Visual Storytelling Unpacked
This seminar explores the art of visual storytelling, teaching essential techniques in photojournalism, from composition to ethics, drawing on 17 years of frontline experience.
So it was wonderful in August 2022 to be invited to do some training for her by Elizabeth Gowing: Let Your Photos Tell the Story. Elizabeth is a whirlwind of decency and energy: she has been working in the humanitarian sector since she moved to Kosovo in 2006. She set up an NGO, The Ideas Partnership, which supports education, health and social welfare projects, especially for marginalised groups. She’s a doer – and someone who understands the story. To date, she’s written five books (or booklets) and a novel. She also runs a social enterprise that promotes women’s handicrafts, does amazing work opening up the concept of volunteering, and works to encourage environmentalism.
I was keen to share with others, in a broad constituency, how I and my colleagues were grappling with the finer points of being a photojournalist in the 21st century. As Docere had become a fashion target, Elizabeth had invited me to teach this course knowing that the audience would be diverse, most of them out of touch with the gruelling realities we grapple with in the craft of journalism. I’d covered everything from bloodsoaked battlefields to climate-induced displacements, as my work helped people across the globe better understand the situations from which documents were born
It was not simply a case of flinging a camera up to our shoulders and snapping away. We wanted to educate the photographers about the fundamentals of light, using colour, placement of the human figure in the composition, and rules of engagement to respect our subject. Light, colour, composition, subject: the 4 building blocks of an effective photo. We went through each item in turn, dissecting the real world ways that each played a part, whether you were taking a picture of a protest, a portrait, or a single fleeting moment of humanity on the street.
Perhaps the main lesson I took away was how to handle these sorts of discussions. The ethics of storytelling. If I am documenting something or capturing the face of the girl recently separated from her family after crossing the Mediterranean towards Europe, I am a reporter but I am also a photographer and I have to understand that I have a responsibility to the story and not necessarily the biggest drama. That is something that I think I have learned over the past 17 years on the job, and I was hoping to perhaps share that and pass it on.
And digital data asset management – that’s something most people don’t think of both when it comes to filmmaking and photography. I see that all the time, even with my high-school kids, but obviously I’m editing and producing features films, something that has a run, and something that’s having a life. I’m shooting years and years and years of stuff, and you just have to keep everything organised and ready to go. I just showed them the way I manage my archives here, so I can go do some research and pull up any photo I want in less than a second, for any article I need. It could be for a project sent by Egyptian NGO, or by a Telemundo, or by a News WORLD and News WEEK and News WIRE, or it could just be a personal project of mine.
The training was hands-on, and I wanted everyone to walk out with tools they can use right away. We covered the rule of thirds, the more aesthetic balanced shots, and how to use composition to tell a story. I talked about what it was like on the frontline, about how you can produce images that are meaningful and impactful, but you have to think about your subject ahead of time, and having enough exposure to it makes a difference.
As a reference for anyone who wants learn a little bit more, I’ve added a video to this missive which hopefully replicates many of the bullet points from the training. This is a raw self-reflecting view of what can and has gone into my effort to put something good back not only because the world is absolutely terrible, but also for the sake of my own survival. I hold that all of us who are experts in cultural adaptation to violence be they Afghans, Americans, Iraqis, Canadians or Australians should be teaching. If you have interest in learning about a career-path that reinvents you, please contact me. You can sign up to receive my blog Gunpowder Chronicles on The Course Journal or tune into chalk talks, classes and seminars scheduled on my Eventbrite channel.
This was a course in how to equip others to tell stories that matter, and I hope that the effects of that training mushroom outwards from it. Elizabeth’s storytelling through The Ideas Partnership demonstrates what can be achieved when the tools are used well, and I’m thankful to have been part of that work.
Fantastic to see this seminar come to fruition in the field!