“I only know how to approach a place by walking. For what does a street photographer do but walk and watch and wait and talk, and then watch and wait some more, trying to remain confident that the unexpected, the unkown, or the secret heart of the known awaits just around the corner.”
- Alex Webb, Magnum Photos
“There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit.”
- Ansel Adams
Learn more about the life and works of Ansel Adams in this excellent PBS documentary…
“It comes down to risk, again and again. If you risk coming out, if you risk making pictures that aren’t good, you might discover something in a photograph that is the key. The very doorway to your own interest.”
- Joel Meyerowitz
“Style has no formula, but it has a secret key. It is the extension of your personality. The summation of this indefinable net of your feeling, knowledge and experience. Take colour as a totality of relations within a frame…colour is joy. One does not think joy. One is carried by it.”
-Ernst Haas – Colour Photography
Here’s a really interesting interview between Aidan Sullivan of Getty Images and Ernst Haas’s son, Alex Haas. Well worth a listen…
“If you say you really want my job, okay, here’s the deal. There are no more hobbies, no more fun. You can have fun doing the work, but you have to be completely obsessed with it. I think 99% of the people think that professional photography is travel and adventure, and they forget that photography is very, very hard work. You’re “on” all the time. When you go out the door to take pictures, nobody cares about any of the excuses about bad weather or logistics, or how the authorities wouldn’t let you do your job. All that matters is what the photos say, how much money the magazine spent on that time, and whether or not it’s a successful coverage. Most people don’t really want that.”
- Michael Nichols / National Geographic
Check out more from Michael Nichols in this fascinating video how he made his famous tree image for National Geographic…
Participants of Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square. London. UK. 2004.
A very quick post to wish all my friends a very happy Diwali, should you be celebrating this amazing ‘festival of lights’ where you are in the world.
The above image was taken in Trafalgar Square, London, during celebrations in 2004. I am sure London will be awash with colours again, as will all those places throughout the world that are marking this very special occasion. Get your cameras out. It’s a great festival to photograph!
During my time speaking at universities and schools across China and in the US, I am often asked how I find stories to work on. I thought it was time I jotted down a few of these ideas here on the blog and incorporate them into my new Learning Zone which will be a hub for more informational posts aimed and helping readers here get a little bit more of an insight into professional photography and journalism.
So, to start with, here are 5 tips for finding great stories from a photography/journalism perspective:
1. Go Local – You don’t need to travel half way across the world to find a great story. Look in your backyard and you will find many great leads and potential subjects. If you are interested in a larger issue, look for one or two people in your local community who represent that issue and tell the story through them. Perhaps the story is health related and you are interested in doing a piece about rising national levels of heart disease. It shouldn’t take you too long to find someone in your community who is affected. Tell the story though individuals on a local level, to represent the bigger picture.
Struggling for Ideas?
2. Read, Read, Read – One of the best things you can do, whether you are working on a story at a local, national, or even international level, is to read. Whether you are consuming your news through the printed press or online, you can immediately gauge what people are talking about by being aware of what if being printed in the news. Keep tabs on story/subject trending and write down/bookmark ideas, or cut out articles to help you remember potential story ideas. Don’t just read the news though. Great stories can be found by breaking out of your comfort zone and consuming new magazine articles, scientific journals and novels.
3. Stay Connected – Your contacts and connections, on a personal and/or professional level, can prove to be an invaluable source of ideas. These connections do not have to be photography/journalism related. Talk to people in the community you are working in and listen to what they have to say. Are there any recent events, activities, incidents etc., that might relate to an interesting story? Are people talking about issues that haven’t appeared in the press recently? You can get many great ideas just from listening to what’s happening on the ground. Be personable. Make friends. Keep connected.
4. Get Inspired – Don’t lock yourself away in the world of photography and journalism. Break out and immerse yourself in the worlds of film, music, art and science. Get out of your comfort zone again and explore and discover new ways of storytelling through watching movies, listening to great music, taking in an art or science exhibit at the local museum or gallery. Search for new ways to be inspired and it will directly filter back into your photography and/or writing.
5. Look in the Mirror – What do I really care about? This is one of the first questions you should ask yourself. Find a subject matter that you are genuinely passionate about, or interested in. Perhaps the subject matter is directly related to your life experiences, or connected to an interest you have outside the world of photography and journalism. Avoid choosing subject matters that you believe others will take you seriously for, should you cover it. The best work comes from working on subject matter that you genuinely care about and you will put in the extra effort for.
What has worked for you? Please feel free to share your story-finding ideas below!
Asia Society - China Green
This week the Asia Society and I launched a new collaborative project which brings together 4(!) brand new multimedia pieces, focusing on my Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting on issues surrounding the disspaearance of China’s wetlands.
As regular readers here will know, this is is a project that I began last year and have continued to develop, this time with the assistance of the Asia Society.
I am excited to launch this new portal as it brings together all 7 multimedia pieces from across China, giving viewers a new in-depth look at the country’s wetlands.
You can dip in and view one or two pieces, or go for the full experience and watch all seven. Either way, I very much hope you enjoy the pieces and they help you to understand some of the complex issues which are affecting and threatening the country’s waterways.
If you have any questions at all about the production, please feel free to ask them blow in the comments section.
BBC News
A photo has been released by NASA this week that should, hopefully, put to bed one of the longest-running conspiracy theories out there – the moon-landing hoax.
The image shows a view from above of the Apollo 11 landing site, clearly showing the tracks of the astronauts and pieces of equipment that are still on the surface of the moon. Click here to see the full high-res version.
In case you didn’t know, there is still a small community out there who doubt one of humanity’s greatest achievements, although I think it’s fair to say that the majority of us are pretty confident it did happen. There is so much historical evidence from the actual event itself, that there is no real reason to doubt it actually occured.
One of the things that the conspiracy theorists often point to is the photography that was taken by the astronauts and some of the ‘flaws’ seen in the resulting images, allegedly ‘proving’ that the landings were faked.
Check out this excellent episode of the Mythbusters, who thoroughly deconstruct and investigate some of the theorist’s most popular claims. You can get some great tips, especially if you plan on photographing on the moon sometime soon…
Oh, and if you run into Buzz Aldrin (second man on the moon), you might not want to suggest to him that the moon landings were hoaxed…
Spotted this interesting little video on CNN that I thought readers here would be interested in, titled “What film photography still has to offer”.
I started out shooting film, although most of my practice now as a professional photographer has switched to digital. I miss it sometimes. I miss the feelings of anticipation you get before you get an exposed roll back from the lab. I miss using a loupe and lightbox and the feeling of discovering those one or two images on a roll that work and make it all worthwhile.
When I first started out trying to learn about photography, I decided to build my own darkroom. I searched for an enlarger in the local newspaper classifieds and set up all the equipment I needed, using books borrowed from the library as my guide. Over the following days, weeks and months I lost myself in the red-lit world of the darkroom and fell in love with photography. Now I shoot predominantly colour using digital but I think the best thing I ever did, to really understand the mechanics of photography, was when I built that darkroom. I can’t reccomend this highly enough to anyone starting out in photography.
I’ll finish this brief post with a quote from the above video which I think is also quite pertinent too for those aspiring photographers out there.
“One essential quality of photographers, is curiosity. If you’re not a curious person, you’re certainly not going to be a good photographer.” – Elliott Erwitt
