I wanted to write about Jonathan Harris for quite some time. I love his work and what he tries to find or tell with it. He has done some amazing data-visualisation projects like We feel fine, I want you to want me or Sputnik, but what I think is his most interesting work are projects with a clear storytelling approach and giving the user some chance to find their own way through the story. The Whale Hunt is such a project. Harris was taking a photograph every five minutes on a journey to a Eskimo family in Alaska and joined them on their Whale Hunt. Like a heartbeat he was rising the number of photographs in moments of excitement. The user can now choose characters, topics and heartbeat to create an individual story.

Another project, what apparently never got published, is called Balloons of Bhutan. The project collected interviews with 117 people in Bhutan about happiness. Harris was talking about that in a TED talk (below). Many of it reminds me of the ideas we had when we developed our project HUMANS.

His latest project is called Today and is something what became somehow a fashion in the last year. A daily photo project that he started when he turned 30 to remember and collect his own stories in life. Some great pictures and a interesting narrative in the video.

“I wanted to find a way to be more in the moment, to be more in every day; to understand time more and to understand my life more, to have more memories — all of these things. Basically, to live more richly, as a human life, not just as a work life.”       ~ Jonathan Harris

“No matter what you do in your life, what you create, what career you have, whether you have a family or kids, or make a lot of money… your greatest creation is always going to be your life’s story. Because it’s like this container that holds all of those other things. That was something I was really interested in with this project, thinking about life itself as a creation, as a story that you’re writing.”

~ Jonathan Harris

A lesson worth listening to: David LaBelle on storytelling.
Produced by Francis Gardler

“I think that’s what’s missing in most photojournalism. For a lot of photographers it’s about “my” pictures or it’s “my” story. And it’s not. They don’t have the sensitivity or the emphasisaty that they need for the people that they are photographing. They are too distant. And again, it’s too much about light, it’s too much about composition. And it’s not about living as a human being with the same fears and the same dreams that we all share.”

And if you like to learn more in the full film, here we go:

Recently, when I had Benjamin Chesterton of duckrabbit fame back in Copenhagen for a visit, we had a long talk about what drives photography in the photojournalism biz (You can hear a bit of it in the Skype talk we had a week later here). Aesthetics are for sure one of the driving forces in photography. And it is also alright, but the question is more, what comes first. What is more important to you? The story you want to tell or your aesthetic expression of it? The artist or the subject?

A lot of photographers I know, tell me that they love photography and are not so interested in other forms of media like audio and video for instance. Also that is alright of course, but talking about my own motivation, I use these forms not first, because I’m interested in them, but because they allow me in certain stories just another, sometimes better way to tell the story. Take a story like the one of Clotide, only the combination of the different forms give you the depth the story deserves. The pictures might tell a good part, but they are capturing the moment, not the history. The audio gives another layer to it and the video as well. So we get more of the story. So that was in this case the main reason for recording the story in that way.

But what has that to do with the aesthetics? In this example the story came first, the use of media and also the use of visual language, aesthetics came second to find a way to tell the story in the best way I could do. But what would have happened if I would have put the aesthetics first? I would used maybe a certain style that I like, like always open aperture or everything with 1/4 of a second to get things blurred moving or I would have thought of some series to do, like portraits at any place that is important to her. Light, lines, shapes would have maybe become more important than what we see in the pictures. I would have way more been on a track to actually create art and not tell a story. That does not mean that aesthetics are not important, but I think we should think more of what we want to tell rather than how we could make a compelling picture. The compelling picture is for the ego first, the story is about the person, not about us.

I remember one day in this old school in Rwanda where during the genocide 50.000 people were killed. Part of the dead bodies are conserved in the rooms and I was there to take photographs. A horrific place and the purpose of taking pictures was the only thing that kept me from emotionally breaking down while I was there. Later I was looking at the pictures and it striked me that some of them had this powerful aesthetics in it, what I loved at that time. Today I look at them and I’m not sure if I did a good job. Aesthetically, ya, maybe, but did I tell the story properly? I’m not sure. Another picture is nothing less than a lie for me today. There is nothing staged or so, but it is a lie, because of where it takes people that look at it. While I was in one of the rooms, I saw this big dirty part on the wall (no painting or something like that) that looked a bit like Africa in it’s form. With the head of one of the bodies in the foreground, a picture would create a powerful connection and tell a story. I was fascinated by that at the time. Easy to tell, easy to understand. But what I created was a stereotypical lie about Africa and the perception of the continent in the western world. It is just another excuse to make it easy to see no need to learn and understand more of the continent or ask.

This example is not only about aesthetics, but about how easy it could be to be driven to simplify or even lie with your pictures, when it makes a compelling image. There are thousands of examples for that out there, especially from the developing world. But isn’t it time to move on from that? Photojournalism is full of those lies and it does not have to be staged or over-photoshopped to make aesthetics taking the lead over the story or to tell lies in the worst case. Photography is highly subjective, but that is why a business like photojournalism can only can only be important in any way when integrity and the story comes first and is what drives the aesthetics. As long as we celebrate “style over substance” as Benjamin called it, we are moving photojournalism into art galleries and make it a club for itself, but with no further value for someone who is not interested in photography but in pictures as a form of communication as the pictures don’t tell me enough or something new. They just encourage to keep the relaxed picture in black and white of the developing world and don’t start thinking further or even ask questions.

Once in a while you stumble across something what blows your mind. I’m normally not patient enough for watching movies on the internet. And nowadays where everyone thinks just because he can shoot with a DSLR and put some music around it he is doing documentary, most of the stuff is looking nice, but has no storytelling value. It reminds me that craft comes first, not the tools. Cinema is not great because it looks great, but because it tells great stories. And stories are what drives me in my work. And it drives me to get better in telling them, in all aspects, what also includes the beautiful look of DSLR film, where i hope it will bring a new future to documentary film and also multimedia productions. We just have to learn to use it right. Depth of field is not the only value and only another tool, what could help us to tell stories. Anyway, a good example for great storytelling, great use of the different tools, we can use to tell the story from audio to depth of field, is brought to us by the folks at the project ‘California is a place.’. This stuff is amazing. And everyone can learn from it, for sure.

Cannonball is one of the four great shortfilms online right now. I love the slow, but at the same time so engaging storytelling at the start. You only see pictures, but the sound does the trick, creating a picture in our minds before we see it. Then we hear a voice from the off talking about the empty pools. It takes one minute till we get the first hints that it’s about skating pools and it’s not before minute two that we actually see the first skater. That is a lot of time for a internet video. The whole atmosphere is really meditative, but at the same time the story is slowly developing, no breaks. At minute five they actually start to skate, short before the end of the film. But still you feel like as if you watched a film about skating. Just without the skating action being a big part. I can only recommend to you to check the website for the project here for more compelling stories. A must-see.

“In moments of crisis, I myself have never greatly trusted words” – Laurens van der Post

As photographers we sometimes like to think about our pictures as art or at least as something with a high value. Or something very important, when it is about telling stories. And thinking in a commercial way, the value of the photograph that is used for an ad campain is high, without a doubt. Reason number one: It reaches a big audience that hopefully will react on the advertising. But what is the value of our pictures when we do documentary work? When we take pictures of lifes and areas in crisis? It is important and i think everyone who is doing this job is first of all believing in that this is important and no one is doing it for the money that in the business, as there is not much of it. This is not getting a ground discussion of the meaning of photojournalism and documentary photography, this are some thoughts of what value we bring to NGOs, as potential clients, with our work.

Let’s switch a bit between the perspective of a photographer and of an NGO. What are their motivations and why is visual media in general a good way to communicate? A NGO has normally one major goal: It wants to help people in one way or another. For that they normally also have a true motivation to create awareness for the issues, as more awareness means more people that might donate or support the efforts in other ways. And this is the part where the media comes in. I always think about my work as a form of communication. I don’t consider myself an artist in the classical way. I try to create something aesthetic to attract and move as many people as possible. I want to tell the stories, but if you want to reach people the aesthetics is one major part beside others. NGOs want to tell the stories, about the people’s situations (to create awareness that there is a need to help), about their projects (to show what is done) and what is achieved (to show that it actually works). How can photography help there? It is quite obvious that there is a big chance that pictures reach people more directly as most people learn visually. Another reason is for visual media as a form of communication are the high-paced times we live in. Most people will barely read a long report from projects or crisis (especially not on the internet), and if, it might be way harder the emotionally reach them. Helping someone is first of all highly emotional. Politicians might support countries for rational reasons, but what is the rational reason for a single person for supporting a godchild somewhere in Africa? Pictures or video have the power to give people the understanding of a situation they could only imagine when they read about it. It is more direct and therefore maybe also more emotional. So we as photographers seem to be on the right side. There should be a high value in commissioning a photographer to document projects or crisis a NGO is working in. But why isn’t it like that? Why are many NGO are barely paying for photography?

One of the reasons is that especially photography was easy to reach for them. Photojournalists were paid by magazines and could offer some of their pictures and/or time for free. That is today barley the fact. So why pay for something a lot of money when you could get it for free? That is especially for the bigger NGOs the case, i think, as they also have more contacts to photographers, could offer them access to areas and things like that. One Question in that is still if this photographs they might get for free always perfectly work, when they are just part of another assignment that is not specific about the NGO or their work.

NGOs have in general a hard position when it comes to spending money for something else than their projects, for something else than what they are set out to do: Help people. No one wants to donate money for a photographer, but to help people. How to give people the feeling that their money is actually helping and is not getting lost in a big machinery of office costs, advertising, events. That is in my perception another reason why NGOs try to keep that costs as low as possible. It is difficult to communicate especially when you are not sure that it will bring back the money you spent. And at the end it is the wrong thought to think that someone, a NGO (or a company) is paying for something where there are not sure if it will bring back the money they spent on it or create the awarness the campain should reach. And as said a NGO might be even more sensible for everything outside their direct projects.

From my experience so far (working together with smaller NGOs) it seems like that one other reason is that many NGOs do not know how to use the photography, what means it has no value. To bring up the beginning thought about the value of commercial photography again, what brings the value is coming with the same. The value is only there when it is reaching people, when you get people involved in the issue and projects, when they donate money. So thinking of a small NGO with few staff, no real marketing or public relations, some volunteer people donateing some time now and then, the major problem is to use the photography or video they should pay you for, when they have no channels to actually bring it to enough people to bring back the costs for it. And when no one is experienced with photography, the value of good pictures compared to some medicore pictures shot in the field, how should you tell them that they should pay you a flight and a dayrate for some pictures they use on their website afterwards? There is not enough value in this. Especially when the website is also done in the same style as the pictures were used to be. Also great pictures will not reach their value when it is presented in a not attracting way.

So do NGOs need photographers or visual media in general? Of course, but they need more than that. Everytime i worked with NGOs they asked me also for help to bring the stories out afterwards, to reach people. And if not, the stuff just got lost somewhere on their website without being recogniced at all. Maybe NGOs (especially smaller ones) need not only someone who is taking great pictures, great video, great multimedia, does great storytelling, maybe what they really need is someone who could offer them concepts. Who not stops after delivering the pictures, video or multimedia piece, who has a vision how to tell the stories that it works for the NGO, who could help to reach people, who knows a bit about marketing, about channels to reach people, about the possibilities of the use of different forms of media. Who brings in not only his abbility to shot great imagery, but also his knowledge how to get the audience. Someone who knows how to squezze the highest value for the NGO out of the assignment.

I want to tell stories that i think are important to tell. This is why i use video, photography, audio and words, because each medium has weaknesses and strengths. And i want that they are told direct and honest. And of course i want to reach as many people as possible with my stories. And i think that is the case for many who work in that field. So shouldn’t we be experts in what  i wrote before anyway? And isn’t it also not part of our job that we educate NGO staff about the value of visual media, not only to send us to the places in need (and pay for it), but also to get with a few steps more out of the staff pictures to rise the quality of visual communication on the average? Not for every issue there is the need for a photographer, sometimes the pictures of staff could be even more direct, when they are presented with personal stories for instance, but they will only reach people when they are good enough to tell the stories and when there are enough possibilities to communicate it to a bigger audience.

It is a quite difficult topic in any way and my thoughts in one or another direction are far from being thought to the end. But maybe there are also other important thoughts that i’m missing?

As i have been asked about that a couple of times in the last weeks, i decided to do a short tutorial about the techniques i use for putting together my multmedia stories. There might be other ways, i believe, and as always trying out different ways is the best way to find out what works for you. But here is how i work with it right now.

1. Preparation:

This might be the most important part, even when it is sometimes not the most loved one or the one you have time for. But if it is possible, gain as much information about the story you wanna cover. There is no way in covering a story about climate change for example when you don’t know what to look for. So gain information! Another very important part is the preparation in general. Load batterys, clean cards, make sure the equipment works. And then prepare questions, try to get information about locations, all that has just one major reason: You will save a lot of time while shooting, time you can use on concentrating on the work itself -  doing the pictures or video. I always try to be as prepared as possible, also because it gives my mind more freedom to react on circumstances. For example new questions that are poping up in your mind. It gives you a lot of freedom. Another important point is that you are working way more precise. You know what you are looking for and also here, you have more time and space to check stuff, find out what you are missing.

2. Shooting the story

Ok, now you’ve done your homework. Just go there and scroll down your list of questions, pictures you wanna have and so on, you might think? Photography is always based on interaktion. You apply your view on your subject and your subject is giving something back to you. So use that. Stay open for new ideas, thoughts or images. You will never have the chance to be 100% prepared and that is good. Everything else would also be boring, right? Use the preparation more as kind of a support what helps you to stay open for other things. You might have a context you wanna tell the story in or you have clear guidelines in your mind how the stry should look like at the end. Always question yourself and your view on it. There are thousand ways to tell each story. see you prep more as a tool what helps you to find out the best way to tell it. I know, it’s frustating sometimes, but it works for sure.

3. Check your material

Now you had this intensive day or days shooting, doing interviews, filming, interacting. You filled all your cards, you have seen that there are some amazing pictures. Job done? No, maybe not. First of all, you wanna tell a story, so it might be difficult to know what you have only by looking at some pictures. And yes, you will need more than one picture, videofile. This is a totally annoying part, but it’s worth it. You had a long day shooting and the only thing you wanna have is a cold beer and some food and relax for the rest of the evening. BUT doing the back-up and a first look at the material you shot during the day has some advances you don’t wanna miss. First, you have your stuff save! And second, you get to know what you have and at that point you have a better understanding what you might need than in the prep. And this will help you a lot to see if you are lacking something in your material. And as long as you are on location you have the chance to go back and shoot the missing bits and pieces. Especially when you shoot your story far away from your hometown, like i did in the last weeks in Rwanda, this is essential.

4. Storyboard

You’ve done everything right. The material is amazing and you can’t wait to put it together. You jump on your computer, open final cut and here we go. Mh, the annoying part isn’t over i guess. One of the big disadvantages of the digital age is that you gain so much material that it is close to impossible to keep an overview. What i do is slowing down. The first step with the interviews is to write them down. For sure there is nothing nice about it. It takes a lot of time, time you would way more like to spent differently. And it’s totally boring. But at the same time it is the only way to get a clear understanding of what you have.

The next step for me is then printing it all out, the written down interviews, the pictures you selected (print more than you need), even frames of the videofiles, maybe if you are very acurate with the length written on it. I have this metal lanes on my wall back at home where i then start to put together all this pictures, textfiles and so on. It easily gives you a visual understanding how you story will look like and it is also a great way to arrange things fast. Way faster than in Final Cut or any other editing program.

5. Postprocessing

And now, after i’ve done all that and have my storyline ready on my wall, it’s time for the final postprocessing. Photoshop the pictures, edit the videofiles, cut the interviews. If you have all that done, it is only a short way left. You now know exactly what you wanna do and you just have to put all those files in your planned order. As all of you who have worked with videoediting software might know, also that takes some time, but at least it is way more precise and you miss all the try and error you normally have in there. And after some time you have a wonderful multimediapiece with you story.

As i said in the beginning, this is my way how i work with it and what works out for me the best. There are in my opinion no real shortcuts to it if you wanna do it serious. It’s always easy to gain some stuff and put something together out of it afterwards (i’ve also done that in earlier work.), but it could never be so precise. But no one said it’s gonna be easy, right?

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