In The News
Assignment S12
Be a photojournalist for a day and cover a local (or national) event with a street photography twist. Imagine that you are working for a current affairs magazine or newspaper and your picture editor has briefed you to produce a set of six images to accompany a feature about the event; this could be an election, a protest or a demonstration, a political rally, or even a disaster of some sort.
A news feature will typically have one headline image, followed by a number of further images to support the story. You headline image will probably be your best and should be striking and attention-grabbing; it should also be able to tell the story with immediate impact. Once you have you shortlist of six images, write a brief caption for each one (‘when, where, what and why’ is a good starting point for captions).
View the images
Technique
- Have a range of focal length lenses (or one or two zooms) in your bag. You can expect to use anything from an extreme wide-angle to a 300mm telephoto for this assignment.
- Your main concern is to make your images different. Look for unusual angles, different viewpoints, or use creative techniques such as slow-sync flash.
- Be consistent; shoot either in black and white or colour, but don’t mix the two.
- Assume that your main image could be used as a magazine cover or on the front page of a newspaper. Think about the orientation of the image and whether you need to make space in your composition for a magazine’s masthead and coverlines.
Field Notes
- If you have some genuinely interesting or newsworthy images at the end of the day, it is worth contacting newspapers or magazines to see if they’re interested in buying them.
- In many countries you have every right to take pictures if you are in a public space, so don’t be bullied by security people or other ‘officials’. However, always be sure to check local laws if you’re shooting outside your home country.
- Try not to get in the way of official press photographers who rely on this sort of work to make their living.
- Major political events often have interesting fringe activities than can present great photo opportunities.