1. WHERE TO FIND NEWS
PJ’s hold the key to communicating the news on the printed page
Pictures today do not merely supplement the news stories or serve as ornaments to
break up the gray type. Today’s photos represent the best means available to report
human events concisely and effectively. PJ’s are not appendages of writers.
Rather, when you start to find, interpret and report the day’s news, features and
sports, you form an opinion about the newsmaker that you transfer into life, you
constantly face ethical issues of when to interrupt a citizen’s private moments of grief
or joy.

2. Luck
Cannot be learned. But if luck is
not accompanied by good
technique and the sense of what
to do with the photo once it’s
been shot, then the PJ won[t be
able to turn an accident into
front page news.
- Look online at
public records
and schedules for
ideas –
COMPANIES, SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS, GOVERN
MENT PRESS OR PUBLIC RELATIONS
OFFICES
- Follow breaking
news reporters on
social media

3. LOOK TO MEDIA
Newspapers - Birth, wedding, and death announcements, schedules of
local theaters, sports events, parades, and festivals.
Magazines and news letters: special interest, trade
magazines, sports, environment and more for upcoming happenings

4. THE OVERALL
Assuring visual variety:
- The overall photo allows
viewers at home to orient
themselves to the scene and
judge the magnitude of the
event.
- You should shoot overalls on
each assignment so the
editor can see the location in
order to interpret the rest of
the pictures.
- The overall requires a high
angle, generally. When you
arrive to your scene, a quick
survey decides what’s
happening. Elevate yourself
above the crowd:
chair, tree, nearby building, roof
of your car, airplane

5. MEDIUM SHOT
Medium shot tells the story in one photography – close to the action yet far enough
away to show the relationship to other things and the environment.
Contains all the story-telling elements of the scene - quick compression of story’s
news elements in one image – think 50mm lens
Used for action, which you must anticipate when and where it will take place

6. CLOSE UP
- Nothing beats the
close-up for
drama, slamming
readers into eyeball-to-
eyeball contact with
the subject, eliciting
empathy in the reader.
- Close enough to
isolate one element
and emphasize it
- Doesn't’t have to
- Longer telephoto lens allows you include a person’s
to be inconspicuous face: doll covered in
(200mm+), which decreases mud or burnt forest
depth-of-field, blurs background fire.
and isolates subject from
background

7. Ta ke s eve r a l f r a m e s f r o m e a c h
- Add instant interest vantage point – at least 6
to a set of photos by Move over a few feet and r epeat
shooting from a One slight change can change
unique elevation. eve r y t h i n g . Tr y t o i m p r ove e a ch
- Down from a 30-story picture and stay until you’ ve got
building or up from a it.
manhole cover
- The viewer gets a
jarring but almost
refreshing look at a
subject
- Covering a meeting?
Shooting from the
chair or while sitting
on the floor can add
variety
- Avoid the 5’7
syndrome – shooting
from the chest

8. Steal images like a pickpocket WITHOUT
interrupting Eye contact with the subject tips
off the reader that the picture is not candid
and suggests that the subject was at
least aware of the photographer and might
even be performing for the lens.
Although PJ Is usually a team endeavor, the
individual shooting the photographs pushes
themselves to the limit – the labor is stressful
and dangerous, the pay is moderate and the
upward mobility limited. But contributing to
living history overcomes the disadvantages for
people who want to succeed and love their
jobs.
Always keep in mind there is more than one
way to reveal the truth about your subject.
Your subject presents you with more than one
truth at any given time.
The burden you bear is to ferret out the most
appropriate truth and visually present it in a
fair way. This is the challenge and the reward.

9. International assignments:
Wall Street Journal
Christian Science Monitor
New York Times Sunday magazine
National Public Radio

10. Late 1800s PJ:
New York Herald, Harper’s Weekly, The Daily Graphic, Illustrated
newspapers
McClure’s and Cosmopolitan magazines
Documentary photography: picture
taking done with the sole or primary
intention of informing about reality in
an objective and truthful way.

11. Documentary: landscapes, still
lifes, architecture, fires, accidents, flo
ods, industrial progress, medical
problems, prominent personalities
and wars
Social Documentary:
Photography with an end purpose in
mind other than to simply objectively
and visually inform, although you
may do this. This purpose is social
change, i.e. improving conditions for
poor. (Jacob R. Riis and Lewis Hine)