Page 116 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

DIGITAL STILL PHOTOGRAPHY

The tightest edits are usually for newspaper layouts. In this format,
sometimes a single image must tell the story. Getting down to that
single image often involves a number of difficult decisions, including
what story the image must tell and how well the image matches with a
written story that might accompany it. When more than one image is
needed, the pictures are edited and displayed in a spatial relationship
to one another. The most important picture in terms of storytelling
often is the one that dominates the others in size and placement. That
key image will likely be one and a half to twice the size of the next
largest picture. Dominant pictures usually work best on the top half
of a page. Visual elements, pictures, headlines, and graphics should be
grouped in an effective manner with any white space to the outside.
All of these elements have a spatial relationship with one another.
Broadsheet newspaper picture pages are usually most effective with
five or fewer pictures with or without text.
Magazine layouts can be spatial and relational, but they can also
be organized in a linear way over several pages. Effective magazine
presentation works like the newspaper layout, but on a smaller scale,
106 with the pictures strung together and each dominating a spread in the
magazine.
Effective Web site design can draw on newspaper and magazine
styles of layout, but it can also look to other media for innovation
as the producers try to transmit the stories in the most effective way.
Slideshow options are often available to Web photographers, and these
options allow for the images to be viewed one at a time. The storytelling
premises discussed earlier still remain important, because the slideshow
should move the reader from image to image with a purpose. Simply
throwing a handful of photos into a slideshow does little to help users
understand the value in what they are seeing.
Movie and video edits are linear. They progress frame by frame,
scene by scene, and sequence by sequence. Still pictures can be used
effectively if they are edited and organized like a movie or video pro-
duction. Look to Chapters 8 and 9 of this book for more information
about shooting and editing for video.
Ken Burns may be the best-known producer of documentary films
working today. He makes extensive use of historical still pictures. Take
a look at his Civil War documentary and examine the way in which
the pictures are organized to tell the stories. Multimedia producers
either online or in digital media formats can build on Burns’s tech-
niques. The stories usually move in a linear fashion, but can employ