So what makes a photographer decide to shoot one thing but not another? What leads the photographer to focus of the performer on stage but not the crowd? Or in the graphic case, the near dead bodies instead of the commotion of the emergency teams and rowdy neighborhood.
Take a look at part one of A Quiet Night's Menace.
One of the first things that come to mind when I watch this slide show is the potential to do many different things with this one incident. I'm not saying that this doesn't work, but I don't think I would have had the patience or discipline to do it.
Despite all the commotion going on around the intersection this photographer stood and shot from one angle. It's possible that the police didn't let them move and it's possible there was another photographer covering other aspects of the story, but someone still had to make the decision to stand and shoot there.
So why does it work? What are our other options, and why do we choose this one?
This could have been a pretty dramatic video piece, one that I think would have been way too graphic. Even just shooting from the same angle for the duration of the event would have been way too graphic for TV and offensive to many online readers in my opinion. Stills, however, dont provide the same sort of realism so I think the graphic content is more manageable. So, if you did want to turn this into a video package you would need to focus almost entirely on what was going on around the intersection as opposed to in the middle of it.
Another option could have been a gallery slide-show with a variety of different angles. Some with people crying, the two guys dead in the street, police running around, fire fighters, ect.; there is plenty going on here worth shooting.
So why not? I tried to imagine this story shot in that way with the same audio. I don't think that would work at all. There is a certain level of commosion that comes with 991 recording and police transmissions. Regardless of content, 991 recordings always put people on edge, audio slide-shows don't. If you wanted to do this story that way I think a better option would be getting sound bites from people after you were done shooting and after things had time to settle down. At that point the story is completely different, especially depending on what your sources say.
So what of the product we have?
Having the presence of mind to get out the audio record was just as important as deciding not move around and shoot a variety of angles. I really don't the images would have worked without an audio track like this and the audio track wouldn't work with any other images. The two have to work together. Both are chaotic, both are graphic, both tell the story.
This is definitely a very unique piece and I think it is important to recognize all the decision that go into its creation. If the photographer had decided to get much closer this could have been very graphic and/or they could have been injured. If they hadn't recorded any audio this show would have been really boring. If they had of decided to make a traditional show they would have had to tell the story as they interpreted it.
Whether the decision was made prior to the shoot or not is irrelevant, the point is the photographer took a big risk in making this piece and I think it clearly paid off. As it is the story seems to tell itself, and that to me is what it is all about.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
What I am Shooting For
For my first actual post I have found some things that I hope to take a closer look at and build up to in the future. Consider these links a "this is what we are shooting for" sort of list. Hopefully over the course of researching for less complicated features I can take the knowledge I gain and combine it into something more like what I have here.
I decided that the best place to start would be what is considered in the industry to be the best, or at least according to the Nation Press Photographers Association. I took a look at the Best of Photojournalism 2009 awards and found some things that were particularly interesting.
I want to start with an idea that I have been thinking about a lot lately but haven't until now been done. Many papers have started posting web galleries and audio slideshows, some have posted videos from sister TV station or produced their own, but few have combined the two.
This story about Windsmiths has taken the two disciplines and used them together. This isn't that great of a story and it wasn't a NPPA winner but it is a good example. Their gallery "Faith and Competition" place 3rd in the Sports Audio Slideshow category.
A much better example of this technique, which for the sake of consistency I will call video-slideshows, can be seen in the entry that won the News or Feature Multimedia Package, "Cape Fear to down here." The package features several audio slideshows that are all worth watching but one in particular caught my eye. The second one from the left titles "A Living Profession" features a fisherman and his day on the water.
By utilizing still photos, audio, and video the story becomes more enticing and makes you want to keep watching. Sometimes when looking through audio slideshows I find myself feeling like they all look alike. In order to be effective a slideshow needs to have good audio, good photos, and they need line up with each other. Most people seem to have trouble with the third one.
"A Living Profession," however, keeps in mind the connection between what is being seen and what is being heard. It is design in such a way that makes you wonder what is coming next. Some sections could have been done with still photos but they use video. Others could have been done with video and they chose stills. By blending them together you get a much better sense of the pace of the fisherman's and you feel like you are right there on the boat.
Hopefully I can find a lot more video-slideshows like this one.
A final note before I finish and that is a link to the winner of NPPA category for Best use of Multimedia, "Thirst in the Mojave." It's pretty easy to see why this one, it might be the most incredible use of multimedia I have ever seen. A few things to pay attention to while you watch.
1) It's not just a video that plays while you watch and "learn" about the story, it is completely interact.
2) Whoever did the reporting for this must have been working on it for a very long time and desearves a lot of creadit. There is a ton of information here.
3) Sticking with the theme of combining techniques, unlike many other multimedia features I have seen this uses video, photos, interactive properties, audio, pop-up text bubble, and so on.
I really hope you check this out it is really cool.
I decided that the best place to start would be what is considered in the industry to be the best, or at least according to the Nation Press Photographers Association. I took a look at the Best of Photojournalism 2009 awards and found some things that were particularly interesting.
I want to start with an idea that I have been thinking about a lot lately but haven't until now been done. Many papers have started posting web galleries and audio slideshows, some have posted videos from sister TV station or produced their own, but few have combined the two.
This story about Windsmiths has taken the two disciplines and used them together. This isn't that great of a story and it wasn't a NPPA winner but it is a good example. Their gallery "Faith and Competition" place 3rd in the Sports Audio Slideshow category.
A much better example of this technique, which for the sake of consistency I will call video-slideshows, can be seen in the entry that won the News or Feature Multimedia Package, "Cape Fear to down here." The package features several audio slideshows that are all worth watching but one in particular caught my eye. The second one from the left titles "A Living Profession" features a fisherman and his day on the water.
By utilizing still photos, audio, and video the story becomes more enticing and makes you want to keep watching. Sometimes when looking through audio slideshows I find myself feeling like they all look alike. In order to be effective a slideshow needs to have good audio, good photos, and they need line up with each other. Most people seem to have trouble with the third one.
"A Living Profession," however, keeps in mind the connection between what is being seen and what is being heard. It is design in such a way that makes you wonder what is coming next. Some sections could have been done with still photos but they use video. Others could have been done with video and they chose stills. By blending them together you get a much better sense of the pace of the fisherman's and you feel like you are right there on the boat.
Hopefully I can find a lot more video-slideshows like this one.
A final note before I finish and that is a link to the winner of NPPA category for Best use of Multimedia, "Thirst in the Mojave." It's pretty easy to see why this one, it might be the most incredible use of multimedia I have ever seen. A few things to pay attention to while you watch.
1) It's not just a video that plays while you watch and "learn" about the story, it is completely interact.
2) Whoever did the reporting for this must have been working on it for a very long time and desearves a lot of creadit. There is a ton of information here.
3) Sticking with the theme of combining techniques, unlike many other multimedia features I have seen this uses video, photos, interactive properties, audio, pop-up text bubble, and so on.
I really hope you check this out it is really cool.
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