Wednesday, February 9, 2011

School Lunches, Polaroids and Selecting a Subject

Both readings from Anne Lamott and Bill Jay with David Hurn were helpful when thinking about what ideas and subjects compel us and take our interest. The two most important ideas that I gathered from the readings is that, one, you have to produce work in order to be able to use it, and also make sure that the ideas you hope to cover visual, practical, interesting to others and something that you know enough about to tell the story correctly. They seem like two loaded ideas, but when they were broken down in the reading they made so much sense.

The one passage that really grabbed my eye in Lamott's chapter, "School Lunches," is when she talks about writing down things as simple as school lunches.

She said, "Now, who knows if any of this is usable material? There's no way to tell until you've got it all down, and then there might just be one sentence or one character or one theme that you end up using. But you get it all down. You just write."

I think this is also an extremely important point when it comes to producing picture stories. During our one-day story pitches today in class, there were some who weren't sure if certain parts of the topic they chose were important enough to cover. However, students encouraged them to cover that certain part anyway because it would be worse to not have produced anything from that moment and need it later on.

I agree that even though we may predict that certain parts of our idea won't provide us with any photos that we will edit into our story, it is still important to make some images from it. It is only when we make the photos that we are able to use them in our story, which is the point that Lamott was making about writing. Even if it is something we think won't be any good, we at least still produced images. The images may end up guiding us to further ideas or ways of capturing a story. This chapter mainly encouraged to produce something no matter how successful you think it will be.

Lamott's next chapter, "Polaroids," also brought an interesting point to my attention. There is a passage where Lamott talks about why you focus on something or someone in the first place for a story.

She said, "You couldn't have had any way of knowing what this piece of work would look like when you first started. You just knew that there was something about these people that compelled you, and you stayed with that something long enough for it to show you what it was about."

When I was working on my Boone Life, I met my subject on assignment at the Hartsburg Pumpkin Festival. She was an older woman who told me about her salon that she owned in Ashland and how it had been the first business on that street, which is now one of the busier streets in town. I immediately took interest in her and visited her salon so many times. At first I had a hard time finding a closer angle to my story about her hair salon, but after sticking through it and visiting enough, I found what I needed.

After hanging around for so many different days I found out that she does her clients' hair for their funeral after they pass away. It is like Lamott said, if you wait around long enough for someone or something that compelled you in the first place, there is a good chance you can find something further than what you first expected. Although I had no idea where my story with this woman and her salon would go in the first place, it ended up being one of my favorite pieces I have produced so far because I stuck with it for so long (I also just found out this month that it won third place in NPPA's multimedia contest for the month of January 2011!!).

This example also transitions into the main points that I found important in Bill Jay and David Hurn's "Selecting a Subject" reading.

The first point they bring up is that, "...you are not a photographer because you are interested in photography."

While it seems kind of strange, it is a great point to make. We don't choose this profession because we like the idea of photography, but we like to be able to show things to the world that they may never see with their own eyes. We like to interact and create relationships with so many different kinds of people that we would never meet in any other profession. I liked the fact that Hurn brought up this point because although it seems like a strange comment to make, it is pretty true.

Going along with this idea, both Jay and Hurn bring up the fact that you have to have an "intense curiosity" for the ideas and subjects you cover. While there are many things that we find interesting, Jay and Hurn also point out four main steps to help make a story more specific.

Is it visual? Is it practical? Is it a subject which I know enough? Is it interesting to others?

By following these four questions it can help us narrow down our idea into a specific story. By narrowing the idea down we can execute better research on the topic as well as make sure it will be interesting to a certain audience.

As I look further into my one-day story, I have looked at these questions and it has helped me focus in on what I need to as well as prepare for what I should look for while I am actually covering the event.

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