Journalism: Thursday, Period 4, Class 8
"This week's topic isn't on your syllabus," Jonah said. The bell rang to officially begin the class before anyone could point out that he never handed any syllabi out. "But it's important to journalism, so we're going with it."
"Photography! You've heard that a picture's worth a thousand words? Well, a great picture on your front page can be worth tens of thousands of readers. Journalistic photographs aren't necessarily your art school crap of two men playing chess in a park. Journalistic photographs do three things. First, they look good, obviously. You're not going to sell a story with an out of focus picture unless it's of a creature that doesn't actually exist. Second, they tell a story. It's why it's called 'photojournalism.' Whether the story is about a mother reunited with her children, firefighters fighting a fire, or a masked 'hero'" Jonah finger-quoted that, "committing a crime, your photo has to get the point across even without the article running alongside it. Third, if you're going to put it with an article, it should be the most iconic version of the scene possible, because THAT is what makes your story sing instead of whistling offkey."
"Let's put it this way. You write an article about firefighters handling a horrible fire. What's your angle? 'There was a fire here and these men took care of it'? No! You find a human interest story there. Who were the tenants? Could their homes be salvaged? Who fought the fire? Did they have any connections to the building? A cousin of a friend of an aunt of the landlord or something? You look for the right angle for the story. Same thing goes for photojournalism, except that it's literal. You need to physically find the right angle, take your picture at just the right time. Most of the time this is easy as crap; find an angle that looks good, you take your shot and that's the end of that. But once in a while you find a truly great shot that will make up for the mediocrity you've shown the rest of the time."
"So, here's what your assignment is. Each of you has a disposable camera. I took 23 pictures in a dark room with each of them, leaving you with one exposure left. Tell me a story with that last picture. I don't really care what the story is and it's a tiny town so I'm well aware that the story could be either really boring or really really unbelievable. I'll be in my office next Wednesday. Drop your cameras off then handwavey is fine and we'll look at the photos next week."
"Don't think you're done yet. Here's a picture," Jonah said, turning on a projector and showing this image. "This picture tells a story. Figure out what it is. I bet you can't figure out what story the caption told."
"Photography! You've heard that a picture's worth a thousand words? Well, a great picture on your front page can be worth tens of thousands of readers. Journalistic photographs aren't necessarily your art school crap of two men playing chess in a park. Journalistic photographs do three things. First, they look good, obviously. You're not going to sell a story with an out of focus picture unless it's of a creature that doesn't actually exist. Second, they tell a story. It's why it's called 'photojournalism.' Whether the story is about a mother reunited with her children, firefighters fighting a fire, or a masked 'hero'" Jonah finger-quoted that, "committing a crime, your photo has to get the point across even without the article running alongside it. Third, if you're going to put it with an article, it should be the most iconic version of the scene possible, because THAT is what makes your story sing instead of whistling offkey."
"Let's put it this way. You write an article about firefighters handling a horrible fire. What's your angle? 'There was a fire here and these men took care of it'? No! You find a human interest story there. Who were the tenants? Could their homes be salvaged? Who fought the fire? Did they have any connections to the building? A cousin of a friend of an aunt of the landlord or something? You look for the right angle for the story. Same thing goes for photojournalism, except that it's literal. You need to physically find the right angle, take your picture at just the right time. Most of the time this is easy as crap; find an angle that looks good, you take your shot and that's the end of that. But once in a while you find a truly great shot that will make up for the mediocrity you've shown the rest of the time."
"So, here's what your assignment is. Each of you has a disposable camera. I took 23 pictures in a dark room with each of them, leaving you with one exposure left. Tell me a story with that last picture. I don't really care what the story is and it's a tiny town so I'm well aware that the story could be either really boring or really really unbelievable. I'll be in my office next Wednesday. Drop your cameras off then handwavey is fine and we'll look at the photos next week."
"Don't think you're done yet. Here's a picture," Jonah said, turning on a projector and showing this image. "This picture tells a story. Figure out what it is. I bet you can't figure out what story the caption told."
