Do you tell a story with your images? Insights, issues and interest…

Leopard Seal And Penguin

• Leopard Seal And Penguin •
From the video, the picture shows a dead penguin and its predator, the leopard seal.

The world of photojournalism is changing…

Worldwide great photojournalists are being sacked and replaced with crowd-sourced images. While the power of amateur images is wonderful, photojournalism is an art that creates great images continuously across a career. The loss of skills like this is a great shame.

The telling of a story is as old as humanity

We all have the power to tell stories. It is one of the things that makes us human. A great story pulls us together in the long dark nights; uplifts us at a moment of depression; chills us; thrills us and helps us to share language. The photostory is one of the great inventions of the last century and in a great photostory we can see all aspects of our daily lives – the extraordinary and the beautiful as much as the ordinary and the ugly.

Gift

• Gift •
The deadly predator, the leopard seal, tries to give the diver a gift – a dead penguin.
Taken from the video.

David Griffin: How photography connects us

Photography Director for National Geographic Magazine, David Griffin, recognises the power and insight of photography to connect us through the photostory. In this short video he uses wonderful images and a few great photo-stories he shows us how much we will miss if the era of the photojournalist passes.

National Geographic is one of the worlds greatest photostory magazines and provides endless great imagery. For learner and professional photographer alike. There is a lot to be learned from their images and a lot to be lost if we lose the art of photojournalism.
David Griffin – On how photography connects (Ted Lectures)

More after the image…

Leopard Seal On The Ice

• Leopard Seal On The Ice • The leopard seal reclining on the ice. From the video.

The wonder of photo-stories

It is a shame that we are losing the worlds greatest talents in photo-stories. However, we can all make photo-stories within the bounds of our own photography. Here are some of the things that you should consider when putting together a short photo-story…

  • Impact
  • From the ordinary to the extraordinary and back
  • Unique perspectives
  • Amazing sights, sounds and colours
  • Lovely light
  • People or animals
  • Insight into a situation
  • The shock from an event
  • Excitement
  • Great beauty or great ugliness – or both!
  • Different lives…
  • Something from within you

Your story should show your viewers something they normally would not see and, even better, will never see for themselves. If you manage to pack something from each line of this list into your story you will probably have a real hit.

It takes a lot of hard work and very many images to compile a photostory. So, think about what it is you are trying to achieve in advance of your shooting. Try to have a point you want to make and things to show it. Oh, and have fun!


Ted.com

By way of introduction I wanted to say something about origins of the video. It comes from Ted.com which is a non-profit organisation devoted to ideas. New ideas, brilliant ideas and new perspectives on old ideas. The lectures each take around fifteen to twenty minutes. They are delivered by individuals who are at the top of their game – representing the worlds great intellects. The Lectures cover a broad spectrum of ideas across science, society, technology and nature, ethics and human insights. If you like thinking a little and getting some insightful ideas Ted.com is a worthwhile place to visit.


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By Damon Guy (author and Photokonnexion editor)

Damon Guy - Netkonnexion

Damon Guy (Netkonnexion)

Damon is a writer-photog and editor of this site. He has run some major websites, a computing department and a digital image library. He started out as a trained teacher and now runs training for digital photographers.
See also: Editors ‘Bio’.

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