As discussed in the previous post Breaking the fourth wall - it’s rare these days that you’d be the only person with a camera at a newsworthy event. This means you should try and cover it differently from the pack, especially if you want to get some strong or memorable images, or those that simply have a bit more longevity than a breaking news photo.
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Imagine the scene, there’s a big demonstration going on, tension is rising, your presence isn’t particularly welcomed by either the demonstrators, or the law enforcement present at the scene. Your job is to get the shot that your editor wants, and to get the shot that best documents and sums up the scene, as well as those including any message being conveyed, and the atmosphere.
From my humble experience, I’d say you likely need to cover all of these options - don’t stand about being lazy, keep wandering about with your eyes open. Get close and get any direct confrontation between police and demonstrator (or between the opposing demonstrators), those are the dramatic shots, BUT don’t forget to get the quieter images - those that aren’t the most expected or obvious.
Think about small details - placards on the floor, one a person to isolate amongst the crowds, change your angle (go low for more drama and more background/sky, and go high for more scale). Importantly, it’s always nice for the viewer to see close up details of one person, or a small group amongst the crowd, and sometimes people don’t even need to be included, just what they’ve left behind for example.
I’ve included an example of covering one quite mundane event from different perspectives and angles below…
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Sometimes I’ve purposely decided not to include people at all, like the Migration Memories series I shot (below), alongside the more classical photojournalism of refugees and migrants arriving on Greek islands in 2015. I took this approach to the series as it was much less obvious or expected, but still hopefully conveys the subject, topic, and point of the images.
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This is also something my work has done in series like Syrian Nakba - and I like thinking of ways to cover heavily covered topics and events, in visually new ways. Pushing the barriers of what is classed as photojournalism is also fun. One of my favourite photographers doing this is Richard Mosse. His work brings in various unusual visual techniques to tackle many social and political issues around the world, and due to his imaginative approaches, usually ends up being more interesting and powerful than the bog standard type of imagery on the same topics.
Below are a few other attempts of mine, at making a large scale event seem more personal and relatable. Captions below the images.
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In short - it’s always wise to look at every event and situation you’re covering, and trying to get as many angles out of it as you can. Don’t worry about what the other photographers are up to, do your own thing. The worst feeling is imagining those photographs you could have got, but didn’t, for whatever reason. When planning a project and imagining what kind of visuals you’ll want/need/be able to get during the reporting, always take a step back and think about how else it could be done, you’ll probably thank yourself for it later, when you’re editing.
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Until the next post - happy wandering!
Bradley