It’s a common scenario in newsrooms around the world as broadcast and online newsrooms merge. It means you need to quickly learn new visual storytelling skills in order to adapt your stories for online publication.

While you can find loads of online training resources to help you get started, basic camera skills are only going to take you so far. If you’re required to produce photographs that document the story you’re covering, say an editor is suggesting to bring back eight photographs for a story or picture gallery, then you also need to employ skills from photojournalism.

OnMedia’s Guy Degen offers some tips for radio journalists to help produce strong images for their stories.

What type of camera?

Hopefully your organization places as much emphasis on good photography as it does on good audio. However, I like to think that it’s skill that makes a good image rather than a good camera. So before you go upgrading your camera, go upgrade your skills.

Of course, using the right tool for the job does make a difference. If I have to collect audio and take photos for the same story, then I prefer a camera that is small(ish), turns on almost instantly and is easy to use in manual and auto mode. But most importantly, the camera must be quiet. This is because I like to be less observed and there are times when I need to record audio and take photographs simultaneously.

For many years, I used a fairly basic point-and-shoot camera when  I was producing radio features – simply because it didn’t make the loud shutter noise of my DSLR. Later, a slightly more muscular, yet silent, Canon G10 offered the manual controls of a DSLR but in a small body. More recently, the near silent leaf shutter of the Fujifilm x100s has been my constant companion, and now the silent electronic shutter of the Panasonic GH4 (D)SLR will also be in my kit bag. I think even with a zoom lens the GH4 has a much smaller profile that a larger DSLR. It’s also great for shooting video.

Whatever camera you use, learn the essential functions.  It’s just as important to know how your camera works as it is to know how your audio recorder functions. Knowing how your camera works will make you far more confident when you’re out covering a story.

These days I also use my iPhone for taking photographs. Although the image quality is not as good my other cameras, it’s mostly fine for online publication. If you’re using a smartphone just be sure to use the silent mode or turn off any beeps or electronic shutter sounds.

The iPhone also has a neat trick of being able to record audio with an app running in the background and take photos at the same time – even in burst mode.

Planning is essential but keep your eyes open

Before going out to produce a radio feature, I usually write down a list of the interviewees (voices) I need to talk to and any potential ideas for sounds that might be interesting to record. Do the same for images. Write down a shot list of relevant people or locations or objects you need to photograph. As soon as I arrive on location, I walk around and get a feel for a place and add shots to my list.

In practice, I usually take photographs between recording audio. For example, if I record an interview with someone I’ll take a portrait shot of the interviewee immediately afterwards. But sometimes you need to plan a specific time for photography and a specific time for gathering audio. For instance, if you arrive at a location in the afternoon you might have to gather some shots quickly first to make use of available light.

But just as you would keep an ear open for interesting sounds to record, so too for photography – keep your eyes open to capture a moment.

What if you have to record and photograph at the same time?

I’ll be honest. Sometimes there might be a clash. Something visually interesting is happening at the same time as something essential to record. While reporting recently in Kiev, Ukraine, I wanted to record a group of old women singing in the Maidan square. They were so passionate and I knew it would make my story sound-rich. I also wanted to take photos as they were dressed in traditional costume, but I wasn’t sure how long they would sing for.

So to be safe, I began recording audio and taking photos at the same time – one hand holding a microphone, and the other hand snapping photos. It wasn’t ideal but sometimes it’s necessary. Once I had sufficient clean audio of singing, I put the microphone down and concentrated on getting better photos as the women were dancing with protesters.

Variety of shots

Having worked a lot as a video journalist, it’s second nature for me to document a scene or an action in sequences of shots: wide shot, medium shot, close-up, etc. This is a good technique to borrow for photography too and it will force you to keep moving and looking for interesting angles. What you don’t want to do is come back with photos that are all wide, or only taken from one point of view.

For a story about a building powered by a bioreactor I made sure that I delivered a variety of shots of the building’s bioreactor façade and of the bioreactor process for the editor to select.

And when you’re documenting someone in action think about capturing both the action they are doing with their hands as well as the reaction of their face.

If you need to get in close, use your feet to “zoom”, rather than just relying on the zoom function of the camera.

Remember, most of the time your editor will want photos in “landscape mode” (horizontal) instead of “portrait mode” (vertical). Landscape mode photographs look better in an online photo gallery.

Don’t forget detail

As much as a variety of shots is useful, don’t forget to look for fine detail – getting in close to show the audience what something looks like. There may even be a good reason to use the macro mode on your camera to get an extreme close up of an object.

For a story on how people make bicycles from bamboo in Berlin, I made sure that I captured shots of fine carving the bamboo frame.

Get a good portrait shot

There’s nothing worse than recording a great interview and then walking away and forgetting to take a portrait shot of the interviewee. Good quotes in your story are going to work well with a good portrait shot. Whether it is a composed portrait or a shot of the interviewee doing something, I always make sure I have a shot of the people I talk to – even if I know it probably won’t get published.

Hopefully by the end of your radio interview, you’ve also made a connection with that person and established some rapport and trust. That’s also going to be reflected in how they react to you with the camera.

Keep it simple. Observing the rule of thirds is a good place to start for portraits. But be open to experiment. I usually try to take a portrait shot at the location of the story for context.

Below are portrait shots of a designer who has developed a new type of humanitarian shelter. I offered the editor two shots to choose from. A “classic” all purpose portrait and one that has the designer demonstrating a structural component he invented and described in detail in the story.

Practice, practice and practice

Some people have a remarkable eye for photography – they’re naturals. But like a lot of journalism skills, practice will improve your photography. You can turn a weakness into a strength. Always keep your camera with you to take photos. Make it an extension of your hand. Follow good photographers online and via social media. Borrow and adapt their ideas and shooting styles. If I had to choose just one website, a great starting point is Time’s Lightbox blog – it’s a fantastic online showcase of the best of photojournalism.

Author: Guy Degen

How do you make a JamSnap?

After launching the app, tap the camera icon on the top right-hand side. This will engage the camera and gives you access to a few simple controls: tap to focus, flash on/off, and switching between the iPhone’s front or rear camera. Or, you can upload a photo from your iPhone’s photo album.

Like Instagram, JamSnap offers you a square frame for photos, so you’ll have to adjust your image to fill the frame. Once you’re finished adjusting the image, tap “Choose”.

Then comes the interesting part.

A prompt will appear on your screen to “tap & hold anywhere to add sounds”. So, choose a point on your image where you think it’s most appropriate to add a sound, then tap and hold to record. As you’re holding to record you can move your sound tag around the image. The limit for a clip is 10 seconds.

Give some thought as to how you are holding your iPhone before you tap to record. Is it pointing the right way to capture the sound you want?

You can add up to 10 audio clips to each image.

To discard an audio clip, simply tap, hold and swipe the clip away to the edge of your mobile screen.

There are several sound effects that you can add, such as a voice exclaiming “Oh my god!”. Similarly, after you have recorded a clip, you can add audio filters. But these audio sfx or filters are probably not going to be what you’re looking for in a journalism context.

Once you’re finished recording your audio clips, click “Next” and you can add a caption to the image, and choose whether to make the JamSnap public or private. You can also share your JamSnap directly to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and App.net social media networks.

Click “Share” and you’re done. Check out the video below for a demo.

From your user feed on the JamSnap website you can locate the < > icons for the html code to embed your JamSnap into a blog or website. Either manually log on to your feed by typing https://jamsnap.com/user/insertyourusername – or use the share functions in the app to email yourself the image link or share via Twitter which will also generate a link to the image.

JamSnap images and audio also appear and play directly within a Twitter timeline which is very useful for getting people to actually see and hear your stories.

What could journalists produce with JamSnap?

JamSnaps developer Mayank Sanganeria told onMedia that his inspiration for the app was to create a way of easily adding information or context to photographs he wanted to share with his family and friends.

That’s a good starting point for storytelling or documenting an event.

Potentially you could use JamSnap to produce an image with an audio dispatch, or with an interview soundbite or a series of audio clips, and of course a caption. Another story format to explore might be to first create a collage of images in another app, importing this collage into JamSnap, and then adding audio clips plus a caption.

JamSnap also works with an external microphone for recording audio.

Sanganeria said an Android version is a likely to be the next step in development, and perhaps a “Pro” version for mobile journalists. At the moment onMedia is testing a beta version of JamSnap that lets you record longer clips and insert audio from Dropbox and the AudioCopy app. The ability to record and edit audio in another app and insert into the JamSnap image is very useful.

These days it’s quite rare that an application I use only after a few minutes makes its way straight to my page of favorite reporting apps but I think JamSnap is one that may well stay.

What else should journalists know about JamSnap?

Cost: Free.

Languages: The user interface is only in English at the moment.

Audio format: Audio is recorded on your iPhone in the .m4a format and then uploaded to JamSnap’s server and also encoded into .mp3 and .ogg – this allows audio to be shared and played on different browsers and devices.

Author: Guy Degen

The question is: how do I make my SLR camera as “mobile” as my smartphone so I can transfer images quickly from the camera to another device and share them on the web?

Yes, I can use a USB cable to connect my camera to either my laptop or my iPad or take out the SD card and plug it directly into the computer. But another way is to use a WiFi enabled SD memory card and there are some interesting advantages of using these cards for covering events.

WiFi enabled SD cards have been around for a while now. The WiFi chip inside the card creates its own wireless network, which allows you to connect your camera via the SD card to another device.

In this post I’m going to refer to two Class 10 WiFi SD cards: the Eye-Fi mobi and the Toshiba FlashAir.

Shoot and upload on the run

At the recent Newsgames hackathon in Cologne I tested a 16GB Eye-Fi WiFi enabled SD card.

The hackathon took place inside a large seminar room. To document the event, I wanted to be able to walk around and shoot photos of the hacker teams, upload the images to my iPad for a quick edit and then send them to a blog and social media.

The Eye-Fi card allowed me to automatically push images to my iPad as I was shooting. To make the wireless transfer faster, I deliberately shot in .jpeg format to keep each image file size small – around 4-5 MB per image.

I was able to walk around up to 20 metres or so from my iPad and keep shooting, knowing that every image was being transferred to my iPad ready for editing.

This was exactly what I needed to cover this event in near “real time”. I was able to shoot lots of good quality images, far better than using my iPhone, and edit the images in batches in the Snapseed iPad application and then quickly upload to the blog, Twitter and Instagram.

It’s important to note that although the Eye-Fi card can record photos and video in various types of formats (.jpeg, RAW, .mpg, .mov, .flv, .wmv, .avi, .mp4, .mts, .m4v, .3gp) it can only transfer .jpeg files.

Fortunately my Fujifilm X100S produces excellent .jpeg images, and despite the smaller file size, my photos were published in The Guardian, Deutsche Welle, Page magazine and in several journalism publications.

But this workflow is not going to suit every situation.

One problem with the Eye-Fi mobi card is that it uploads every photo you take whether you like it or not. In other words, it uploads the entire album. This might be fine if you have the WiFi transfer mode on as you’re shooting, but if you capture a lot of photos and then engage the WiFi transfer mode, you might find yourself waiting for the best image to be transferred.

One work around is to shoot in RAW and then convert selected images to .jpeg format in the camera’s playback mode. The card will then transfer only the .jpeg files. Bear in mind that not all cameras offer in-camera .jpeg conversion. Another way is to “protect” the files you want to transfer. This might be a bit fiddly to do depending on your camera.

The set up of the Eye-Fi mobi card though was very straightforward. You simply download a free iOS or Android app that works as the dashboard for transferring images and enter the card’s activation key. The card creates its own b/g/n WiFi hotspot allowing your smartphone, tablet or computer to make a connection. My camera also supports the Eye-Fi SD card and offers an upload option directly from the camera’s menu.

Only transfer the pics you want

I’ve also been using the Toshiba FlashAir (version 2) 32GB Wireless SD card and it works in a similar way to the Eye-Fi. The card creates its own WiFi network and you install an app on your smartphone or tablet to capture the images.

I think the big advantage the FlashAir has over the Eye-Fi mobi is the possibility of using selective transfer for the images. From the iOS or Android app on your device, you can see all of the images you’ve taken and then you can select the ones to transfer.

This could be really handy if you’re working in a team to cover an event. Photographers can get on with the job of shooting while editors can see the thumbnail images they are capturing on their tablet or computer and then select an image for editing and uploading to the web and social media.

The FlashAir also allows up to seven devices to connect to the card simultaneously. Again this could be useful for small teams covering conferences or panel discussions via “live blogs” and social media.

Great solution but not perfect yet

Both cards have their selling points but also a few drawbacks.

Connecting my iPad or iPhone to both the Eye-Fi and FlashAir card was not always instantaneous – even when both devices were side by side. Sometimes it would take a couple of attempts to connect. But once connected, the transfer of images was usually stable. Make sure you disable your camera’s auto-off function otherwise transfer will be interrupted when the camera goes to sleep.

Both cards can be draining on batteries.

On the Eye-Fi I encountered “Read Errors” messages several times. Ejecting and installing the card usually solved this problem and I have never lost images. However it doesn’t inspire confidence, especially if you want to use this in a professional capacity everday.

The Toshiba FlashAir also has a quirk. If you reformat the card in your camera, you will wipe the firmware that controls the WiFi chip. This means downloading and reinstalling the firmware from Toshiba’s website. It’s not a reason not the use the card, but it’s an easy mistake to make as in-camera card formatting is a common practice.

I also found the app for the FlashAir app a little bit clunky to use. It seems as if user interface was an afterthought in design. As an alternative, Photosync is a good mobile photo file transfer app that works with the FlashAir.

Hopefully competitors in this market will look each other’s products and produce a card that offers both quick and instantaneous connections, and a choice between batch transfer and selective image transfers.

Keep in mind the cost of these cards is usually two to three times that of normal SD cards, so expectations on functionality and reliability are understandably high.

Gradually, WiFi connectivity is becoming a standard feature in cameras. My new Lumix GH4 sports WiFi. And with Photokina in Cologne almost upon us, WiFi is bound to be a function that will become more widely available in new models.

For now though a WiFi SD card does a brilliant job of adding wireless functionality to “upgrade” almost any digital stills camera.

And while these WiFi SD cards are not yet perfect, they are well worth testing to see how they might give you more options for covering events and making your stills camera “mobile”.

Written by Guy Degen, edited by Kate Hairsine

(Before) Yuri Kozyrev/NOOR for TIME Magazine

Which do you prefer? The original image of a white balaclava-clad rebel in Libya carrying a rocket propelled grenade, or the more dramatic looking battlefield with increased contrast that brings out richer greys and red hues in the clouds, smoke and earth?

(After) Yuri Kozyrev/NOOR for TIME Magazine

The spectrum of digital tools available to photographers to edit images is vast – from professional software such as Photoshop or Aperture right through to consumer tools such as iPhoto or PicMonkey, not to mention hundreds of mobile photography applications.

If you’re of a certain vintage, then you might be a bit nostalgic about the days of film, the whiff of fixer and the time spent honing your skills in a dark room. Today adjusting the fundamental elements of a digital photograph, its DNA if you like, such as exposure/brightness, colour/saturation, whites/blacks, contrast/shadows and much, much more, are as easy as moving a virtual “slider” with a mouse.

But having a palette of digital tools does not mean editing a photo is a piece of cake. Far from it. In fact for photographers and newsroom photo-editors it opens up a raft of ethical questions.

(Before) Francesco Zizola/NOOR

How much can you digitally adjust an image to enhance its visual impact? What if the photograph is over or under exposed or the white balance is wrong – how far do you correct the image to make it look aesthetically pleasing, but without altering its context or meaning?

(After) Francesco Zizola/NOOR

In 2009, judges of Denmark’s Photo of the Year disqualified this image of Klavs Bo Christensen arguing he had gone too far in editing his image in Photoshop.

These were just some of the issues DW Akademie put to Claudio Palmisano, one of the founders of 10b Photography Laboratory in Rome.

Palmisano and his colleagues work closely with leading photo-journalists such as Yuri Kozyrev, Francesco Zizolo and Paolo Pellegrin. And while their name might not always appear in the byline alongside a photographer, the digital editing expertise of 10b has been an essential part of award winning photographs.

10b very much see themselves as a “digital darkroom” and when it comes to the ethical debate of using modern software in photojournalism, they state:

‘We believe that talking of “manipulation” is correct only when actual pixels are “moved”, therefore when the minimum unit of a digital image is at least either replaced or cloned.’

Read more in our interview with 10b Photography’s Claudio Palmisano.

How do you describe your role in the editing process of an image?

10b Photography laboratory is a ‘digital darkroom’ in the broadest sense. This means that we adapt the workflow of the traditional darkroom to digital images. Traditional tools like chemicals, enlarger and filters are replaced by Photoshop, just as much as the old negative film is now replaced by RAW files. We work together with the photographer to bring the image, and the whole story, as close as possible to the photographer’s vision. A dialogue between the photographer’s own vision and our visual culture is fundamental to achieving the desired result. I don’t think of our work in terms of ‘retouching’, but rather as ‘enhancing’ the inherent potential of the shot by containing its limits and strengthening its qualities.

When you open up a digital photo file to start work, how do you first approach an image for editing?

When dealing with images of photographers with whom I have a long and established work relationship, at first I usually process the files using a ‘Droplet’, a complex script of automated actions in Photoshop, which is tailor made for every photographer and each story. For example, in the case of the Arab Spring series by Yuri Kozyrev, I used the same Photoshop Droplet. Using Droplets enables us to quickly and efficiently calibrate contrast, saturation, textures and hues of a batch of images. After applying a general ‘coating’, we proceed to edit each photo one by one, detecting and enhancing volumes, details and symbols.

(Before) Yuri Kozyrev/NOOR for TIME Magazine

(After) Yuri Kozyrev/NOOR for TIME Magazine

How do you determine what is too much digital editing of a photograph, where the reality, meaning or truth of an image might be distorted? 

The limit lies entirely within the choices made by the photographer when shooting, the content of the image and its usage. Many theories have attempted to define the concept of ‘overphotoshopping’. Some theories are conservative, or purely reactionary points of view on digital editing, others are indifferent or experimental ideas. With that regard, in the field of documentary photography, my opinion takes into account that colour perception is a relative phenomenon, and therefore allows a fairly wide range of possibilities. Nevertheless, I consider beyond the limit of what is acceptable any change that disrupts the rapports among colours (i.e. altering only one colour) or alters the context of the image (cloning, removing or adding pixels).

How much do you think digital editing technology is having an impact on a photographer’s style? 

I think that the impact of the technology of digital editing tools on a photographer’s style is huge. But the same has always been true for all photographers as their technological tools were upgraded and new inventions were introduced in the field of photography. From the daguerreotype, to the positive/negative process, the glass plate negative, the gelatine emulsion, the celluloid film base, the 35mm film, the introduction of colour photography, and onwards up to digital cameras of the 2nd and 3rd generation, and the use of image enhancing software. Every technological innovation revolutionised the approach of photographers and it will happen again in the future with any major innovation.

When a photographer is planning to work with you, do you ask them to set their camera in particular way to produce RAW or JPG files that will give you the most options for editing? 

I always recommend shooting RAW, so any further suggestion becomes superfluous. If a photographer were compelled to send JPG (i.e. Internet connection problems), it would be better that he/she processed the RAW file according to my instructions and then sent me the ensuing JPG. If you have to post-process the JPG created by your digital camera, it is important to select a wide colour profile (Adobe 98) and to categorically deselect any other pre-setting.

Interview: Guy Degen

(Images published in this post with the kind permission of the photographers and 10b Photography)

The video below shows you what this software can do.

This is how the programmers describe this free software: “ShiftN permits correction of converging lines; a majority of the correction work is taken over automatically by the program. Using the ‘automatic correction’ item in the menu is in most cases sufficient to produce a satisfying result. Both the effects of converging lines and poor camera angle are corrected automatically.”

It works, but it doesn’t work wonders

If you use ShiftN to correct converging lines, be careful not to overdo it. Seeing only straight verticals instead of shifting lines doesn’t look natural. Your photos will seem awkward and unnatural.

ShiftN is great if the distortion is only minor, as seen in the example video. But a case like those white high rises you see at the top of this page is too much for ShiftN’s automatic correction.

As you see on the right, the way ShiftN “corrected” this picture looks artificial. The manipulation is obvious and makes the viewer uncomfortable.

In some cases, you’ve just got to take another step back to get the perfect picture – or be prepared to live with converging lines.

By Thorsten Karg