Workshop 4

Telling stories with pictures

In this session

• The basics of good photo-journalism

• Infographics

• Building proficiency with image based social media

• Using wordpressphoto features

Men watch the 2014 World Cup Group B soccer match between the Netherlands and Australia on a laptop, at a camel market in Daba near Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, on June 18, 2014. (Reuters/Mohamed Alhwaity)

When to use stills

• When they help you tell a story more effectively, more clearly or more easily

• Online – where long copy looks dull

• To identify the people involved in a story

• Sometimes the image is the story

Photo-journalism basics

• Learn the rule of thirds

• Shoot vertical and horizontal (landscape and portrait) versions of each picture

• Shoot action – instigate it if you have to

• Be careful about the background

<find a funny background shot to insert here>

Composition: The rule of thirds

• Imagine two horizontal lines and two vertical lines creating a grid of nine squares

• There are four intersections of four lines where you main subject should be placed

• Creative cropping can help but beware loss of resolution

• Be aware of key social media formats e.g. profile pictures

Be aware of key social media formats

Pixels, you can’t see them but they’re there

• Q. What’s a 3 megapixel camera?• A. One that can take a picture that is

2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels• Think resolution: Measured in pixels

per square inch (comes from column inches)

• Print is 200ppi to 300ppi for mags• Most computers display at 72ppi• Compressing a high resolution image,

reduces the file size for online use• Formats: JPG (joint photography editors

group), GIF and TIF

Data journalism and infographics

• Which? infographic: Freshers – your first term in numbers

• “Any time you get a story with dense statistical information in it, or simply a load of figures, it is worth considering whether an infographic could help you tell it” (Bull 2010)

• Make sure your data is validated and make your sources very clear

• www.piktochart.com let’s you make your own infographic quickly and easily. Watch the demo video here

Making more of images

• Captioning

• Galleries and slide shows

• Image based SNS including Instagram, Flickrand Pinterest

Caption competition

Create a gallery on Wordpress

Use the add media function to create a gallery in a post or page the select ‘create gallery’ from left hand options

Add an Instagram widget

Add widgets using the appearance tab on your dashboard

Using Instagram

• Twitter for photo journalists

• Mobile based but there are apps for PC use

• For example try iconosquare which offers a photogallery widget you can drop into Facebook or wordpress.com websites (premium version)

• Create hashtag feeds or link from your blog site to your own public iconosquare url

Using Pinterest

• A digital mood or storyboard

• Identify themes of interest to your audiences

• Follow those with similar interests – identify feature angles and opportunities

• See amnesty case study in your workshop tasksheet

Workshop activities

• Still photos: Crop, edit and caption the image you have chosen to accompany your existing news story

• Datajournalism: Start to compile some statistics – see Tasksheet for suggested sources and have a go at creating your own infographic with www.piktochart.com

• Pinterest: Identify a range of themes and create and link to a Pinterest board from your website

• Instagram: Sign up, if you’re not already. Try out iconosquare and organise your media into groups. Identify hashtags of interest to your audience and consider linking to a hashtag feed from your site

For next session

• Create a dynamic photo story using a slide show, gallery or Pinterest board linked to one of your news stories or create a new story based on photographs

• You may use webs.com inbuilt photo features or link to another page or feed from your website

• NEWS GATHERING: Next session we’ll be writing and publishing news bulletins. Using your established online news sources identify at least 10 potential stories. At least 1 or 2 you need to develop into a full news article, others you can curate by tailoring a head and intro for your target audience.