The Art of Storytelling

Storytelling. It's not a new concept. In fact, storytelling is one of the reasons photojournalism was born; back in the late 1800s when photos began to appear in newspapers because editors realized photos sold papers.

 Henry R. Luce’s Life Magazine was one of the first national publications that used large photos to tell stories. It was first published in 1936.

I remember sifting through those huge pages and thinking how great it would be to be published in Life. I came close once. I shot a story for the Associated Press on Mexican farm workers who would take their children to the fields with them. I spent days in the Northwest Ohio fields documenting babies and toddlers confined in playpens surrounded by wheat and corn. The story went national, but in newspapers, not Life.

Remember when you first learned Life was going to stop the presses? Sadly, it was just the beginning of the continuing steady demise of magazines and newspapers.

After relentlessly documenting the job losses of other people, like autoworkers and mortgage brokers, we are now tragically covering ourselves. I use the word tragically, because photojournalists are the eyes of the world. Our world needs photos to continue documenting job losses, discrimination, health crisis, war, poverty and political corruption.

It’s our job to bring these atrocities to light, because the average citizen doesn’t have the power or the stage to do it. How would we know about hunger in Ethiopia or the existence of the KKK without photos to prove these things exist?

Storytelling can be done with just one photo (think firefighter carrying the baby during the Oklahoma bombing) or a whole series of photos. These captured stories can be printed in newspapers/magazines or on-line. Either way, it’s an art form that should absolutely never die.

In another posting, I'll highlight a few schools and organizations that are raising the bar on the art of storytelling.