Documentary photography is the art of telling a story through photography, which should be taught among the fundamental principles of good yearbook photojournalism. Here are five ideas for understanding and applying documentary photography.
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Photography
Editors and page designers need to consider many aspects of photography and design when selecting the right images for a yearbook spread. It’s about more than whether a photo is simply in focus.
Photographers who consistently capture good, storytelling images for the yearbook do so in part because, like great journalistic writers, they rely on the strategies of great reporting.
Perhaps the most common reason to crop a photo is to get it to fit a layout. This is fine if the photo has some areas that can be removed without ruining it. However, when cropping to fit lessens the visual effectiveness of a good photo, it is time to change the layout or select another image.
Getting caught up in sports action is fine for fans, but editors need to look beyond the contact sheet frames showing action on the field. When the game-winning play fails to score or a key player is out of a big game, it is the easily overlooked sideline image that often tells the story best.
A photo can tell several stories, depending on how it is cropped. Leaving this photo full-frame shows the three runners who are leading the pack of bunched-up runners farther back.
Basic elements of composition help strengthen all types of photographs that are in today’s photojournalistic yearbooks.
In planning your yearbook, understand all of the elements related to photography that can impact the quality of your book.
Motivate your photographers by supplying them with the necessary tools to assist them in creating memorable visual images.
Basketball tends to be a difficult sport to shoot because it is played in a gymnasium. Most high school gymnasiums are not well lit, thus it is very difficult to get a shutter speed high enough to capture the action unless you use a very high ISO film (3200).
