Photos of the Week: The aftermath of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/02/06/world/turkey-earthquake-damage.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2023/02/turkey-syria-earthquake-photos/672958/
Caption Writing
Photojournalism may be a visual medium, but that doesn’t mean you get to be any less thorough than any other journalist when it comes to actually talking to people, and getting names, facts, dates, etc. You must always make sure you get names (first AND last), locations, professions, ages (if relevant) to include in your captions.
Washington Post guidelines:
“A caption should briefly and clearly describe in a complete sentence what is happening in the picture, including an active verb (‘someone does something’). This will allow our internal systems to take sections of the sentence and automatically create keywords. In many cases, a single sentence will suffice. A second sentence is acceptable if it adds additional information, follows the required formula and does not editorialize.”
Caption example:
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – JANUARY 11: Actress Kate Winslet holds her award at the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 11, 2009 in Beverly Hills, California. Winslet won the Golden Globe for best supporting actress for her role in “The Reader,” as Hollywood set aside labor strife and a recession to honor the year’s best performances. (Photo by Rich Lipski for The Washington Post)
Notice how the first sentence is in present tense, describing what is literally happening in the photo, and the following sentence is in the past tense, giving background and context. The full caption, with that second sentence, would be necessary if the caption is accompanying the photo as a standalone image. But if it’s published as part of a larger photo essay, that crucial extra context probably makes the most sense to run along with the first photo in the series. Think in terms of the vital information (the who/what/where/
when/why) you would put into a nut graf in a print story, and make sure that info makes it into the first few captions so the reader/viewer of your photo essay knows what’s going on, and why it matters. (What is a nut graf?)
In a photo essay, the captions play the additional role of shaping a broader narrative. So while breaking news photos submitted in a batch to a wire service might all include very similar captions because most likely they’ll only be used one at a time, your captions in a photo essay will need to follow a somewhat more narrative shape. Meaning, the first one will include a lot of the 5W’s stuff, while the following image captions might fill in the blanks some more.
Photo Essay #1 (due Tuesday, March 14)
The photo essay should consist of 15-20 images, with detailed captions, including at least two direct quotes from the sources you photographed and interviewed. They can be in either slideshow or scrolling format. The story can be related to the topic of your choosing, but there should be some news element to the story, and it should have a clear angle. (What makes something newsworthy? What’s an angle?)
Do yourself a favor and pick a story that lends itself well to a visual medium! Don’t pick a story that’s going to be hard to photograph, like people working in a bland office setting.
Photo essay examples:
Fashion Amplified: A look inside the mind behind @cunyoutfits.
Welcome to Брайтон Бич, Brooklyn
Assignment: Pitches for Photo Essay #1
Pitches for your first photo essay will be due on Tuesday, Feb. 14. Please post your pitch on the blog by class time. We will workshop your ideas together as a class. Your pitch should include not just a general idea for your photo essay, but also your angle, and a vision for the types of images you anticipate getting.