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

Oudom also produces radio stories and video pieces, and his film about the shooting of three workers in the Cambodian garment sector was selected as a finalist entry at the 2013 German Development Media Awards. These days though, Oudom is mainly doing what he loves best, taking pictures of news events around Cambodia, which he hopes will help bring about democratic change in the country. He spoke to onMedia about his work.

Why did you decide to become a journalist?

I grew up seeing plenty of problems and corruption in my society. My father always taught me about the importance of fairness and independence. But the news on television and radio in Cambodia is mostly pro-government, and “very thin,” you might say. They just broadcast stories about the prime minister inaugurating something or praise some social initiative he has backed. They never broadcast information about government crackdowns on people, such as what happened in early January this year. I decided I wanted to try to help change my society by providing real, professional-quality news to the people in Cambodia.

What did your parents and friends say about your decision?

My family was very proud. They’ve always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do. If you feel good about it, they said, do it. But my good friends were afraid. They know if you want to be a fair journalist, you can come up against a lot of problems. They told me I should get an office job. I thanked them for worrying about me but told them I wanted to help change my country into a real democracy. I think they understand now.

What do you like most about your job?

I love taking pictures and then writing captions for them. I like to present information to people, not telling them what to think but allowing them to make up their own minds about what’s happening in the country.

These photos by Oudom Tat were taken on Dec. 23, 2013, during a demonstration in Phnom Penh calling for a host of reforms in the country.

What do you dislike most about being a photojournalist?

I don’t like it when the government discriminates against the media. We have a lot of problems with them. Government officials don’t provide us with good information and rarely let us interview them. Journalists also face a lot of general harassment. I myself have been harassed and intimidated a lot, even threatened. When I was reporting on the problems of garment workers, I was kicked off my bike once. My bike was stolen on another occasion. I can’t be sure if the people behind it are from the government or the garment factories, but there have been problems and I’ve been told to stop doing my work or I’ll “get in trouble”. During a recent government crackdown on striking workers, I was taking pictures when someone in the military pointed a gun at me. He said: “Do you want to die for just a picture?” I stayed calm, put down my camera and stepped back to let the tension subside. But afterwards I started taking pictures again.

What was the most difficult story you have covered?

They are all hard, because it is so difficult to get information from the government. Getting an interview with a minister is the most difficult thing of all. They almost never agree to talk to independent media outlets.

Is there a story that you have covered that has particularly affected you?

I helped produce a video on garment factory workers and during the reporting I saw first hand how much many of them have suffered. I talked to women who had fainted on the factory floor. They told me they didn’t make enough money and didn’t have enough food to eat. It really made me think about how I was fortunate compared to them. I really felt I needed to do something to help them and get their stories out.

How did you acquire your photography skills?

I never had any formal training in photography. After I got a smart phone, I realized I liked taking pictures with it. Then I realized that I knew a lot of people at work who really knew how to take good pictures. So they taught me. I just practiced and practiced until I got it.

What kind of media do you listen to/watch/read?

I follow both local and international news. I like keeping up with international developments with Reuters, CNN and the BBC. I real the local Phnom Penh Post newspaper and of course, listen to my own station, the Voice of Democracy. But as far as Cambodian TV goes, I watch something maybe once a year.

How do you feel you are developing as a journalist?

I love what I do now, since what I enjoy best is taking pictures and putting a simple but powerful caption on it. I think it’s one of the best ways to get easy-to-understand information to a large number of Cambodians. So now, I feel I’m being successful in informing my community, my country and even abroad. My aim is not to become famous and I don’t really need a lot of possessions. I would just like to do more of what I’m doing and continue to learn more about journalism and the challenges faced by my society.

Interview: Kyle James

The rise of African photographers, however, is seeing other images emerge of a vibrant continent determined to express itself through its own images. Along with this is increasing recognition of the importance of supporting local photographers. Deutsche Welle, for example, has just awarded a new prize for human rights photography in Africa as part of the German Development Media Awards. One of the few African institutions dedicated solely to photography is the Market Photo Workshop based in Johannesburg. DW Akademie talked to Market Photo Workshop’s head, John Fleetwood, about the importance of photography in Africa, how the scene has changed in the past few decades and some of the challenges African photographers face.

Why was Market Photo Workshop set up as a dedicated photo training school?

It started in 1989, which in South African terms was quite a volatile period of political instability (at that time, popular protests against Apartheid were reaching their peak and the government had declared a national state of emergency that, among other things, completely restricted the press from covering political unrest). David Goldberg, a very famous South African photographer, together with friends of his, thought it was vital to set up some kind of photography institution to train young photographers who were disadvantaged by apartheid, who were not allowed into universities and who were struggling to get their foot in the door. The idea was mainly to allow young black photographers to gain entry to the market.

Why was encouraging photography so important back then?

There is a long history of misrepresentation in Africa. We have a long history of colonialist reporting to Europe instead of reporting to communities in the country. The Market Photo Workshop was set up to enable the voices of these communities to be heard, to allow people to tell stories which might be mundane but are very important collectively and start to paint a picture of the larger reality.

‘The emotion of the unfortunate’ taken in Cape Town by South African photographer Theodore Afrika

Is photography just as important now in Africa?

At the Photo Workshop, we still believe that we are living in a very unequal society and the only way to address that is to ensure proper ways of communication and to allow the voices of these people to be heard. I think the quest for democracy and understanding of what democracy is about has a long history in photography. Photography has always been about telling stories of your neighbourhood and of your community and through that, humanizing people around you and enabling people to understand and communicate. So photography is playing a critical role in the region.

Have you been successful in getting black photographers into the field?

There are very prominent young black photographers in South Africa that are able to find space for their photography. There are a lot of opportunities that have been created in the country and that is different to the rest of the region where photographers struggle to create space for themselves. For example, at The Star newspaper, which is one of South Africa’s most important dailies, 79 percent of their photographers are trained at the Photo Workshop and are black. This has helped readjust the understanding of what a photojournalist is. I also think that young black photographers are more competitive nowadays because of their accessibility to different communities, because of their language skills and their understanding of the culture.

Are these new group of photographers producing new images of Africa?

Gone are the times where photographers misrepresented Africa as a continent of poverty. Now, lots of photographers are able to photograph their surroundings and suddenly, we start to see that there is a a much more contemporary culture in Africa, and that has been in Africa for a long time. And although there is still a great deal of room for improvement, such images also show that some of Africa’s economies are working well and these are the ones the world can learn from.

Have you seen a big difference in the type of photos people are taking since Market Photography Workshop started up?

There has been a huge difference in the subject matter and it is interesting for me because as well as the enormous political changes in South Africa, there have also been large technical changes. This makes it hard to distinguish if it was the political environment or if it were the technical issues that have changed the way we looked at photography. But broadly speaking, I think there was a very strong moment towards questions around identity, where young photographers started to photograph themselves as part of the community and through that express their identity. When we first started, much of the photography was struggle photography – photographers used photos as a way of expressing their political values. Photography was seen as a way of destabilizing the state and a way of making sure the oppressed was heard. Distinguishing between a photographer and activist was almost impossible. Then people started to move away from photojournalism or documentary practice to different kinds of practice, such as playing with construction. So the definition of documentary photography has broadened quite a lot in South Africa. I think it was a time when galleries started to look at the arts as a way of creating a voice for the public and a lot of the photography that has gone to the galleries has shifted the understanding of photography.

Is photography growing in other parts of southern Africa as well?

At the moment you have some strong growing economies, particularly Angola and Mozambique where there is an emerging middle class and these people consume news. For that reason, one would assume that there will definitely be a growth in photojournalism in the next decade. In addition, there is this need to report on political issues, in countries such as Zimbabwe for example, that seems to be stabilizing after a lot of uncertainty. So I think there is a great interest in Africa in trying to develop young photographers.

Oluyinka Adeparusi won the African photography prize at the 2013 German Development Media Awards for this photo entitled ‘Where there is will, there is education’

What are some of the problems being faced by photographers in Africa?

The biggest problem we are facing is the lack of sustainability around many of the training projects. Apart from the Market Photo Workshop, I don’t know of other institution in the whole of the African continent that is a dedicated photography institution so photography training remains very very difficult. The Photo Workshop now has a quota to recruit at least a quarter of its students from outside of South Africa. But there are all kinds of conditions around issues such as medical insurance and visa requirements which makes it difficult for us to reach out to those people who do not have voices.

Are photographers limited to working for the media or are their other possibilities?

In South Africa, there is a minute gallery market but it exists. Galleries such as Goodman and Stevenson for example have been able to put on exhibitions of important young photographers. So there is the possibility of expressing themselves in this way. Galleries outside of South Africa are quite rare, and so very few photographers are making a living out of that. They tend to be employed in the media and online.

Any recommendations of photographers to look out for?

There are many many names with great talent. South African photographer, Zanele Muholi whose work is really exemplary of how photography can be used as a vehicle to drive questions around identity. She has photographed and continues to photography questions around lesbian and gay communities so she propagates understanding of these communities and I find her work extraordinary.

Tracy Edser is another South African who is very interesting. She has done a body of work on drug recovery and on hospitals and psychiatric units.

Jerry Gaegane is a South African photographer who is busy working on a project of surface mining which is an extraordinary project because the surface miners play a large part in central questions around what has happened in mining since democracy in South Africa.

Sammy Baloji from DRC has also done a beautiful body of work around mining and the memory of mining in the Congo.

Filipe Branquinho from Mozambique photographs people working in different occupations and has created a remarkable inventory of this.

Nyaba Ouedraogo from Burkino Faso has done some very beautuiful work on the memory of the Congo, looking in particular at the ideas of ritural and spirituality.

Interview: Kate Hairsine

We apply the word “multimedia” in many different ways – from describing types of stories to job titles to categories of awards to sections of websites to journalism courses and workshops, and yes, even the category of this blog post.

A common starting point for discussing “multimedia” is usually something to do with stories using a combination of photography, audio, video, text and graphics.

But is that precise? Is a book with text and pictures “multimedia”? Why is a video story frequently considered to be “multimedia”? And, if we present our audience with the same story but in different versions – audio, video, or text and photos – is that also “multimedia”?

In a blog post entitled I Hate Multimedia, MediaStorm’s Eric Maierson recently summed things up by saying “multimedia” can mean anything, it just depends on whom you ask.

‘The real issue is that “multimedia” is too small. It distracts and limits the possibilities we should be embracing.’

But while “what is multimedia?” is an ongoing and contentious debate, there is a sense that media professionals want to move forward. Especially at a time when technology, such as smartphones, tablets and social media, offer new storytelling and distribution possibilities and place even more pressure on the business models of older media, and media professionals who are struggling to adapt.

So, where to next for “multimedia”?

Where disciplines intersect – the concept of “visual storytelling”

Dr David Campbell’s recently published study “Visual Storytelling in the Age of Post Industrialist Journalism” is essential reading to understand the current state of “multimedia”.

There are six videos that accompany the study featuring interviews with a range of experts including Brian Storm (MediaStorm), Grant Scott (Hungry Eye), Marguerite Howell (The Economist), Bjarke Myrthu (Storyplanet) among others. All well worth watching.

In the introduction video below, Campbell says the aim of the research was “to take the pulse” of what’s happening globally in this field and to start a conversation about “multimedia”.

An Introduction to the Multimedia Research Project from World Press Photo on Vimeo.

Although the study is examining “multimedia”, when it comes to working out a definition, Campbell questions whether seeking “any single definition” is productive:

“Multimedia cannot and should not be defined as single genre. It involves a combination of images, sound, graphics, and text to generate a story, and it appears in multiple forms from online photo galleries where pictures are combined with text captions, to audio slideshows, linear video (both short-form and long form), animated infographics, non-linear interactives, and full-scale web documentaries and broadcast films.”

Instead, Campbell sets out the argument that there is a new media space where various disciplines gather around the concept of “visual storytelling” and share a common purpose in image-orientated reportage. Importantly he describes an intersection of disciplines, not the creation of a new visual genre. As he writes:

“Photojournalism, videojournalism, documentary film, cinema and interactive storytelling intersect, not to create a new visual genre, but to combine their respective strengths in image-orientated reportage, in many forms and across multiple platforms.”

Campbell’s study was conducted under the auspices of the World Press Photo Academy and FotoFederatie, so yes it does lean towards approaching visual storytelling from a photojournalism perspective. But this by no means a drawback.

Along with a downloadable PDF of the research paper Campbell offers more follow up posts on his website.

In Part 2 of Visual storytelling and moving beyond ‘multimedia’, we’ll talk to  Dr David Campbell about his research and trends in visual storytelling.

Author: Guy Degen

Along with asking how they work with photographers, we wanted know more about digital photo editing and the line between aesthetics and truth in photojournalism. How far do you edit a photograph without altering its context or meaning?

It’s a debate that also surrounded Paul Hansen’s winning photograph in this year’s World Press Photo award.

Paul Hansen, Dagens Nyheter: World Press Photo of the Year, Spot News

But given that photography is increasingly delivered and consumed online, how can more information be offered to a publication’s audience to not only enhance understanding of the image, but perhaps see an original and edited image – in the one file?

Fred Ritchin is a Professor of Photography and Imaging at New York University, and was picture editor of The New York Times Magazine from 1978-82.

He has long called for a broader standard to be developed: “whereby each of the four corners of a photograph might contain information placed there by the photographer which again would be made apparent to an interested reader who rolls over each corner”.

In a recent post on The Daily Beast Drama, Manipulation and Truth: Keeping Photojournalism Useful Ritchin explained his idea:

“The bottom right corner would contain the credit, copyright and/or Creative Commons information, a caption, and information as to whether the image had been manipulated. The bottom left corner would provide a larger context for the making of the image, its back story, recounted by the photographer, the subject, an eyewitness, or whoever else might be appropriate. The upper left corner would provide more still or video imagery to give a larger sense of what was going before or after the primary photograph was made. And the upper right corner would link to other websites (perhaps including the photographer’s own) that would help to provide further pertinent details and information.”

Ritchin has published a new book Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen which we plan to review for you shortly, and we’ll also take a look at ways of applying his idea in a forthcoming post on Thinglink in our Tools and Apps for Journalists series.

Author: Guy Degen

(Our thanks to World Press Photo for the use of Paul Hansen’s photograph)