201 photographs I made in the FLDS house in Westcliffe, Colorado, as several women sliced and bagged strawberries.
Someone sent me a question about editing, asking, “How do you know that ‘this is the photo‘??? Just wondering if it’s a great talent, or does it just look good or what?”
There are two steps to finding the great photo: Shooting and Editing.
1. Shooting. When I’m photographing a situation like this, I’m looking for the three things that make up a great documentary photograph.
A. Dramatic and storytelling elements (the content). Obviously there will be few dramatic moments when the subject is food preparation, but there might be small moments where people interact or show a little emotion (a laugh, a smile, etc.)
Storytelling elements in this case that would be things like the portraits of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs on the wall and the unique hairstyles and dress of the women in the photo above. Another storytelling element present is the communal effort, so showing a lot of people in the photograph illustrates that.
B. Graphic design (the art).
This photograph has strong lines, coupled with the moment of the boys grabbing a snack.
Good graphic design to me is clean and functional, drawing the viewer’s eye across the image and to the points you want to emphasize without including a lot of distracting elements. In this situation the better photographs have a nice design and structure to them, and that’s what will separate the good from the bad.
C. Good technique (great lighting, perfect exposure and focus).
In today’s modern fluorescent world, good light indoors is hard to come by. So when I noticed the light coming through the window on this young woman’s face, I worked it for a while shooting a lot of loose and tight frames. It’s certainly not amazing light, but it’s a small detail that makes it a better photograph.
I know that these three examples are very subtle examples of the concepts I’m talking about. But maybe that will help you to look closely at what makes them stand out. That’s how I look at photographs. I look at all of the small details that make up the photograph. And the best photographs are strong in all three categories (content, art, and technique).
2. Editing. Now the shoot is over and I have to go through the photographs to find what I like. As you can see in the big image up top, when photographing I’ll work an angle for quite a while as I try to make the best photograph I can from a promising situation. Some work and some don’t. But it’s only in the editing phase that you find out for sure.
In the editing workflow, I’ll take the photos from any given angle and look at them all, eliminating the weaker ones until I am down to the strongest (the selects). After pulling selects the entire take I’ll look at them all and whittle that set down to a final set, which hopefully are the best of the shoot.
In my own workflow, I like to edit quickly, acting on instinct. Too much pondering gets me stuck and takes me away from the way that photographs are absorbed by readers (instantly, for the most part). But to be honest, sometimes I can’t decide between two photographs. That’s where a second opinion becomes very valuable. My colleagues and photo editors have always been a big help in that regard.
Here and now I’m presenting the awards for the past two weeks spent covering the polygamy raid in Texas. I fully recognize that all of you involved (media, CPS, FLDS) were deserving of some award or another, and I had a hard time narrowing it down to these finalists. So if you didn’t win (or if you did), remember that it’s all in fun. As they say at the YFZ schoolhouse: We’re all about smiles around here!
Most unobtrusive photographer in a pink shirt with a wet towel on his head:
Sweatiest hairy neck on a hot day:
Best judge-shielding by a baliff:
Best photo of man holding a box:
Best photo of Willie Jessop where he appears to be walking into a pole with a small human head growing out of his shoulder:
Best onion:
Worst case of microphone assault:
Most ironic use of yellow tape during a CPS press conference:
Worst place to sit on a 106 degree day: Between two hot grills at the Japanese Steak House.
Worst food product ever bought at a gas station: Fried green beans in Eldorado.
Photographer hustle award:
Best souvenir: A business card I collected. But I can’t tell you whose it is.
Favorite quote uttered at an Italian restaurant: “If the families won at the Supreme Court, why are they losing?”
Worst shady place to park on a stakeout the Schleicher County Courthouse when you need to be able to clearly see the front door:
Cutest couple: Aw, come on. Too easy of a joke.
Funniest (and only) ten minutes of television I watched in two weeks: The Nancy Grace Show.
Best day off: No award given.
Since I’ve got nothing right now (write now), here are a few of the best things from elsewhere.
1. World Press Photo Interviews. A new set of video interviews where the winners of the top international photojournalism competition talk about capturing their award-winning photographs.
2. PDN Photo Annual 2008 Gallery. Some of the best photography from the past year, collected into galleries. Advertising, Editorial, Books, Photojournalism/Sports/Documentary, Corporate, Personal Work, Stock, Web, Student Work. Always a great resource, and you can pick up a printed copy for around $12 at any bookstore. Get it quick.
3. Raw Take Interview with James Whitlow Delano. I’m always down for any photographer who goes out and does thing their own way, without regard to conventional wisdom. Delano’s style literally makes his black and white photographs glow. Along with the photographs is a thought-provoking interview, as Raw Take always seems to deliver.
If you want to keep up on stuff like this on a daily basis, you can always check out my link site The Click, which is updated continually.
My thanks to Davis goalkeeper J.T. Webster. This guy was all over the place vs. Skyline, making leaping saves, diving saves, and putting his head in the way of several pairs of flying cleats.
Give me a cloudy day and a soccer game anytime, especially with a goalkeeper like Webster.
The site Raw Take published an interview with Sydney Morning Herald sports photojournalist Tim Clayton today. Clayton excels at his craft, and is known as one of the best. This interview is so good, so healthy. He says a lot of important things that everyone should hear (photographers, editors, reporters, readers, etc.)
Some of my favorite quotes:
We are like most newspapers, run by word people for word people. Generally they want pictures for ten-year-olds and have little or no understanding of photojournalism at the top level. The paper has no space for story telling through photo essays.
He said it, not me.
What has actually happened is many photographers have evolved beyond the wants and needs of the newspaper. We are shooting stories that don’t get published and shooting personal projects to keep our brains stimulated. The ‘cat sat on the mat’ images pay the bills. In many ways it is a sad reflection of photojournalism today, there are so few places where top end photojournalism can be seen.
This is a great statement. I know photographers who have so much to contribute but they’ve given up. They see a lack of support and devote their energy and passion to personal projects away from their newspaper, shortchanging the reader of their finest work. And year after year some of the best work recognized in contests was unpublished for whatever reason.
it’s all about attitude. In the UK where I learned my trade, they used to say “You are only as good as your last picture,” in Australia they say “You are only as good as your next picture.” Attitude is everything!
What a great line. Why didn’t I ever realize that the “only as good as your last picture” line that I’ve heard for years was complete crap?
I had about six more quotes that I wanted to put into this post, but why don’t you read them at the Raw Take site instead of mine. Here’s the link to the interview: http://rawtake.net/2008/03/30/tim-clayton-sydney-morning-herald/
March is Shakespeare time at the boys’ school. Days of memorizing lines, sewing costumes, building sets. It’s really fun watching my kids quote from The Tempest or MacBeth.
But being the photographer dad isn’t always as fun. I’ve taken photographs of these plays over the past couple of years and never really got anything I liked, let alone anything I wanted to share with the other kids’ parents. It’s always very dark and more than anything I’m wanting to watch rather than photograph. Then I’m faced with the dilemma of getting a good shot of every single kid. It’s impossible.
I was faced with that dilemma again this year as I sat in the front row before the 6th grade production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. How was I going to make meaningful photographs of this play, in this dark classroom, with a cast of thirteen kids coming and going?
Some other parents walked into the room, looked around and said, “Wow, look at the set. How beautiful!”
That’s when the lightbulb went on and I knew exactly how I wanted to photograph the play. Here is the result:
As always with my composites, I wish you could see the 13×30 inch print sitting on my desk right now. Way better than the 550 pixel version.
