as well as a candid conversation where employees gave a coworker a hard time about the Chicago Cubs not winning a World Series for over a century establish the “characters” as real people. I personally felt like the images could of done a better job of connecting with the audio with more interaction between workers reflected along solitary moments but I feel like the quality of the audio makes up for things in the story.

Capturing moments are still an integral part of photojournalism and always will be but pairing an intimate image with a subject talking through it is even more valuable. It brings the story alive. It connects the content with the audience. Using a single medium can limit how much information the viewer can get from a story, let alone relate to it. As journalism grows into a social experience between the creator and the viewer, the opportunity for “connecting the dots” to create stories that communicate thoughts, ideas, and emotions on a deeper, richer level definitely exists. We’re just left with discovering a steady business model . . .

Frame to Freeze

Currently listening to: Campanile by Unwed Sailor

Given the current state of newspaper industry, here’s a start to this post …

“Information is golden. I want everyone to get as much information as possible – you cannot have a democracy without an informed people.”  - Helen Thomas, White House bureau chief, United Press International, 1999

With that being said, I’ve been in Kalispell for two weeks now so here’s a belated post with what I’ve been up to.

While it wasn’t my first assignment, I was able to catch the tail end of High School basketball before the State tourney. Spring sports won’t get up and running for a while and unfortunately I didn’t do the most incredible job getting shots at peak action. I’m hoping the “break” from shooting action photos will give me some time to explore better ways to visually communicate. Freezing a moment is a remarkable and often times an accurate and “reliable” way of defining a story but I’m looking to push myself to see what other aesthetics I can bring into my shooting in order to better translate a scene.

An example (albeit a poor one) is trying to use my framing to draw attention to the subject. The shot itself is very basic and not very interesting but the symmetry in the lines helps make the image a bit more interesting. Finding the middle ground between an “interesting” picture and one that can pull in the viewer to the story is where success really comes. In this case of this story on lunch ladies at a local high school, a better image would reveal some level of  interaction in the frame to communicate the relationship the employees have with each other and/or students. Pushing to communicate the emotions that exist in stories apart from the factual elements of the story can transcend an image from static to magnetic. 

 With all that being said … moments are still golden. Despite wanting to experiment with new ideas of how to communicate stories visually, looking for and finding a priceless moment of excitement or pain and all the responses in-between, creates a remarkable connection. It’s the beauty of still photography. Of course, the medium of using a single still image isn’t as common place as it was even a decade ago. Using multiple stills or simply video is redefining visual storytelling. Look for a post featuring a multimedia piece I’ll be working on during the week and how using traditional visual communication in new ways can reveal more of the story. Cheers.

Risking is learning

Currently listening to: Easily Misunderstood by Samuel Jackson Five

As a way to keep myself from the inevitable packing for my new job in Kalispell, here’s a blog post on learning to take risks as a means toward growing as a visual communicator.

Last Sunday I stopped by my alma mater to shoot the end of a close and crucial basketball game. I put on my wide angle and tried to look away from the action of the game but still have the image communicate the game all the same. This image’s needs a bit more action happening in it to sell it but the framing I used had me on the right track I think. Pushing myself in these direction to shoot an event or assignment with only one lens or only looking for a specific dominant color are means that I should be using in order to grow in how I can grow and more strongly define my storytelling. 

As another example, I headed to Medical Lake over the weekend to get shots of people participating in a Polar Plunge to raise money for the State Special Olympics. This shoot presented a few different problems, ranging from very grey, flat skies combined with bright white backgrounds to a lack of angles to shoot from. A wet suit and water housing for my camera would of been ideal but I unfortunately I own neither. I shot a few images with a long lens of people jumping into the water but quickly determined I wanted something that felt close. Had the kids actually ran past me like I hoped I would have gotten the look that would suggest how cold they felt. Obviously, my risk was focusing on a face rather than an action. But going for human connection versus an action shot is something that people can more closely relate to. More people will understand what it’s like to be really cold apart from connecting with the feeling of jumping into a freezing lake. Obviously, the risks I took in both of the above images didn’t completely work out. But you have to try, and then then try something new, and constantly repeat the process if you want the quality of our work to ever grow. 

There’s always a better image out there. One that brings something completely unique to light in an equally  special way. As a photojournalist, I should always be striving to discover those images. 

With all that being said, it’s time to start packing and making sure everything fits into my car again. I’ll be arriving in Kalispell on Tuesday and starting work at the paper a bit later in the week. Look for a post of recent images from the new job toward the end of the week. Until then, enjoy a “push-pull” shot I got at a cultural performance I attended at Gonzaga with friends over the weekend.

Launching natechute.com

Currently listening to: Your New Aesthetic by Jimmy Eat World

I have had my website live for a few days but here is the official notice that natechute.com is finally up and running. I have galleries of my best work on the site as well as links to samples of multimedia. Feedback on the website design and content is more than welcome. With all of that being said, I will continue to host my blog on this website. Look for another post late in the week before I make the move to my new job in Kalispell, MT with the Daily Inter Lake.

Return

Currently listening to:  Skinny Love by Bon Iver

Much has been missed in the last few weeks (or months depending on how you look at it) but my long hiatus has come to an end. It’s time to get back to it.

Since my last post, it’s been a bit of a journey. I arrived back in Idaho Falls to figure out and wait to see where I would land. The Post Register allowed me to work the two weekends I was in town for but in that time none of my job applications landed me a job at a newspaper elsewhere.  So on the eve of the Presidential Inauguration, I stuffed all of my belongings in my car and headed back to Spokane.  I got a job working for kids sports photography company doing data entry and misc. duties while branching out as much as I could as a freelancer.

And thanks to connections here and there, the gigs came quickly. One such assignment was to shoot a non-profit downtown that recently started a program to help equip woman with skills to enter the food/restaurant industry.  Just as each of the women working in the kitchen had a certain task they also had certain things that brought them to the program.  One of the leaders of the program approached me about doing some PR photography for the organization and I saw no reason not to accept.  I’ve always been against branding a story but in the case of a non-profit such as this one, the ability for me to use images that tell a story first and explain the organization’s role within that context is something I believe my work can connect with.

It’s less about how or where the pictures are being used and more about visually communicating the thoughts, ideas, and emotions within the story itself.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I do everything for free.  (click here to check out an article discussing why free is a real bad idea).

To wrap things up, my time in Spokane has already come to a close. The Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, MT has offered me a part-time position with them. Money will be a bit tight, but I need to get my foot back in the door so I can try to stick around a little longer this time around. With that being said, this blog will be returning to it’s regularly scheduled program of being updated at least once a week. I’m looking forward to shooting on a more consistent basis and pushing myself to see the best angle and means of which to communicate with people. See you then.