Quinn poynter photojournalism_basics

What makes a photo great?Sara Quinn, The Poynter Institute

Composition and framing

Quality of light

Perspective

Layering

Moment

Captioning and presentation …

Rule of thirds

Leading lines

Asymmetrical balance

Perspective and viewpoint

Motion freeze or blur

Foreground, background

Layering

Capturing a moment

Framing

Quality of light

Repetition of shape

Silhouette

An exercise: Let’s crop!

Writing great captions

Sara Quinn, The Poynter Institute

Captions are often the mostread text in a publication.

Use captions to engage readers.

Yehudi Menuhin began sharing his music at the age of 7, when he astonished a San Francisco audience with his violin genius.

Yehudi Menuhin began sharing his music at the age of 7, when he astonished a San Francisco audience with his violin genius.

(This ran with an obituary mug. We already know from the headline that he had died, so this was a great way to give a reader who might be in a hurry more information, and to possibly draw that reader into the full obituary.)

Check the facts.Be accurate!

Selling bean pies—and traditionBrian Muhammad, a 42-year-old Nation of Islam member, sells bean pies at the corner of Crenshaw and Slauson in Los Angeles. He has been doing so for 11 years at one of the busiest intersections for those with something to peddle.

Is his name Bryan or Brian?Muhammed or Muhammad?

Is his name Bryan or Brian?Muhammed or Muhammad?

Does he sell pies on the corner of “Crenshaw and Slauson” or“Crenshaw and Slawson?”

Is his name Bryan or Brian?Muhammed or Muhammad?

Does he sell pies on the corner of “Crenshaw and Slauson” or“Crenshaw and Slawson?”

Or is it one block north at Crenshaw and Ninth Ave?

Don’t make assumptions.

Don’t editorialize or makeassumptions about what someone in a photo is thinking:

“an unhappy voter …” or“a fortunate survivor …”

Brian Muhammed gleefully sells bean pies at the corner of Crenshawand Slauson in Los Angeles.

Use quotes.

Selling bean pies—and traditionBrian Muhammad, a 42-year-old Nation of Islam member, sells bean pies at the corner of Crenshaw and Slauson in Los Angeles. He has been doing so for 11 years at one of the busiest intersections for those with something to peddle. “If you sell enough bean pies, you learn a little about life, like how to size up a man, if he’s good for a $7 pie,” Muhammad said.

Add supporting information.

Selling bean pies—and traditionBrian Muhammad, a 42-year-old Nation of Islam member, sells bean pies at the corner of Crenshaw and Slauson in Los Angeles. He has been doing so for 11 years at one of the busiest intersections for those with something to peddle. “If you sell enough bean pies, you learn a little about life, like how to size up a man, if he’s good for a $7 pie,” Muhammad said. The Nation of Islam’s tradition of selling bean pies — and copies of the organization’s newspaper, the Final Call — dates back several decades in big cities across the U.S.

Avoid stating the obvious.

Avoid stating the obvious.“Dennis Rodman smiles ashe elbows an opposing playerin the face.”

Make the photo clear.

Ireland—

Frolicking on glacial ice on a summer’s day? Part illusion, thanks to Edgar Müller’s perspective painting “The Crevasse.” Created over five days on a pier’s pavement in Dún Laoghaire, the faux precipice covers more than 2,000 square feet.

Avoid using terms like“is shown,” “is pictured”and “looks on.

A photograph captures a moment in time.

Use present tense to givea sense of immediacy.

Germany—

A diver polishing glass joins a radiant display of sea life in a giant saltwater tank at Berlin’s Radisson Blu Hotel. The ring-shaped AquaDom, some 80 feet high with an elevator inside, holds about 1,500 tropical fish.

Descriptions are helpful, like“the person dressed in black,”“holding the water hose,” etc.

New York—

For those who don’t want to wear an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dotbikini, Aheda Zenetti has designed the bigsy wigsy sunny screeny crimson plainpolyester burqini.

Germany—

A boxy Trabant scoots past other Cold War vestiges at Checkpoint Charlie, where the image of a U.S. soldier looks into former East Berlin. A Russian soldier on the pole’s reverse faces what was the American side of the crossing.

Avoid being overly descriptive.

Reader’s will see for themselvesif a scene is dramatic, horrifying, rainy, brightly lit, etc.

Consider the final presentationof your project.

Try not to repeat somethingfrom the headline or story.