Photojournalism Technique - Thoughts and Theory Behind Capturing Images of Conflict, Crisis and Disaster
I advocate an approach to photojournalism that is not at all accepted or popular. Your photojournalism professors may give you bad marks if you try to convince them of this and professional photojournalists may look down on you as an amateur if you try to argue this point with them. However, it is something I believe in and is one of the reasons I am able to get the shots that I do. I also believe this industry needs some drastic changes in thinking and approach, so here we go:
Don't over-research your subject matter before ever even getting out into the field!
I know this goes against everything that is taught about photojournalism and documentary photography, so let me explain a bit more. Photojournalism is about observing and also about telling the stories of those you observe, in their own "voices." If you are open to learning from your subjects—truly learning from them, not just placing your pre-conceived notions upon them—you will then be able to accurately tell their story to the rest of the world through photographs (I also think that this way of thinking would apply to all forms of journalism, not just photojournalism).
I can't begin to tell you how many times I have run into professional photojournalists in the field who start talking about what they are there to shoot. They have made up a big proposal to a publication, spent weeks researching it, called local fixers and told them exactly what they are looking for and asked them where they can find it. And yes, they usually come away with the story that they were there to get. But the question becomes, was that really the most important story to be told or was it just what the photographer thought was the most interesting story based on the reading they did before their project?
When you go into a story with tunnel vision, you close yourself off to so many things. You might not even see that there is a much more interesting story right there in front of you.
Research happens when you are in the field, not when you are preparing to shoot your project! Your research should come from talking to people, listening to their stories, living life as they live it—not from an encyclopedia or website. You will learn things far more interesting from your experiences with your subjects than you ever could have learned during pre-production research.
Going into a story without pre-conceived ideas and rigid plans allows you to document what the story actually is and not just what you interpret it to be.
This is another problem I have with mainstream, corporate media. They have "angles" and when they tell a photographer or journalist to get a story, that angle is the one they want no matter what—even if that really is not the true story. Reality suffers, truth suffers. And it is sad, because I think most journalists get into the field for the right reasons. Then after struggling to make ends meet, it becomes far to easy to just take that assignment that is offered to you, whether or not it is a good one. And editors are under pressure from the publications they work for, who are in turn under pressure from the advertisers who pay for their publications. When the top of the ladder in journalism ends in a dollar sign, we can't expect to ever get the full true story.
The next time you head out to do a project, try doing your learning in the field and from your subjects; who better to tell the story than the people themselves? If you feel you need to learn about your subject matter ahead of the project, make sure you keep yourself open to the possibility that things may be different than you expected. Keep your mind open, be passionate about what you do and care about your subjects and always be willing to listen to all sides and hear all voices. You will find that you will be able to capture stories that no one else has. This is what journalism and storytelling is all about.
