Intro to Photojournalism: How to Use Photography to Tell News Stories

1. Introduction: There is a cliche saying that photographs are worth more than a thousand words. This is particularly true when you think of photojournalism and how pictures are used in news media. Have you ever read stories in text and you wanted more context. You wanted to understand what's going on? What the people look like? What the place feels like, or looks like? Without visual elements stories are not as impactful as they should be and that's where photojournalism comes in. Or you're already a photographer and you want to take modern beautiful pictures. You want to take pictures that can inform people, pictures that are important in shaping narratives, important in informing the public about what is going on in specific places. Then photojournalism is ideal for you, and I think with this course is a great start and at least we can start the journey together. Basically, photojournalism is the use of pictures in news media, using pictures to tell stories, basically. My name is KC Nwakalor, I'm a photojournalist, documentary photographer, and producer, focusing mostly on socioeconomic issues, environmental, and health issues. My work is predominantly within the African continent, and have been published by notable publications like the New York Times, Bloomberg, CNN, and a host of others. In this class, I'm going to be teaching you everything photojournalism. From being able to understand why photojournalism is important to how to find stories that are newsworthy. To understanding the ethics of photojournalism, how to write your captions for your images. To also understanding what the components of a visual story are. Then we're going to also delve into the differences between documentary photography and photojournalism, and most importantly, how to get your work published after you've gone out and you've told the story that are important to you. This class is suitable for everyone but would be ideal for intermediate and advanced level photographers who have already figured out the technical side and the creative side of photography. However, if you are interested in photojournalism, whether or not you know how to use your camera, you can start with this course because it's going to open your mind to the world of photojournalism. I'm excited to go on this journey with you. I'm sure and I'm very hopeful that you're going to enjoy the course. Come on, jump right in, and let's get started. 2. Class Project: [MUSIC] Hey, I'm super excited to see that you made the choice to join in this class, and I'm happy to have you here. Just like every of my other classes, I want you to participate in the project , because without doing, without actively practicing what you've learned, you're not going to get any better and that's why it is important you participate in the project and all the individual assignments that I'm going to give you in each of these classes. For this class, the project is pretty much simple and straightforward. I want you to capture and upload one to three pictures that highlights what you've learned in this class. In addition to the picture, I want you to write corresponding caption based on how you've learned to write captions in this class, so get the best value for this class, you definitely need a camera, but you don't have to break the bank to get a camera. It could be your smartphone, it could be a DSLR or a point and shoot. Whatever you have that can take descent images should be fine. You would also need a photo editing software like Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Snapseed, Lightroom Mobile, whatever you have, so far, you can use it to sort and edit your pictures, that's perfectly fine. I'm really happy to go on this journey with you. But remember, you can only get better by doing. You can sit down, listen to me for hours, if you don't go out and shoot, if you don't go out and take pictures, you're not going to get better. But I want you to get better and I know that you're going to participate in this project. Come on, let's get started. 3. What Photography is and Why it is Important: [MUSIC] I didn't start off photography as a photojournalist. In fact, I started off taking pictures of weddings, events, photo shoots, bad day pictures and stuff like that. Despite getting paid, despite making some money doing this, I didn't still have the satisfaction that I wanted to get from photography. I felt like I wasn't doing enough for my pictures. I got bored. That's when I delved into photojournalism. Because with my pictures, I'm able to touch lives, I'm able to bear witness and inform the world about what's going on in specific places. You're probably like me that you want more than just beautifully captured images. You want pictures that tell stories, pictures that are very powerful, that can impact and inform people. Then you're on the right course because that's how I felt when I started. You cannot fully understand photojournalism, if you do not appreciate the history and understand how it evolved to what it is today. In as much as I wouldn't want to bore us with a lot of historic dates and information, I'm going to give you the basics of how modern photojournalism came to what it is today. During the World War II era, this is like in the 1920's, a German company called Leica produced the first 35 millimeter camera, and at that time, cameras were bulky. To take pictures, you needed different working parts, so your camera with like a big flash and stuff like that to capture pictures. This made it particularly difficult for people that identified as photojournalists because it was difficult to capture candid moments. It was difficult to capture pictures that people weren't aware of what we call candid photographs. Also the bedrock of photojournalism is your ability to be like the fly on the wall. If you're not able to blend it into the environment and capture pictures in a way it feels like the viewers are experiencing the moment first-hand. With those type of cameras, it was very difficult to do this, and this very new 35 millimeter camera did it so well, and that's how a lot of people started taking pictures that felt like they weren't present. Pictures that viewers could just get into and enjoy and experience. Also at that time, there was a magazine called Life Magazine, which was pretty much a photojournalism magazine. They were literally just publishing pictures, photos stories of what's going on with captions. Unlike what we have today where most pictures accompany written texts or articles, at that time, Life Magazine was pretty much publishing pictures as a means of telling the stories of what's happening. At the time, there were notable photojournalists that were risking their life, capturing stories of what was happening in the front-line. Some of which were Eugene Smith who is now known as the father of photo essay. He had produced this photo essay, it's called the country doctor. There is also a Robert Capa he had a very popular quote that says, if your pictures aren't in good enough, then you're not close enough. He subsequently died trying to get close to the action when he was capturing one of the stories in the front line. There is also Henri Cartier- Bresson who is known for the decisive moment. His style was also more of street photography, but he also documented the law of war. When we search history, when we research things about what happened in the past, you will notice that there are more pictures and pictures are more accessible to look at. Photojournalism is a historic tool, it documents what's happened in the past and stores and freezes that moment for the future generation to know and see what it feels like, to leave in that time. As of today, there are still tons of photojournalists all around the world that risk their life to tell important stories. Some of my personal favorites are Ashley Gilbertson, Linsey Addario, Finbarr O'Reilley, Tom Saater, Andrew Esiebo, and a host of others. These are people that have directly or indirectly impacted my work and have massively influenced my work and how I tell my stories. Photojournalism is pretty much the combination of photography and journalism. But in practice, you're first a journalist before you are a photographer. What that means is before you click that shutter, before you take that picture then you have to understand what your story is about and you have to know why you are taking the picture. This is something you have to keep in mind when you take pictures because it's going to be the guiding principles of how you compose your pictures, how you tell your stories in the long run. Photojournalism is particularly important in news media. Primarily because of this four reasons which is credibility, emotional connection, visual appeal, and context. In terms of credibility, pictures add and give more credibility to new stories. Without pictures, it's difficult for you to see what you've been told. There is even a popular saying that says, show, don't tell. Pictures literally does the show don't tell. When people look at pictures, they can understand and process and make decisions for themselves about what you're trying to say. In terms of visual appeal, have you noticed sometimes you're sliding through a newspaper or magazine and you see pictures and you're like, let me stop and look at this. When you stop and look at that picture, you are more driven to go into the story. You are more driven to read more about the story just because of how interesting and how captivating pictures can be. It adds that value to news media. Pictures are also able to emotionally connect us to our stories. When you read about stories, it's more powerful when you see the people that you are reading about. When you see the place you're reading about, you're able to connect more emotionally to that story. Human beings are only moved when their emotions are triggered, when they feel something. Pictures give more context to the stories. There are lots of information that is difficult to communicate verbally or in written texts. With pictures, you are able to show the people what this feels like. They can have their own understanding and their own experience, thereby given a wider and more balanced context of what your story is about. To conclude, basically, pictures give context to your stories. Pictures give credibility. Pictures increase the visual appeal, and pictures also creates emotional connection, with your viewers. This is why it is important to utilize pictures and news media. It is safe to say that stories are incomplete without visual elements. I like the mysterious field of pictures that gives you just enough information to set your imagination on fire. This lesson, we have learned how photography started the modern history of photojournalism and how it has evolved over time. We've also learned some of the interesting photographers and photojournalists that impacted and shaped what we now practice today as photojournalists. We also analyzed the importance of photography news media, how it is able to add and give more credibility to new stories, visual appeal, emotional connection, and context to your stories. We are also able to understand how photojournalists are particularly important, especially in this time and age of fake news. As an assignment for this lesson, I want you to research and find the photojournalist based in your country that you would like to under-study. I want you to go to his website, research and analyze photos and stories on his website. Because we are going to be under-studying this very person for the rest of this course. Also if you do not have, which is very unlikely if you don't have any photojournalists [MUSIC] locally in your country, then you can use some of the people that I have already listed that are my personal favorites, or you can use my own website, the end goal is for you to follow through and learn how photojournalism works in the present-day world. See you in the next lesson as we delve deeper into photojournalism and all the components that make it up. 4. Finding Newsworthy Stories: Stories are all around us. You can be taking pictures of anything around you. How do you really know what is newsworthy and what is not? On this lesson, we're going to dissect the aspects of storytelling, what makes a specific story newsworthy, and how to identify stories that are able to be published, stories that are really important to be seen. The type of stories we have in photojournalism are grouped into spot news, general news, and feature stories. Spot news are rapidly breaking news like, they have a very shot lifespan. This could be shootings, it could be accidents or general weather disaster. It's unannounced, thus how it works and the story has a very short shelf life so it's important that as a photojournalist as you're capturing, you're also publishing so that it's able to be valid at that time. Another type of news stories is general news stories which is pretty much a little bit more slow paced compared to spot news in the sense that there is like a scheduling around people already know it would happen. This could be the coming of a political character or a celebrity or a religious leader to a city. It could be a football game. Feature stories are longer and are typically less perishable. Sometimes they're evergreen and can run almost anytime. Stories can also be seasonal like stories about Christmas events. It could also be like in-depth portraits of like a sports personality or a sports club. Feature stories are a little bit more in-depth than general stories or spot news stories. These are the types of stories you can walk on as a photojournalist, it could be spot news, what spot news is happening around you. You're always with your camera to able to capture when things unfold. How do you get to the location where things are happening? It could also be general news, what's going to happen in your city, what's happening this weekend. What are the things that are interesting to you that you can document, the people that are probably in other states, so in other cities, would want to see about your city? That could be an example of a general news you can capture as a photojournalists. Another aspect is it could be also future stories, what do you want to show about a specific theme, about a community, about an individual? What aspects of their life do you want to zoom into, you want people to experience and this could be like a very good component for a good story and a good news body content. Personally, as a photojournalist, I am more accustomed to general news stories and future stories because I don't necessarily like the whole quick breaking new situations if I can't dig deeper. That doesn't mean I have not produced stories in breaking news situations. Well, it's not necessarily the type of stories I do most of the time. I'm more inclined to do general news stories and future-lead stories. My best is future-lead stories because it gives me an opportunity to go deeper to give more insights to who the person is, what the events is, and give my viewers more insight as to what's going on and the entire structure of the story. There are other genres of photography that closely intersects with photojournalism. A lot of photographers might identify like myself, I call myself a photojournalist, a documentary photographer as well. Because these two genres in as much as they are different, they are very, very closely related and you would experience or see other photojournalists that also delve into audit genres of photography. Some of these photography genres that photojournalists are often closely related with is sports photography, conflict photography, travel photography, extreme photography, wildlife photography, documentary photography and street photography. Sports photography is basically often in the context of spots and general news and future-lead stories. Conflict photography is literally war and things that are associated with war and conflict. Travel photography is pretty much done primarily to encourage and inspire people to visit certain places. It's also very related to advertorial so it's different from photojournalism because it's promoting a place. But then you need very sound photojournalistic skills to be able to be a good travel photographer. There are lots of photojournalists that are also travel photographers. There are also photojournalists that do a stream photography, like taking pictures on the water, in very dangerous and extreme weather conditions. They are also very later to photojournalism. There is also street photography, which is basically creating compelling compositions in the street. Capturing candid moments in a very interesting way. A lot of photojournalists have this skill and they utilize and apply this very skill in their photojournalistic practice. Straight photography focuses more on the beauty, on the context, on the composition, as opposed to the story which photojournalism focuses on. Documentary photography on the other end is very, very similar to photojournalism. Just that photojournalism have very strict code of conduct and ethics that photojournalists must follow if they want to be identified as photojournalists. We're going to delve more into the differences and similarities later in this course, so stay tuned we'll talk about it. You might be wondering, now you know the various types of news stories, but really, how do you find newsworthy stories? What makes a story newsworthy? There are five main components or characteristics of a newsworthy story and this is timeliness, proximity, conflict, and controversy, human interest, and relevance. Timelessness is basically the story is immediate, is a current information or events and they're newsworthy just because they have recently occurred, so basically they're popular saying that if it's not new, then it's not news. If it's current, if it's informative and it's happening now, then it's newsworthy. This is example that I gave earlier with spot news. When you talk about proximity, this is local information, events that are newsworthy because they affect the people in your community or your region so people care about things that are close to home. This makes it newsworthy. In terms of conflict and controversy, when violence strikes or when people argue about actions, events, ideas, or policy, we care. Basically when your story is about different ideas, different conflicting views, it highlights various problems and differences in your community. If your story has conflict or controversy, then it's newsworthy because it engages people and people start asking questions and sharing their own opinion, it starts a conversation and that makes it newsworthy. Human interests, people are interested in other humans. We want to see other people's living conditions. We want to connect with other people. We see ourselves in other people. If your story is about people, it's about people's experiences and you're able to tell the story in a way that people can connect to it, that is newsworthy. The next part is relevance. People are very much interested in information that helps them make good decisions. If you like to cook, you'll find recipes relevant. If you are looking for a job, the business news is relevant, so when you capture stories that highlights or that is relevant to a specific side of people, they are interested in it. These five characteristics makes news newsworthy. In the world of photojournalism, as you pursue stories, you might come across the word fixer or fixing. A fixer is primarily a person, usually a local journalist that knows the environment that can take you around, introduce you to the people you need to interview or photograph. They can also help you with translation. Basically, they are like your local guide, they know the area, and they know the language and they can introduce you to the people. Sometimes you might have to pay these people. Sometimes you just have to explain to them why you are doing the work and they will be willing to support you. As a photojournalist, you would come to places where you don't speak the local language or you don't know the right people to photograph, so utilizing a fixer is the best way to go because it will make your work so easy. At least the same fixer will help you know when not to cross boundaries. With a good fixer on your side, you are able to do things the proper way without breaking any social values or disrespecting the locals. That's why it is important to always work with a fixer that comes from the community or at least knows the community very well, especially if you're an outsider. But if you're working on a story that is very close to home, that is about what you know or your lived experiences, then you probably don't need a fixer. On this lesson, we've talked about the various types of new stories, which is basically general news, spot news, and feature stories. We also talked about the qualities of a newsworthy story. Talking about timeliness, proximity, conflict, and controversy, human interests, and relevance. Bearing in your mind this various qualities of a newsworthy story, you can begin to connect and dissect your own story idea, whether it fits into these qualities that we already mentioned. Is your story timely? Is your story relevant? Is there conflict? Is there a debate around the topic? Is it relevant to the people you are showing it to? Once you start answering these types of questions about your story, then you're on your way to know what story is newsworthy and which is not. Your assignment for this lesson is to research a potential general news of feature story opportunity within your community. I want you to document until the whole story in one to three pictures. With that being said, head over to the next lesson as we delve deeper into photojournalism. 5. Ethics of Photojournalism: [MUSIC] Unlike other genres of photography, photojournalism is guided by strong ethical principles. What this means is that if you want to practice photojournalism, there are clear cut ethical guidelines that you must follow to be able to do your work and be represented as a photojournalists properly to the world. It's important also to understand that without these ethics, photojournalism will not be trusted and respected as a credible source of information, especially at a time where everyone has a phone at their disposal. So if you must be a photojournalist, you must abide by the code of these ethics. With that in mind, some of the things that we are going to discuss in this lesson is going to highlight the ethics of photojournalism. If you must call yourself a photojournalists, if you must present work that can be called photojournalistic in nature, then you must be able to follow these ethics to produce those work. The first one is being accurate. Remember that you are dealing with real people. You are dealing with real stories. You're documenting people's trauma. So you have to be very, very accurate because you are representing people when you take their picture. It's important for you to be able to capture what you saw and be very, very factual, and truthful the way you capture it. Because if you do not clear that distinction, if you do not make your pictures very, very factual, then it can be used for propaganda and it can damage the people you're trying to tell their stories. That's why it's important and also this is why using captions is also important because captions can also give context to what's going on in the picture. Another thing that is frowned upon in photojournalism is staging your photos. Because photojournalism is real or is perceived as real, you have to make sure that your pictures are not staged. You want to capture people doing real things, you're just there like a fly on the wall and you are capturing this moment. You're not necessarily having them perform in front of you for you to take a certain picture. That is not photojournalism. Posing can be allowed if it's a portrait and in those cases, you have to clearly state it in your caption that this was a posed portrait. You can use lines like, so and so pauses for a portrait. Whatever just make it very clear that this is not a candid moment. Because in photojournalism 90 percent of what happens should be candid. Because this is real people doing real things. If not, then it will become a performance and it's not real anymore. The main aim is to not mislead people. You have to think about that because when people look at your picture they are looking at it as a form of information. They're trying to take information out of it. If you mislead people then you are giving false information and you're not being a reputable photojournalist. Another ethics is avoiding stereotypes. You don't want to be a photojournalist that copies and reproduces already existing stereotypes or biases that you hold. As a photojournalist is your duty to be neutral, it's your duty to be impartial, it's your duty to capture different sides of the story and not necessarily enforcing your own existence stereotypes. That is why you need to research your project, research the story you're working on. You need to be informed on the story, but also not by infusing what you think you already know but keeping an open mind. When you go to the field and you are capturing people's stories, keep an open mind. Do not judge them. Try to listen to them, understand them, and show that. With that, you are giving a more balanced story as opposed to just reproducing and re-sharing your own stereotypes and bias. As a photojournalist, you must treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Especially this is very important when you are photographing vulnerable people. You have to understand that there is an already existing power imbalance between the photograph and the subject. It is your sole responsibility to make sure that you are photographing people in a respectful way and in a dignifying way. Before you intrude or before you get into people's private spaces, or when they are vulnerable, crying and stuff like that, you have to ask yourself, does this take the story forward? Is this really important? Is it justifiable? As a sensible photojournalist, you also have to know when to take a step back so that you are not abbreviating people's pain. As a photojournalist, you have to do your work from a position of a fly on the wall so that you're able to take your pictures without people even feeling that you are intruding or affecting their own process. Some of the ways you know that you are doing it right, is by asking yourself if my mom was photographed like this, how would I feel? If my dad, my sister, my brother, how would I feel? Constantly asking yourself these questions will help you know if you're photographing people in a dignifying and respectful way. As a photojournalist, you cannot alter or participate in the action that unfolds in front of you. So you cannot alter the situation, you cannot influence the outcome of what you're documenting. Once you do that, it's no more a genuine true story because you've affected the outcome. This is to say that you should not become a part of your story. You should not become a part of the story you are documenting. When that happens, you are going to be biased and then the story has been absolutely influenced by you. Maybe the outcome would have been different if you didn't interfere or if you didn't offer that money or if you didn't point in that direction. That's why for photojournalism to be photojournalism, you do not have to interfere with the action. You don't want to get involved in what's going on. You have to be a fly on the wall documenting what is unfolding in front of you. In photojournalism, editing must not alter the integrity of your pictures. You cannot edit in a way that you change colors or you overly highlight things that are not overly highlighted naturally. You have to bear in mind that you are trying to tell a real story. You're trying to document something as they were when you photographed it. Asides minor adjustments with highlights and shadows or exposure settings, you must not alter the integrity of your picture. It shouldn't become an entirely different picture. You cannot clone things out, you cannot change the shape of anything. If you are really a fan of Photoshop and you like doing a lot of Photoshop in your pictures, then photojournalism is not for you because editing is usually very, very minimal and it must retain the integrity of the picture. You do not pay sources or your subjects. When you photograph people, you must not give them any material or monetary gifts or anything like that. Because when you do that, that means the story has been bought or it means that you've altered the story or you've impacted the story. Because once you do that, people feel they need to tell you more or they need to add information that wasn't necessarily there. It is unacceptable in photojournalism for you to give or receive any form of gifts or money or anything to your subject or your sources. It's renders your story null and void. Once you pay it's pretty much a performance, you are now a director in a movie. You don't want photojournalism to be like that. You want to tell real stories. You have to allow people to share their story with you without feeling that you need to give them anything in return. As a photojournalist, you are working primarily as a journalist. What that means is you have to have the back of your colleagues. You cannot sabotage the efforts of other journalists. This is particularly important if you work on the field where you would be sent out in places and volatile environment and you're working with other journalists from other publications. It's important that you work together and watch each other's back. You cannot engage in any form of harassing behavior to your colleagues or to your subject. You must always treat people with respect and you must know your boundaries. This is particularly true for every form of, I think you should just be a good human being because any field or any practice that you indulge in you would have to not harass people. In this lesson, we talked about a lot of things. We talked about the various ethics of photojournalism, which is avoiding stereotypes, being accurate, treating everyone with respect and dignity, based on how we represent our subjects, staying objective and not becoming a part of the story, by editing images in a way it maintains its integrity and not by paying or collecting gifts or compensation from sources or subjects. Once you obey these procedures, once you follow these ethics when you produce your work, then you can call yourself a photojournalist. Your assignment for this lesson is to go back to the website of that photojournalists from your country, [MUSIC] or maybe you chose some of the people I highlighted in this class. Go back to their website, look through their website and look at their pictures and tell me if you think those pictures follow the various ethics of photojournalism that we've discussed in this lesson. See you in the next lesson as we delve even deeper into photojournalism. 6. How to Caption Your Images: [MUSIC] Photos as good as their captions, so as photojournalist, you must learn how to write the caption of your images properly. I mean, this is often the difference between a professional photojournalist and an amateur photographer. You must know how to caption your pictures and caption it right. In real life, no publication would publish any picture that is not well captioned, so it's important that you have the right information in your caption. For a good caption, you need certain information, but basically the caption needs to answer the questions of who, why, what, where. Your caption needs to have the information of the names of the people in the picture, the location where the picture is taken, what's going on in the picture, why the picture is being taken, which is why it is important. Also sometimes you can include the credit line or by line maybe depending on how you want to represent your picture. Some of the qualities of a good caption is that it has clarity, it is informative and accurate, it is complete, it is not necessarily stating the obvious, it does not generalize or judge. You have to make sure that your captions are well done so that it can pass the message it needs to pass. The picture should do the talking but there are some certain aspects of your story that pictures cannot capture. For instance, name. You cannot necessarily capture people's names. People cannot look up people's picture and say his name is John. That's why it's important for you to include that type of information in your caption in a certain format so that is easier to use and tell the story. In as much as there might be differences in the format or how publications design their own caption, the information is basically the same in all captions. One of the information that is very important is the name of the people and locations where pictures are shot. Names and location is very important because it gives context to the story and it gives more information that the picture doesn't necessarily show. Another important aspect of a caption is that it most include date. People need to look at the picture, read the caption, and they know when the picture was taken. A good caption provides context or background. One picture might not be able to capture everything about the story, so a good caption gives you the background of the story. You start understanding why this picture is important. A caption should be written in complete sentence and in present tense. This gives it that urgency or the action it needs for you to consume the picture and it kicks and gives the pictures life. Captions shouldn't be too long because when people spend so much time reading the text of the caption, then they have very little time to enjoy the picture, so it should be brief. It should give all the information you wanted to give within the shortest possible time. As I already mentioned, photojournalism is way more than just taking pictures. Photojournalism, you are talking about real people, you are documenting real stories, and you have to be able to gather your caption materials when you are in the field. Usually for me personally, when I'm on the field, I have a small notebook that I put in my pocket with a pen. Before I take anybody's picture, I write down their names, I write down the information, its basically a journal. I keep the dates, the time, and the people that I photographed and their stories in this written format. I also have a recorder, because sometimes in the field you might not be able to write every single thing. I would write the key parts of the story but then to remember the exact information, dates, and stuff like that, I use a recorder which I record on my iPhone. Basically I'll just keep a recorder, I'll ask my subject if they are comfortable with me recording them and I'll record as I write down as well. This process, once I get back to the house, is a lot easier for me to go through the pictures, go through the articles, the stuff I've written, and start digging them out and transferring them into my Microsoft Word. Also, most importantly, I usually collect contacts on the field sites, the contact of the fixer that I'm working with. I want to get the contact of the people that I'm telling their story, because sometimes you might forget something, sometimes you might miss out some information, sometimes a story might clash, but basically is important for you to be able to go back and call or ask these people for clarification just to be sure. Because as a photojournalist, your duty is to give factual information, and if you're not able to do that, then you failed as a photojournalist. Some of the things you shouldn't do when you caption your images is being vague. You don't want to be vague. You want to give as much information as possible. Give names, don't just call people man, or woman, or a child. What is the name of the child? How old are they? Giving more information makes you more professional and it shows you know what you're doing as a photojournalist. If your photo is digitally manipulated, you have to clearly state it and say this is a photo illustration. Remember, in photojournalism it's not permissible to adversely or tie your images in a way that it bridges or breaks the integrity of that picture. Do not editorialize or make assumptions in your captions. Don't try to say what people are thinking like you're in people's head. The girls stands confused. Let people look at the picture and make that judgment. If you took the picture well, as a good photojournalist, then people should be able to look at it and get the feeling of what the person is saying. Do not characterize your subjects using so much of adjectives like very dramatic, very excited, and all that, leave some of these aspects of your stories for the viewers to make that judgment for themselves. They should be able to look at your picture and see these things that you're trying to point out in the caption. On this lesson, you've learned the do's and the don'ts of caption writing and why is important in photojournalism. Remember, your pictures are only as good as your captions, so you have to pay very solid attention to how you write your captions and make sure that it's very informative and it gives information that people cannot easily see through the picture. The assignment for this lesson is that I want you to write the captions using the guidelines that I've provided in this [MUSIC] lesson for the pictures that you are going to upload at the end of this class. See you in the next lesson as we go even further to understanding photojournalism. 7. Components of a Story: A story is not a story if it does not have a beginning, middle, and an end. Throughout human civilization, stories have been used to educate, inform, and entertain. Stories are very crucial to our existence. If you must be successful at anything, you must learn the art of storytelling because human beings connects with powerful storytelling. Likewise, in photojournalism, storytelling is the foundation. It's not beautiful pictures, it's not about perfectly composed pictures. It's about storytelling. People needs to look at your pictures and feel something. You can only do that once you learn how to tell stories. There are essentially two types of stories, which is the fictional stories and nonfiction stories. Fiction stories are not real. They are fragments of imagination. They're not real characters. While nonfiction stories, basically of real people, of real places, they are factual, they are true, they are real. The storytelling that is applicable in photojournalism is pretty much nonfiction storytelling. That's why you are dealing with real people, dealing with real situations, real stories, real events. That's what makes it real. Whether or not you're working on frictional or nonfiction stories the concept is the same. Your story needs to have a character, needs to have a middle, have a beginning, and end. Every single story, no matter the medium of telling the story and rights in, in videography, in picture, whatever it is, they follow similar pattern and every story has these components. The first is the character. Character is the main subject of the story. It could be a person, it could be a place, it could be an animal, whatever it is, every story needs the character. Then the next thing is the setting, so the character needs to be in a place. This story needs to be happening in a specific place. Then the third would be the plots. This is where the beginning, the middle, and the end comes together because you start understanding what the character did in the beginning, what the character did in the middle, and what the character does in the end. The next parts that makes a good story is the conflict. Every story needs a conflict. Conflict is basically the character trying to achieve something and something that is stopping that character from achieving it. The forces that are going against the abilities of the character or the subject of your story to achieve what they want to achieve, that is the conflict. The closing part of your story would be the resolution. The resolution talks about whether or not your subject is able to overcome the issues that he was fighting against or whether the issues overcame him. If it overcame him, it would be a negative story, it would be a sad story. If he overcame it, then it would be a very positive story. But regardless of the type of story you're telling, it needs a character, it needs a setting, it needs the plot, it needs a conflict, and most importantly, it needs a resolution. That is when you can say you have a complete story. As a photo journalist, when you're out shooting, you have to think about this things in your head, not by trying to create or congeal something that doesn't exist. It's about being present and trying to piece all the activities that is happening into an interesting storytelling framework. Think of it like a war movie. When you watch movies, maybe of a soldier or something, they don't just show you the story of the war or the individual in the war, they want to show you other aspects of their lives. They are loved life, their family that they left behind. What's happening? What's its lifelike for people that are not part of the war? You have to bear this thing in mind as well as a photojournalist when you are telling pictures stories that you want to show different contexts so that at least your viewers are not bored with just one aspect of the story. Bearing this in mind to have a well-rounded story. I strongly recommend that you consider capturing these various aspects of your story so that people can have an understanding of who you're photographing or who your subject is. One of them is man at work. With man at work, you capture people in their working environment. Work is a primary part of our lives. Everyone can relate to work. If you are able to capture what people do for work, it is a visual potential for you to give more insight into who they are and what their stories is about. Another thing you can capture his relationships. We all have relationships. Without relationships, we are not human beings. We relate with our siblings, we relate with our friends. If you're able to capture people and capture their relationships, people have a deeper connection with that person or with that subject that you're photographing. Another thing you can capture people do in his entertainment. What does your subjects like for fun? What do they do for fun? You can be telling stories about something unrelated, but then showing what they're interested in and how it connects to the story. It can be a very crucial part of that story. You have to keep in touch and understand what is entertaining for this person? What do they do for fun? Also the same thing can be entertaining for your viewers and keep them glued to that story. Another thing you need to capture to have a well-rounded story is the environment. The environment gives context, the environment tells its own story. It's important that regardless of what subjects or what topic you're working on, is important to capture as much as you can for the environment that you're photographing in. What's the stories about? What is the environment about, how does it connect? That's why it's important for you to take time to capture the environment that people exist in. Another thing you can capture is the details. When we look at people, we do not necessarily notice the single tiny things about them. As a storyteller, as a photo journalist, you can highlight these aspects of people's lives. More frequent than not, we see how related we are, we see ourselves in them. It could actually add more context and more content, your visual storytelling. The last and the most important aspects of your storytelling is emotions. If your story does not make people feel emotions, feel something, then you've failed as a photojournalist to tell the story. Your picture should make people either feel happy or sad, feel good or bad. It should make them feel something. Because it's only when human beings feel something that's when they can be driven, that's when they can act. When people are happy, they laugh, they smile, when people are sad, they probably act. With more emotions embedded in your pictures learning to capture pictures that speak to people's emotions, then you are able to drive and connect with people. In photojournalism, there's what they call the picture of a story. The more advanced, the more informed or the more sophisticated you are as a photojournalist, the more of your ability to be able to tell the picture of the story. Picture of the story is usually that one picture that captures the essence of a story, embodies what the story means. Some photographers and some photojournalists have mastered the art of taking that one picture or seen that moment that encompasses the story and this is difficult. Usually in a lot of newspapers or magazines, that's the pictures you see in the front-page that picks up a big space because it highlights the story. It kind of shows what the story's about. In this lesson, we've learned what it takes to create a story. What is the components of a good story. The need for subject, setting a plot. We've also discussed how to identify the important aspects of your story, the visual potentials, what can you capture? Sometimes people want to tell stories, they don't know the visual elements they can include. We've talked about man at work, relationships, emotions. All these things can be put together to produce a full-fledged story that captures the essence of your story. For the assignments on this lesson, I want you to go to your chosen photojournalists website, go through his projects and look at some of his or her project, and analyze how this person have utilized these various components and the things we've discussed in this class. Can you see the subjects, can use see the picture that sets the environment, can you see the picture that highlights what the story's about? Can you see the picture of the story? I want you to go to your favorite photo journalists website and have a look at some of the things that we've talked about and analyze and connect what we've discussed. Head over to the next lesson as we dive deeper into photojournalism. 8. Documentary Photography vs Photojournalism: [MUSIC] I'm sure you've noticed that documentary photography and photojournalism goes hand in hand. In fact, they are as often used interchangeably. A lot of photographers identify as good documentary photographers and photojournalists. This is because they have a lot in common, but there are still different though. In fact, I've seen notable universities offering documentary photography and photojournalism as a degree course. I personally identify as both because some of my work is photojournalistic in nature, while the others are documentary in nature. So you can absolutely be both a documentary photographer and a photojournalist. In terms of definition, photojournalism is a form of journalism that uses images to tell new stories through powerful photography. It differs from others by its need to stay honest and impartial. This is one thing that defines photojournalism. Its ability to stay honest and impartial. Documentary photography, on the other hand, is a style of photography that provides straightforward and accurate representation of people, places, objects, and events. It's often used in reportage. They sound very similar, but they are different. I think of photojournalism as purely news and documentary photography as in non-fiction film. They are both similar in that both of them tell real stories. Photojournalism and documentary photography are similar because of so many reasons. And some I would mention is that they both capture facts and reality. Documentary photography on photojournalism is all about real people, real places, real event, it's about things that are happening that is true and real. It's not about imagination, is not about advanced ADT in the way that, it doesn't capture the truth. Documentary photography and photojournalism focuses on reality and facts. Another similarity is all about being invisible, being present, capturing the pictures in a way that people can consume the pictures and enjoy the moment like they just got into the sea. You don't want to capture your picture as a documentary photographer or photojournalist in a way that is obvious of the photographer's presence. You want your viewers to have a full experience of the picture. You want them to look at the picture and feel like, boom, I just experienced this, and that is one of the similarities between documentary photography and photojournalism. Another important part is ethics. The ethics of documentary photography and photojournalism is very similar. In as much as the photojournalism is more strict with how you edit your pictures or how you present your work. But they all uphold similar values and ethics. As a photojournalist or documentary photographer, you have to be careful of how you represent the people you photograph. You have to photograph people in a dignifying way, in a respectful manner. They share a lot of ethics in common, but then photojournalism is way more stricter than documentary photography. In practice, is difficult to differentiate documentary photography and photojournalism because they are closely related, but I would attempt to differentiate them. One of the ways I would differentiate them is in terms of duration. Most photojournalism work is very quick. Most photojournalists it's all about news, so It's happening in real-time, and you have two documents and just share as it's happening. But in documentary photography, you can take your time. I've seen a lot of documentary that takes one year, six months, five years, 10 years to complete. So there is that lack of urgency when you produce documentary photography work, as opposed to photojournalism, which is basically pictures that you use for news. Another difference I see is the flexibility. Documentary photography is continually stretched. I see different types of work going from series of portraits to double exposure of being identified as documentary photography. Primarily because documentary photography can be flexible, but photojournalism is very strict. So you have very limited creative routes to use. You must show reality and also the type of lens you use can also impact if it's photojournalism or not. Most photojournalism stories, because they are news, they focus more on things that are newsworthy. So these are usually events or economic news and stuff like that, but documentary is less about what is newsworthy. It's more about what you care about. It's more about what makes sense to you, what is important to you. You can be as objective as possible, and you can also be as subjective as possible. Photojournalism is more about other people's stories. You're literally photographing in and telling other people's stories. But documentary photography is small about stories that you can relate. It's more about stories that make sense to you. You would see a lot of documentary photographers working on personal stories or working in their community, or things that are connected to them, some things that are close to home. Photojournalism is very strict, so there is limitation on how conceptual you can be. In documentary photography, you have some level of creative freedom to be as conceptual as possible as far as you are telling a factual story. It's acceptable. In photojournalism, you are advised to get down one picture that tells the whole story. You want to capture one picture that embodies the entire story. Documentary photography, it is more acceptable to utilize multiple pictures to tell that specific story. Photojournalism is also more about the immediates, about what's happening now. While documentary photography is more about what happened in the past, it's more about investigating what's happened and trying to produce a work that can make people connect to history or what's has happened in the past. Most photojournalists, their clients are usually publications, news, media, something like the New York Times or CNN, or BBC. Whilst documentary photographers, most of their clients are usually NGOs or corporate clients that want to tell real stories from their own perspective or from the perspective of the people that they're telling the story about. In this lesson, we've talked about the differences and similarities between photojournalism and documentary photography. You have seen why some people identify as both. You've also seen the differences and how they separate from each other. For your assignments, I want you to go back to your chosen photojournalists' website, go through their work, and clearly identify the works you would consider photojournalism and the ones you would consider a documentary photography project. See you in the next lesson as we almost conclude on this course. 9. Getting Your Work Published: [MUSIC] If you've gotten this far in this class, then definitely you want to tell stories, you want to take pictures that can inform people. Whether or not you identify as a photojournalist or a documentary photographer, you want people to see your work. If your work isn't published, how would people see? How would your pictures have the type of impact you wanted to have in real-world? While there is no direct way to get your work published without trying, the first part is also improving the quality of your work. Once the quality of work is good and you're consistent, then you can also be set up to be able to get your work published. But if you're starting out and your work is not yet at that level, you can start off with so many aspects of your environment, of your community, and that is going local. If you're starting off and you're a student or there is a community, what is that publication that is popular in your locality? What is that publication that is popular to the community that you're telling stories that is relevant to so you could be a student. Is there a local or a students magazine in your school that you can publish your pictures in, even if you don't get paid? The most important thing at first is to get your name out there and get as much by line as you can get. In the era of social media, things have also changed. Now, social media have made things even more democratized, like news is democratized right now. Even blogs are having more readership and viewership, more than traditional publications that are very notable and reputable. It shouldn't stop you if you do not get the publication that you want to publish your work, you should also try and publish by yourself. You can do this in so many ways. I'm going to share some of the ways where you can publish your work by yourself, but before we do that, its important also to understand the various ways you can work as a photojournalist. As a photojournalist, you can work as a freelance photojournalist or a staff photojournalist. A staff photojournalist is basically someone that has a contract, that is an employee of a publication. Fewer and fewer people are taking these jobs because there are few opportunities in this sector. You have all the benefits of being a full-time staff, you work only for this publications, you have benefits for holiday, you have a steady, stable salary. However, it's very competitive so the opportunities that are available for photographers very limited. If you're starting off as a photojournalist, you would want to start off as a freelancer, which is basically a photojournalist that is working on their own, they are pretty much a contractor. They are in control of their time and they can discuss and decide what their rates are per job so you can literally choose to work or not work. But then you don't have the security of stable income because you're not sure when you will get the next job. I'm a freelance journalist, if you plan yourself well and you invest your money in other sources of income, then you can survive. Or, if you are able to find news, if stories don't come, you find and dig up your own stories and work on them and pitch it to publications, that's also one way you can get your work published. Whichever one or whichever opportunity you see, you just have to do the work right and you have to make solid financial decisions for yourself and your family. Regardless of the type of stories you choose to work on, you have to also understand how much time you have at your disposal for that specific story. If you work on sport news, you know that the time-frame is very limited so you have to try and get your stories out there. This means you already have to have existing relationships with clients, with publications, and editors so that once you get hold of these stories or these pictures, you can easily give it to them to publish. If not, the story dies, the time-frame goes, and nobody's no more interested in the story. The first place to publish is your own website. You are the editor, you are everything, you have a website, and a website that has a blog post, or a page that talks about news or something like that. You can write an article or you collaborate with a writer that writes the article and you use the picture in the story and curate it the way you want. But you have to also understand, don't put so many pictures for a single article, your story shouldn't be more than 10 pictures. If not, people become bored and people get tired so easily. Starting off, you should consider getting your own website. There are lots of free platforms where you can get website, if you have the money, you can pay for a lot of these platforms like Format, like Visura and these are places you can publish your work and get it seen by people and also now share on social media. Other places you can publish your work is on online platforms. These are platforms that are focused on visual stories, that are focused on pictures. Basically you share your work there, curate your work in a way that is interesting and it tells the full story bearing in mind the beginning, the middle, and the end. The character, all those things that you've learned, you curate your pictures, it shouldn't be more than 10 pictures, then you upload it and also promote it. Some of this platforms are Behance, Visura, Instagram. Many editors are very active in these platforms so it's important to be strategic and make sure that you are representing yourself in a very professional manner. Other ways to publish your work, is to go for independent magazines. Like No!Wahala magazine, Loupe magazine, Splash & Grab. There are tons of magazines out there that you can participate in their open call and share your work with them and they can publish your work for free. That way, at least you are getting visibility and people are seeing the type of stories you're working on. When you are doing this, also look for magazines that have readership of editors because some editors can actually look at your work and fall in love with it and reach out to you to pay you for commissioned work. If you have the budget, another way to publish your work is through photo books. Photo books are basically books filled with pictures. If you have the resources, you can do this and publish it, but also you have to be careful, if you are not very much known, you might spend a lot of money producing it without making profit so you have to really be careful and know if this is really the route you want to take for yourself. For cheaper photo books, you can also go for zings, that is smaller version of magazines, but this one is for you and for your work, so you can use it to share your work and for people to see. You have to always remember that nothing good comes easy, so you must be willing to pay the full price of what you're doing, so you can't say, oh, because I didn't get published then you are stopping. You might never get published if you stop. It's important to focus more on growing, focus more on telling stories that you are very passionate about and in due time you will start seeing editors calling and emailing you, asking to commission you for work. In this lesson, we talked about the various ways you can work as a photojournalist and the various outlets you can publish your work and how you can utilize these tools to further improve yourself and give your work more visibility. For this lesson, the assignment is pretty much simple. Go to some of this platforms that I've shared with you, magazines or social media network, go there and start sharing your work. You never know who is looking, but the most important thing is that you want the world to see your pictures. Go ahead, be the editor, publish. 10. Conclusion: [MUSIC] Whoops, I'm so happy that you're able to follow through to finish this course. I hope it wasn't information overload. If it was, I'm sorry, but I hope that you have learned something above photojournalism, and you are now properly equipped with all you need to know to kick start your career as a photojournalist. A quick recap of what we discussed in this class. We started off with analyzing what photojournalism is and why it's important for the news. We discussed how to identify newsworthy stories by understanding what makes news, news. We also delved into the ethics of photojournalism, the right way to capture pictures, the relevance of pictures in news media. How to caption your images as they are as potent as the photos in your photograph in photojournalism. We then progress to components of a story, the various types of studies that photojournalism is based over factual and real events, and as such not fiction. Then we broke down the differences and similarities between documentary photography and photojournalism and closed it off by how to publish your work. If your sole aim is to be rich, I strongly recommend you consider other types or other genres of photography. Maybe commercial, or advertorial photography, or better still, focus on profit-making businesses because photojournalism is driven by passion, your service to humanity. So if you're going to be a photojournalist or a documentary photographer, you have to be passionate about storytelling. Money shouldn't be a driving force because you might be frustrated and you might be forced to stop. Remember to start local and go global. The best place to start is from where you are. The best camera is the one you have in your hands, so do not start off and already want to be on all the big platforms. Kindly try to pay your dues. Take your time and grow. I'd like to remind you about the class project, which is basically you capturing one to three pictures that highlights what you've learned in this course. Basically pictures that highlight photojournalism. Please upload them with well-detailed captions. I'll be happy to give you a feedback. Do well to check out my other classes on Skillshare. If you enjoyed this class, write me a review and follow me on Skillshare so that we can stay connected and you're notified when I upload a new class. I'm happy that you took this journey and you took this step. I'm sure that you are going to build a sustainable and powerful career producing work that means something to you. Until I see you again, thank you.