Communication is a key ingredient to successfully working with seniors and the photographers who take their pictures for the yearbook. Whether you are a new adviser inheriting past practices or a veteran adviser considering changes to the process, making sure everyone involved knows the submission deadline should reduce stress.
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Photography
Student photographers are not just “shooters,” they must also be meticulous editors of their work and the work of their “friends”.
In the working profession of photojournalism, most publications have photojournalists who do most of the shooting and photo editors who select, crop, size and assist with layout and design of pages and spreads. In scholastic photojournalism, however, each individual photographer often serves in both roles, shooting assignments as well as assisting staffers in the selection of the most appropriate photos for a publication.
To most of us who produce the yearbook, club and organization pictures are significant because they show what your campus offers and what activities students participate in throughout the school year. To handle such a monumental task, we hold a club picture day on campus to get these important shots for the yearbook. Here is a plan to help you run your picture day smoothly.
What a daunting task it is to tell the story of a year in pictures! I helped my students toward that photographic goal 29 times. In all those years, what I still remember vividly is how, at the beginning of each year, the feelings kept creeping back. Can we do it again? Can we do it better?
To help you organize the processing and editing of photographs, here are sample timelines for traditional and digital photography that can be followed by a yearbook photography staff. No matter what your staff size, I believe it is imperative that photographers edit their own negatives. This builds their own initiative and ownership of their work. I used this approach and found that shooters appreciated being able to help usher their images into print.
Journalism, whether written word or photographic image, cuts a window in which to see clearly the dark complexities of our world. Truth is the frame around that window. Without truth and the trust that derives from it, the noble profession and service of journalism in high school or society as a whole becomes a wasted exercise in killing trees.
Advisers need to set the tone for ethical standards on publication staffs, whether they use Photoshop or not. They need to work with editors to print a guidebook that sets the bar for legal and ethical issues.
In the past year, a photographer in North Carolina was disqualified from a prestigious competition and had to return his awards because it was found that he had over-darkened the background of his winning images. He also was suspended from his newspaper without pay. Professional publications are taking the misuse of Photoshop very seriously and so should everyone in scholastic publications.
Sports shots typically need a ball in the picture. By shooting 50 images at the game, I had four or five hitters with the ball close to the bat. Shoot a lot. Give yourself some choices in editing and you will not be drawn to the edge of an ethical cliff.
Photography is a career suited to both men and women. While both male and female photographers are seen around high schools, the number of female photographers drops after graduation. There is no reason young women should not consider the field of professional photojournalism. Young women may find inspiration in the following interview with Jenna Isaacson, staff photographer, the Columbia Daily Tribune, in Columbia, Missouri.
To illustrate the use of these focal lengths in a typical classroom setting, I visited Rob Davenport’s science class at Platte County High School in Platte City, Mo. The students were testing the weight-bearing strength of their recently built Popsicle stick towers. Very simply, I was trying to tell a classroom story while using a variety of lenses to show what can be done at your school for your yearbook coverage.
