"Basically, anything you put on tape, from the moment you put it on tape, it is trying to be really bad. It is trying to be unstructured, it is trying to be pointless, it is trying to be boring, it is trying to be digressive—much like the sentences I am saying here." — Ira Glass.
In Part 2 of this series, Ira Glass from "This American Life" talks about how hard it is find good story ideas. After listening to this segment I have decided to take a somewhat different perspective than Ira on a few of his points, as I really believe there are thousands of incredible stories around every one of life's corners. As a matter of fact, if you can find a human being, I would venture that you can find an amazing story.
I also disagree that crap should be abandoned, as long as it is possible for that crap to be fixed. If your choice is to release crap to the public or abandon it, of course I would be quite happy if you would take Ira's advice and save us all some time. This particular point might highlight some of the differences between Ira's style of domestic radio journalism and spending thousands of dollars to trek to another country to tell a socially relevant story. If a story needs to be told, it is the job of photojournalists to tell that story. If a story is crap, at least in photojournalism, it is usually the fault of the photojournalist and also can often be remedied by that photojournalist. So instead of abandoning crap, I strongly advocate the following approach: First, analyze why your story is crap. What is keeping it from being good? what is keeping it from being effective or telling the full story? Once you know what your story lacks, you at least know what direction to follow.
I would also suggest that a lot of time be spent learning what makes a good story good and a bad story bad, no matter what medium you are involved in. Learning this before producing your own work will save you a lot of time, as you will understand the building blocks and exactly what you need to capture to effectively tell your story.Like the truly wonderful quote from Ira I posted in the beginning of this entry, you will have to work hard to make your stories effective. You will have to fight to make your subject matter interesting. The more "depressing" the subject matter you cover, the harder you must work to make people open up, view it and take a message away from it. However, with photojournalism we are armed with a powerful tool, and that is the art and emotion of still images. Used effectively, I believe still images have an incredible power to influence and inspire people. Focus on how to harness that power, learn that giving up is not an option and soon you will be producing work that will make me (and Ira) proud!
I have been following along and I mostly enjoy all your posts this one especially. There are many useful ideas here. Thanks
spider
Posted by: spider | July 17, 2009 at 11:00