Ni hao sports reporters,
So far, I have recieved articles from Danny, Gini, Peggy, Lucy, Heather, Sebastian, and Darren. I am still waiting on Eric, Rebecca, Angel Lin, Catherine, and Sean. As you see, we now have a blog. We will use this blog to assign things from here on out. Speaking of assisngments...
Go into the teacher's office, and look on the whiteboard. You will see a list of news events for the month of December. During December, there will be lots of Basketb all, but also a Spelling Bee, Table Tennis Tournament (Sean!), and a Scouting event. Most of these events are happening this week (December 8th-12th) so you need to sign up and prepare ASAP!
You may pair up and cover an event. You may also use the camera. Teacher Miranda has it in her desk. If you schedule a time to use it, you are welcome to use it. You know where to find me if you need help.
Jia you!
Bonne chance!
Good luck!
- Mr. Gibson
Monday, December 7, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Introduction to photojournalism
JPROF - James Glen Stovall.Professor of Journalism at the University of Tennessee.
The development of photography in the 1830s was one of the most profound changes that has affected the way we view the world. Photography brings to life people, places, events and other things that we would otherwise have trouble understanding. It has given us a common set of images with which to understand the environment that we do not
The development of photography in the 1830s was one of the most profound changes that has affected the way we view the world. Photography brings to life people, places, events and other things that we would otherwise have trouble understanding. It has given us a common set of images with which to understand the environment that we do not
personally experience.
Photographs – still images – are particularly effective in making a lasting impression on our brains. More than video – moving pictures – photographs allow us to reduce a person, place, event or subject to a manageable set of information that we can carry with us. The “pictures in our heads” have a great deal to do with the way we comprehend and interpret the things in our
larger world.
For all of these reasons, photography is an important part of journalism. It, along with the words that we use, is a vital part of telling the story we have to tell. Photography gives the audience for journalism another dimension of information that they cannot get with words. It often gives life and form to the words that journalists use. It helps to entertain the audience as well as to deep their understanding of the information in a story.
Photography is a way of impressing a story onto the brain of a reader.
Photojournalism became a primary part of journalism soon after the invention of photography in the 1830s. Cameras became a widely popular social phenomenon in the 1840s because they were new and people could have fun with them, but it took journalists less than a generation to recognize what a powerful tool they could be.
One of the first great photojournalists was Matthew Brady, a New York portrait photographer who traveled to many of the battlefields of the American Civil War in the 1860s to record what had happened there. Brady’s images brought home to people who had stayed behind the starkness and horrors of way and helped change the way that people thought about war itself.
But photojournalism during the last part of the 19th century was not an easy thing to accomplish. The equipment required to take a picture was heavy, fragile and unreliable. Developing pictures from the film that had to be used was difficult and tedious. And even when the picture was taken and developed, there was no quick way of printing and distributing it widely because printing presses were developed to use type, not pictures.
These technical problems were gradually mitigated with the development of lighter and more portable cameras (although they were still massive machines compared to the tiny, hand-held cameras we have today). Film and the development process became more standardized, but it was never a particularly easy thing to get a print from film. Most importantly, the half-toning process for printing pictures allowed printers a quick way of getting sharp, clear and detailed images onto presses so they could be widely distributed.
By the middle of the 20th century, photography and photojournalism was an integral and important part of the journalistic process.
Because film photography and development had evolved into a highly precise and technical process, and because the skills to do this were ones that photographers had to hone over many years, photojournalists were slowed to accept digital photography when it became widely available in the 1990s. Digital photography bypassed film and the development process (sometimes called “wet photography”) by recording photos onto electronic disks and then using computers and software to produce the pictures.
Digital photography, from its beginnings, was definitely faster, and as quality equipment became much cheaper, it replaced film photography as the standard operating process for photojournalism. With today’s cameras used in conjunction with the web, photos can be taken and transmitted around the world in a matter of seconds, where that process once took days or even weeks.
The digital revolution in photojournalism ushered in a more profound change in journalism that just being able to take and produce pictures quickly. It brought photography within the reach of every journalist. While some people still consider themselves photojournalists, all journalists must consider themselves photographers. Photography should be a part of every story that every journalists covers.
That means:
· All journalists should understand the basics of good picture taking.
· Journalists should carry a camera and be familiar with its technical aspects.
· Journalists should understand the software for editing photographs and should be very familiar with the process of preparing and uploading photos to the web.
· Most importantly, journalists must integrate photography into their thinking about every story they cover.
Basic concepts of photojournalism
Just about anybody can take a picture. But that doesn’t make the person a photojournalist.
So what does?
Photojournalists understand composition and subject matter and have a goo
d sense of what constitutes an interesting, informative picture. They know about light, exposure and contrast. Most of all, they understand that good pictures require thought and planning and not just the ability to snap a shutter.
Composition mostly refers to the arrangement of elements in a picture. If the elements are arranged statically – that is, suggestion little or no movement – or if they appear as co-equal parts of the picture, they are unlikely to be very interesting to a viewer.
One of the thoughts a photojournalist keeps in mind might be called compositional focus, or emphasis. What is really important about a picture? What needs to be emphasized. Composition can be used to arrange the elements so that what is important about the picture – or what the photographer want to tell the viewers – is emphasized. Sometimes, such arrangements can be made by the way the photographers holds the camera or the area of the subject that he or she chooses to shoot.
Photojournalists look for pictures that contain some of the following characteristics:
· Drama. The picture that says to the view, “Something is going on here,” is likely to hold the viewer’s interest. A single picture rarely tells a complete story, but it can suggest something to the viewer that will hold the viewer’s attention.
· Action. Movement is a great interest-generating element. Viewers understand that in pictures with movement, something happened before and after the picture was taken. What those things are fires the imagination.
· Expression. We think of expression most commonly as being found in people’s faces, and that is certainly correct. But expression can also be found in hands, arms, feet, legs and other parts of the body. The photo that captures expression tells a good story.
· Unusualness. Photographs like to show what people do not normally see. They like to capture the unique or bizarre moments of people’s lives. To find these things, they have to look where other people are not looking and be where most other people are not normally found. And they have to have their camera’s up and ready to shoot.
The technical knowledge that photojournalists must acquire begins with an understanding of two elements that make seeing anything possible: light and contrast.
Photographers should always be aware of the sources of light on their subjects and how light affects the elements in the photo. Natural light is that generated by nature; artificial light is generated by human devices. Natural light is usually stronger and preferred for photography, but it is not always possible to take pictures in natural light.
While light is the reason we can see anything, contrast simply means the difference between the way things look. Contrast is the reason we can differentiate one thing from another. A good range of tones and contrasts makes for an interesting and highly viewable picture.
Another part of the technical knowledge the photographer must acquire is that of the camera, the computer and the software the photographer uses. Photographers understand the limits of their equipment, and good photographers – rather than complaining about the equipment they don’t have – know how to push the equipment available to take the best pictures they can.
Finally, photojournalists must acquire a sense of storytelling that includes an empathy with their subjects. They know that photography is more than technical knowledge about producing pictures and being in the right place at the right time. Good photojournalists prepare and plan their shooting. They apply the knowledge and experience they acquire. They look for what is interesting, and they try to tell stories that are true to their subjects.
The Threes of photojournalism
How do you get from just taking snapshots to being a photojournalist?
The way to get there is to get the two sets of threes embedded in your head: the three kinds of photos and the rule of thirds. Both are simple concepts, but as a photographer, if you think about them as you are shooting your pictures, those pictures will be more interesting and more journalistic.
The first of the set of threes is the three kinds of photos. This refers to the distances the photographer is from the subject:
Long range. Sometimes these are referred to as establishing shots. These pictures taken in a scene in its entirity. They give the viewer a good idea of the environment of the subject of the photograph, but they do not offer much information about the subject itself.
Establishing shots are the kind that most beginning photographers are the most comfortable in taking. They are the least intrusive and allow a photographers to work often without being seen or without anyone taking much note of their presence. Good establishing shots make other photographs more meaningful.
One important thing to keep in mind with establishing shots, however, is that no matter how good the camera is or how wide the angle of the lens that you are using, a camera is never as good as the human eye in seeing the scope of a scene. That is, the eyes always pick of more than the camera does. The camera is a limiting factor in viewing a subject; it is not expansive.
Midrange. These shots bring the photographer closer to the subject and give more specific information about the subject. But they still show the subject within a setting so that the viewer has some idea about the environment in which the subject if placed.
Many of the action shots in sports photography are midrange shots. They show the subject of the photograph with some of the surroundings so that they viewer can understand something of what is going on.
Good midrange photography requires the photographer to move, to change positions, and to shoot from a variety of angles. One of the marks of the rank beginner is that all of the photos are taken from the same spot and the same angle. Good photojournalists move around their subjects and try to find interesting angles and perspectives from which to shoot. They don't mind getting on their knews or lying on their backs or getting on top of tables, chairs or ladders to take interesting and informative pictures.
Close-up. The best and most interesting pictures generally are close-up shots. These pictures bring the viewers face to face with the subject and allow them to get detail information about the subject. Good close-up pictures cut out all of the environmental information about the subject.
Close-up photography is what proves the worth of the photojournalist for the viewer. Photojournalists get near a subject when viewers cannot or are unwilling to go that close. These shots give viewers something of value, something they would not get otherwise.
Getting good close-up shots takes both skill and courage on the part of the photojournalist. While photographers always want to be as unobtrusive as possible, they must sometimes intervene on a scene to take the pictures they need. They risk calling attention to themselves, making their subjects self conscious, or irritating or angering those around them by pursuing close-up shots. But they have to take these risks and suffer the consequences.
The skill, value and commitment of a photojournalist can be measured directly by how close he or she is willing to get to the subject of a photograph.
Rule of thirds
The rule of thirds is a way in which photographers think about the composition of their photographs so that they are more interesting and informative. The rule of thirds helps direct the eye of the viewer in a natural way toward the important parts of the photo. The concept and the application of the rule of thirds are both fairly simple.
Look at a photograph and draw two vertical lines that divide the picture into three equal parts. Do the same thing horizontally, so that you have a tic-tac-toe pattern and the lines intersect in four places. (See the illustration.) Photographers try to put the picture’s center of interest at one of these four spots rather than centering it inside the photo itself.
Using these four points to place the subject gets photographers away from centering every picture. It also allows for a more natural place of the elements inside the composition and allows viewers to see things they might not otherwise see.
The rule of thirds is not meant to be an oppressive concept for photographers. Rather they learn to integrate it into their thinking and use it naturally. As you take more pictures – particularly of a wide variety of subjects – you will begin to see how the rule of third works and how you can use it to your advantage.
Cutlines and captions
Photojournalism is not just about pictures.
Photojournalists are reporters, and they must gather information and use words just like other reporters. Most often, these words are found next to the photos in what the profession most often calls cutlines. (Another term is caption.)
Cutlines are necessary because as good and compelling as a picture might be, it does not explain itself. It can rarely identify the people included in the picture or explain the context of the picture. That’s why photojournalists must include a pen and notebook as an essential part of their equipment, and they must know what other reporters know about gathering information.
Writing cutlines
Cutlines are explanatory and descriptive copy that accompanies pictures. They range widely in style and length, from the one-line identifier called the “skel line” to the full “story” line. Cutlines are necessary to practically all pictures because of the functions they serve: identification, description, explanation and elaboration.
A well-written cutline answers all of a reader’s questions about a picture. What is this picture about? What is its relationship to the story it accompanies? Who are the people in it? Where are the events taking place and when? What does the picture mean? The cutline should answer these and other questions in such a manner that material found in any accompanying story is not repeated verbatim but is reinforced, amplified or highlighted.
The following are some general guidelines for writing cutlines.
· Use the present tense to describe what is in the picture.
· Always double check identifications in a cutline. This rule cannot be stressed too much. Many news organizations have gotten themselves into deep trouble through misidentification of people in a cutline, so cutline writers should take great care.
· Be as specific as possible in cutlines. Add to the reader’s knowledge, and go beyond what the reader can see in the picture. A cutline is useless if it simply tells the reader what can be seen already.
· Try to avoid cutline clichés. “Looking on,” “is pictured” and other such expressions are trite and usually avoidable.
Two general principles should govern an editor’s use of cutlines. One is that every picture should have some kind of a cutline. The words used in the cutline may be few, but they can add enormously to the reader’s understanding of the picture and the story the editor is trying to tell. The second principle is that everyone in a picture should be identified. Unnamed people are not very interesting, and their presence indicates a lack of interest on the part of the editor in doing a thorough job.
Cutlines are important because of the information they contain and because of the way they enhance the appearance of the paper. Cutlines should be simply and clearly written and displayed, and they should be given the same attention by the editors that other parts of the paper receive.
A word about accuracy
The photojournalist’s commitment to providing accurate information is just as strong as that of any other journalist. That’s why photojournalists take great care to get accurate information they can include with their photos. Just as other reporters do, photojournalists check the spelling of all names and places. They quote people accurately, using the words they say and the meanings they want to convey.
And they do not trust their memory. They use a notebook and record information about their photos while they are still on the scene.
Picture stories
The picture story is a news or feature story that uses pictures rather than words as the main vehicle for presenting its information and ideas.
The picture story must be about topics that are inherently visual and that can satisfy the needs of the storyteller and the medium that is used. Picture stories are a standard and long-standing form for print, especially newspapers. Magazines such as Life and Look – which thrived in the mid 20th century – were made up mostly of picture stories.
Those magazines have either died or been greatly diminished, but the picture story is still a powerful medium. The we has given new life to the picture story and in some ways has made it an even more potent storytelling tool.
Photojournalists who want to develop picture stories should take into account the following considerations:
· Central idea. As with any story – text or picture – there should be a central idea that can be stated in one or two sentences. For the picture story, the central idea might be something like this: “This story shows what a farrier has to do to shoe a horse.” (For this example, see http://tnjn.com/2007/mar/01/local-farrier-brings-new-trick/.)
· Who. The people involved in a story are usually the most important elements of that story. The photojournalist should have a clear idea of who is involved in the story and what it will take to get good photographs of them. (Do you need to get permissions before shooting? Etc.) The photojournalist should also think about the relationships between the people involved in the story and be prepared to capture those relationships.
· Where. The location of a story is a most important consideration for the photojournalist. What are the visual settings? How can the three types of photos be taken? What kind of light is in this setting? Do you need permission to photograph in this place?
· Action and movement. What type of actions are involved in this story? The photojournalist must think about what, where and when the actions will be and which of them is important for conveying the story. Getting into position to photograph those actions constitutes good planning and good strategy on the part of the photographer.
· Expression and emotion. Is this a happy story or a sad one? Does this story contain determination, contentment or resignation? Is there excitement generated by this story? If any of these or other emotions are involved, how can they be photographed? The photojournalist tries to capture the major emotions of the story as he or she approaches the subject. The expressions of people in the story are the most common way of getting at these emotions, but they are not the only way. Movement and composition can also convey emotions.
· Order and sequence. This is a particularly important consideration for photo stories that appear on web sites. In there a natural order to the pictures that are being taken? If the story is about an event or process, the natural order might be chronological – from first to last. The subject of the story may dictate another order, however. This is something the photographer should have worked out before the pictures are taken.
Even with these considerations in mind, the photojournalist should always be ready for the surprise and the unexpected thing to happen and should always be ready to snap the shutter.
Photographs – still images – are particularly effective in making a lasting impression on our brains. More than video – moving pictures – photographs allow us to reduce a person, place, event or subject to a manageable set of information that we can carry with us. The “pictures in our heads” have a great deal to do with the way we comprehend and interpret the things in our
larger world.For all of these reasons, photography is an important part of journalism. It, along with the words that we use, is a vital part of telling the story we have to tell. Photography gives the audience for journalism another dimension of information that they cannot get with words. It often gives life and form to the words that journalists use. It helps to entertain the audience as well as to deep their understanding of the information in a story.
Photography is a way of impressing a story onto the brain of a reader.
Photojournalism became a primary part of journalism soon after the invention of photography in the 1830s. Cameras became a widely popular social phenomenon in the 1840s because they were new and people could have fun with them, but it took journalists less than a generation to recognize what a powerful tool they could be.
One of the first great photojournalists was Matthew Brady, a New York portrait photographer who traveled to many of the battlefields of the American Civil War in the 1860s to record what had happened there. Brady’s images brought home to people who had stayed behind the starkness and horrors of way and helped change the way that people thought about war itself.
But photojournalism during the last part of the 19th century was not an easy thing to accomplish. The equipment required to take a picture was heavy, fragile and unreliable. Developing pictures from the film that had to be used was difficult and tedious. And even when the picture was taken and developed, there was no quick way of printing and distributing it widely because printing presses were developed to use type, not pictures.
These technical problems were gradually mitigated with the development of lighter and more portable cameras (although they were still massive machines compared to the tiny, hand-held cameras we have today). Film and the development process became more standardized, but it was never a particularly easy thing to get a print from film. Most importantly, the half-toning process for printing pictures allowed printers a quick way of getting sharp, clear and detailed images onto presses so they could be widely distributed.
By the middle of the 20th century, photography and photojournalism was an integral and important part of the journalistic process.
Because film photography and development had evolved into a highly precise and technical process, and because the skills to do this were ones that photographers had to hone over many years, photojournalists were slowed to accept digital photography when it became widely available in the 1990s. Digital photography bypassed film and the development process (sometimes called “wet photography”) by recording photos onto electronic disks and then using computers and software to produce the pictures.
Digital photography, from its beginnings, was definitely faster, and as quality equipment became much cheaper, it replaced film photography as the standard operating process for photojournalism. With today’s cameras used in conjunction with the web, photos can be taken and transmitted around the world in a matter of seconds, where that process once took days or even weeks.
The digital revolution in photojournalism ushered in a more profound change in journalism that just being able to take and produce pictures quickly. It brought photography within the reach of every journalist. While some people still consider themselves photojournalists, all journalists must consider themselves photographers. Photography should be a part of every story that every journalists covers.
That means:
· All journalists should understand the basics of good picture taking.
· Journalists should carry a camera and be familiar with its technical aspects.
· Journalists should understand the software for editing photographs and should be very familiar with the process of preparing and uploading photos to the web.
· Most importantly, journalists must integrate photography into their thinking about every story they cover.
Basic concepts of photojournalism
Just about anybody can take a picture. But that doesn’t make the person a photojournalist.
So what does?
Photojournalists understand composition and subject matter and have a goo
d sense of what constitutes an interesting, informative picture. They know about light, exposure and contrast. Most of all, they understand that good pictures require thought and planning and not just the ability to snap a shutter.Composition mostly refers to the arrangement of elements in a picture. If the elements are arranged statically – that is, suggestion little or no movement – or if they appear as co-equal parts of the picture, they are unlikely to be very interesting to a viewer.
One of the thoughts a photojournalist keeps in mind might be called compositional focus, or emphasis. What is really important about a picture? What needs to be emphasized. Composition can be used to arrange the elements so that what is important about the picture – or what the photographer want to tell the viewers – is emphasized. Sometimes, such arrangements can be made by the way the photographers holds the camera or the area of the subject that he or she chooses to shoot.
Photojournalists look for pictures that contain some of the following characteristics:
· Drama. The picture that says to the view, “Something is going on here,” is likely to hold the viewer’s interest. A single picture rarely tells a complete story, but it can suggest something to the viewer that will hold the viewer’s attention.
· Action. Movement is a great interest-generating element. Viewers understand that in pictures with movement, something happened before and after the picture was taken. What those things are fires the imagination.
· Expression. We think of expression most commonly as being found in people’s faces, and that is certainly correct. But expression can also be found in hands, arms, feet, legs and other parts of the body. The photo that captures expression tells a good story.
· Unusualness. Photographs like to show what people do not normally see. They like to capture the unique or bizarre moments of people’s lives. To find these things, they have to look where other people are not looking and be where most other people are not normally found. And they have to have their camera’s up and ready to shoot.
The technical knowledge that photojournalists must acquire begins with an understanding of two elements that make seeing anything possible: light and contrast.
Photographers should always be aware of the sources of light on their subjects and how light affects the elements in the photo. Natural light is that generated by nature; artificial light is generated by human devices. Natural light is usually stronger and preferred for photography, but it is not always possible to take pictures in natural light.
While light is the reason we can see anything, contrast simply means the difference between the way things look. Contrast is the reason we can differentiate one thing from another. A good range of tones and contrasts makes for an interesting and highly viewable picture.
Another part of the technical knowledge the photographer must acquire is that of the camera, the computer and the software the photographer uses. Photographers understand the limits of their equipment, and good photographers – rather than complaining about the equipment they don’t have – know how to push the equipment available to take the best pictures they can.
Finally, photojournalists must acquire a sense of storytelling that includes an empathy with their subjects. They know that photography is more than technical knowledge about producing pictures and being in the right place at the right time. Good photojournalists prepare and plan their shooting. They apply the knowledge and experience they acquire. They look for what is interesting, and they try to tell stories that are true to their subjects.
The Threes of photojournalism
How do you get from just taking snapshots to being a photojournalist?
The way to get there is to get the two sets of threes embedded in your head: the three kinds of photos and the rule of thirds. Both are simple concepts, but as a photographer, if you think about them as you are shooting your pictures, those pictures will be more interesting and more journalistic.
The first of the set of threes is the three kinds of photos. This refers to the distances the photographer is from the subject:
Long range. Sometimes these are referred to as establishing shots. These pictures taken in a scene in its entirity. They give the viewer a good idea of the environment of the subject of the photograph, but they do not offer much information about the subject itself.
Establishing shots are the kind that most beginning photographers are the most comfortable in taking. They are the least intrusive and allow a photographers to work often without being seen or without anyone taking much note of their presence. Good establishing shots make other photographs more meaningful.
One important thing to keep in mind with establishing shots, however, is that no matter how good the camera is or how wide the angle of the lens that you are using, a camera is never as good as the human eye in seeing the scope of a scene. That is, the eyes always pick of more than the camera does. The camera is a limiting factor in viewing a subject; it is not expansive.
Midrange. These shots bring the photographer closer to the subject and give more specific information about the subject. But they still show the subject within a setting so that the viewer has some idea about the environment in which the subject if placed.
Many of the action shots in sports photography are midrange shots. They show the subject of the photograph with some of the surroundings so that they viewer can understand something of what is going on.
Good midrange photography requires the photographer to move, to change positions, and to shoot from a variety of angles. One of the marks of the rank beginner is that all of the photos are taken from the same spot and the same angle. Good photojournalists move around their subjects and try to find interesting angles and perspectives from which to shoot. They don't mind getting on their knews or lying on their backs or getting on top of tables, chairs or ladders to take interesting and informative pictures.
Close-up. The best and most interesting pictures generally are close-up shots. These pictures bring the viewers face to face with the subject and allow them to get detail information about the subject. Good close-up pictures cut out all of the environmental information about the subject.
Close-up photography is what proves the worth of the photojournalist for the viewer. Photojournalists get near a subject when viewers cannot or are unwilling to go that close. These shots give viewers something of value, something they would not get otherwise.
Getting good close-up shots takes both skill and courage on the part of the photojournalist. While photographers always want to be as unobtrusive as possible, they must sometimes intervene on a scene to take the pictures they need. They risk calling attention to themselves, making their subjects self conscious, or irritating or angering those around them by pursuing close-up shots. But they have to take these risks and suffer the consequences.
The skill, value and commitment of a photojournalist can be measured directly by how close he or she is willing to get to the subject of a photograph.
Rule of thirds
The rule of thirds is a way in which photographers think about the composition of their photographs so that they are more interesting and informative. The rule of thirds helps direct the eye of the viewer in a natural way toward the important parts of the photo. The concept and the application of the rule of thirds are both fairly simple.
Look at a photograph and draw two vertical lines that divide the picture into three equal parts. Do the same thing horizontally, so that you have a tic-tac-toe pattern and the lines intersect in four places. (See the illustration.) Photographers try to put the picture’s center of interest at one of these four spots rather than centering it inside the photo itself.
Using these four points to place the subject gets photographers away from centering every picture. It also allows for a more natural place of the elements inside the composition and allows viewers to see things they might not otherwise see.
The rule of thirds is not meant to be an oppressive concept for photographers. Rather they learn to integrate it into their thinking and use it naturally. As you take more pictures – particularly of a wide variety of subjects – you will begin to see how the rule of third works and how you can use it to your advantage.
Cutlines and captions
Photojournalism is not just about pictures.
Photojournalists are reporters, and they must gather information and use words just like other reporters. Most often, these words are found next to the photos in what the profession most often calls cutlines. (Another term is caption.)
Cutlines are necessary because as good and compelling as a picture might be, it does not explain itself. It can rarely identify the people included in the picture or explain the context of the picture. That’s why photojournalists must include a pen and notebook as an essential part of their equipment, and they must know what other reporters know about gathering information.
Writing cutlines
Cutlines are explanatory and descriptive copy that accompanies pictures. They range widely in style and length, from the one-line identifier called the “skel line” to the full “story” line. Cutlines are necessary to practically all pictures because of the functions they serve: identification, description, explanation and elaboration.
A well-written cutline answers all of a reader’s questions about a picture. What is this picture about? What is its relationship to the story it accompanies? Who are the people in it? Where are the events taking place and when? What does the picture mean? The cutline should answer these and other questions in such a manner that material found in any accompanying story is not repeated verbatim but is reinforced, amplified or highlighted.
The following are some general guidelines for writing cutlines.
· Use the present tense to describe what is in the picture.
· Always double check identifications in a cutline. This rule cannot be stressed too much. Many news organizations have gotten themselves into deep trouble through misidentification of people in a cutline, so cutline writers should take great care.
· Be as specific as possible in cutlines. Add to the reader’s knowledge, and go beyond what the reader can see in the picture. A cutline is useless if it simply tells the reader what can be seen already.
· Try to avoid cutline clichés. “Looking on,” “is pictured” and other such expressions are trite and usually avoidable.
Two general principles should govern an editor’s use of cutlines. One is that every picture should have some kind of a cutline. The words used in the cutline may be few, but they can add enormously to the reader’s understanding of the picture and the story the editor is trying to tell. The second principle is that everyone in a picture should be identified. Unnamed people are not very interesting, and their presence indicates a lack of interest on the part of the editor in doing a thorough job.
Cutlines are important because of the information they contain and because of the way they enhance the appearance of the paper. Cutlines should be simply and clearly written and displayed, and they should be given the same attention by the editors that other parts of the paper receive.
A word about accuracy
The photojournalist’s commitment to providing accurate information is just as strong as that of any other journalist. That’s why photojournalists take great care to get accurate information they can include with their photos. Just as other reporters do, photojournalists check the spelling of all names and places. They quote people accurately, using the words they say and the meanings they want to convey.
And they do not trust their memory. They use a notebook and record information about their photos while they are still on the scene.
Picture stories
The picture story is a news or feature story that uses pictures rather than words as the main vehicle for presenting its information and ideas.
The picture story must be about topics that are inherently visual and that can satisfy the needs of the storyteller and the medium that is used. Picture stories are a standard and long-standing form for print, especially newspapers. Magazines such as Life and Look – which thrived in the mid 20th century – were made up mostly of picture stories.
Those magazines have either died or been greatly diminished, but the picture story is still a powerful medium. The we has given new life to the picture story and in some ways has made it an even more potent storytelling tool.
Photojournalists who want to develop picture stories should take into account the following considerations:
· Central idea. As with any story – text or picture – there should be a central idea that can be stated in one or two sentences. For the picture story, the central idea might be something like this: “This story shows what a farrier has to do to shoe a horse.” (For this example, see http://tnjn.com/2007/mar/01/local-farrier-brings-new-trick/.)
· Who. The people involved in a story are usually the most important elements of that story. The photojournalist should have a clear idea of who is involved in the story and what it will take to get good photographs of them. (Do you need to get permissions before shooting? Etc.) The photojournalist should also think about the relationships between the people involved in the story and be prepared to capture those relationships.
· Where. The location of a story is a most important consideration for the photojournalist. What are the visual settings? How can the three types of photos be taken? What kind of light is in this setting? Do you need permission to photograph in this place?
· Action and movement. What type of actions are involved in this story? The photojournalist must think about what, where and when the actions will be and which of them is important for conveying the story. Getting into position to photograph those actions constitutes good planning and good strategy on the part of the photographer.
· Expression and emotion. Is this a happy story or a sad one? Does this story contain determination, contentment or resignation? Is there excitement generated by this story? If any of these or other emotions are involved, how can they be photographed? The photojournalist tries to capture the major emotions of the story as he or she approaches the subject. The expressions of people in the story are the most common way of getting at these emotions, but they are not the only way. Movement and composition can also convey emotions.
· Order and sequence. This is a particularly important consideration for photo stories that appear on web sites. In there a natural order to the pictures that are being taken? If the story is about an event or process, the natural order might be chronological – from first to last. The subject of the story may dictate another order, however. This is something the photographer should have worked out before the pictures are taken.
Even with these considerations in mind, the photojournalist should always be ready for the surprise and the unexpected thing to happen and should always be ready to snap the shutter.
The MingDao Muse
Introduction
Mission Statement:
We propose to publish an educational, entertaining and expressive school newspaper that promotes innovative and independent ideas. We aim to produce a platform for the growth of journalism ethics and abilities in our reporting of Ming Dao’s environment.
The Ming Dao Muse will be an eight page community newspaper and the first issue will be published as a Christmas Special. There four ‘beats’ or themes and you will choose to be part of one of them. Choose which one you are interested in!
1. Science and Environment R. Antony/H. Mather Jennifer
2. Arts, History and Culture V. Tompkins/ C. Lai Annie
3. English, literature and review M. Poole/ C. Barker Annie
4. Sports M. Gibson Gini
Another team you can choose is one of the most important and requires reading and good grammar skills. This is the Copy – Editing team, under Joe Peters, who will correct your structure and make headlines for your articles.
The Editorial, Front Page Stories, Vox Pops and other newspaper ‘fillers’ will be chosen near the end of the process. If you want to be part of this, say so early on and you will be given special stories to cover.
Each section will have a section editor and a GCP Teacher to direct and advise you. Your teacher will not do the writing for you, but will help you form viable ideas and support you. The GCP 9 Journalism Elective students will also be section editors as well as senior reporters.
There will be a role for everybody in the team and it must be stressed that making a newspaper is a team effort and not all about seeing your name in print. There are many important behind the scene roles that are vital to the very function of the paper. This ‘job’ and experience will also benefit your resumes as universities and employers are more and more turning to well balanced individuals who are strong in sports and culture and considered good all- rounder’s. There are numerous skills that you will learn along the journey including people skills, writing, editing, grammar, law and ethical practice, critical thinking and analysis, record keeping and note taking and the forming of unbiased opinion just to name a few.
This is an opportunity for you to learn about your friends, your school, and your life. It is also time for you to have your own voice and ideas and to share this with hundreds of people. This is YOUR newspaper and you know what you want to read, so have fun with it
The Newsroom Process
Newspaper 1 MEETING DATES AND DEADLINES
November 5, 2009. – Meeting Block 7 INTRODUCTION
November 19, 2009. – Meeting Block 6. FIRST DRAFTS DUE
COPYWRITING PROCESS
November 26, 2009- Meeting REWRITES, EXTRA STORIES
START DESIGN, PHOTOS
December 10, 2009 FINAL STORIES, XMAS SUPPLEMENT
December 18, 2009 PUBLISH AND CIRCULATE
***PLEASE NOTE THAT DEADLINES ARE VERY VERY IMPORTANT. IF YOU MISS THE TIME, YOU MIGHT NOT SEE YOUR NAME IN PRINT. BE ORGANISED AND PREPARED****
Contact: Please speak to your section teacher or team leader if you have any problems. Your first draft articles must be emailed directly to me so that I can send them forward.
Editor: Victoria Tompkins ms.tompkins@yahoo.co.uk
Mission Statement:
We propose to publish an educational, entertaining and expressive school newspaper that promotes innovative and independent ideas. We aim to produce a platform for the growth of journalism ethics and abilities in our reporting of Ming Dao’s environment.
The Ming Dao Muse will be an eight page community newspaper and the first issue will be published as a Christmas Special. There four ‘beats’ or themes and you will choose to be part of one of them. Choose which one you are interested in!
1. Science and Environment R. Antony/H. Mather Jennifer
2. Arts, History and Culture V. Tompkins/ C. Lai Annie
3. English, literature and review M. Poole/ C. Barker Annie
4. Sports M. Gibson Gini
Another team you can choose is one of the most important and requires reading and good grammar skills. This is the Copy – Editing team, under Joe Peters, who will correct your structure and make headlines for your articles.
The Editorial, Front Page Stories, Vox Pops and other newspaper ‘fillers’ will be chosen near the end of the process. If you want to be part of this, say so early on and you will be given special stories to cover.
Each section will have a section editor and a GCP Teacher to direct and advise you. Your teacher will not do the writing for you, but will help you form viable ideas and support you. The GCP 9 Journalism Elective students will also be section editors as well as senior reporters.
There will be a role for everybody in the team and it must be stressed that making a newspaper is a team effort and not all about seeing your name in print. There are many important behind the scene roles that are vital to the very function of the paper. This ‘job’ and experience will also benefit your resumes as universities and employers are more and more turning to well balanced individuals who are strong in sports and culture and considered good all- rounder’s. There are numerous skills that you will learn along the journey including people skills, writing, editing, grammar, law and ethical practice, critical thinking and analysis, record keeping and note taking and the forming of unbiased opinion just to name a few.
This is an opportunity for you to learn about your friends, your school, and your life. It is also time for you to have your own voice and ideas and to share this with hundreds of people. This is YOUR newspaper and you know what you want to read, so have fun with it
The Newsroom Process
The newsroom flow chart will be as follows:
Newspaper 1 MEETING DATES AND DEADLINES
November 5, 2009. – Meeting Block 7 INTRODUCTION
November 19, 2009. – Meeting Block 6. FIRST DRAFTS DUE
COPYWRITING PROCESS
November 26, 2009- Meeting REWRITES, EXTRA STORIES
START DESIGN, PHOTOS
December 10, 2009 FINAL STORIES, XMAS SUPPLEMENT
December 18, 2009 PUBLISH AND CIRCULATE
***PLEASE NOTE THAT DEADLINES ARE VERY VERY IMPORTANT. IF YOU MISS THE TIME, YOU MIGHT NOT SEE YOUR NAME IN PRINT. BE ORGANISED AND PREPARED****
Contact: Please speak to your section teacher or team leader if you have any problems. Your first draft articles must be emailed directly to me so that I can send them forward.
Editor: Victoria Tompkins ms.tompkins@yahoo.co.uk
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