Online Journalism

Image via Wikipedia

“A picture’s worth 1,000 words.”

That’s the cliché that you’ve probably heard plenty of times through your life, but at times a picture is more effective at telling a story than words. Or as Briggs puts it, “journalism without photographs is like writing without verbs.”

Briggs starts the chapter by outlining the technical side of digital photography:

• A megapixel is 1 million pixels, which is the visual representation of data in a digital image or graphic
• Pictures are stored as digital files on a memory card
• Resolution is a measurement of pixels that are available to the human eye

The two types of cameras are point-and-shoot cameras and DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) cameras. Point-and-shoot are easier to use, cheaper and smaller, but the quality of picture isn’t going to be nearly as good. DSLR cameras are more expensive, larger and take more time to get used to, but the quality of pictures is much better and a DSLR can do so much more because of the customization that comes along with buying different lenses.

The most important thing when it comes to taking pictures is lighting. Having covered high school football games, I can definitely attest to this. I have a decent DSLR, but if the lighting on the field is poor, my pictures won’t turn out well. And the flash won’t help at all because the standard flash isn’t nearly strong enough to light up the field.

Some other tips within the chapter from Craig Sailor:

• Hold the camera steady. Do anything to keep your body still while shooting.
• Fill the frame. Don’t leave a lot of empty space in the photo.
• Focus on one thing. Literally, when using the auto focus feature, make sure to focus one thing to make the picture sharper.
• Get closer, change angles.
• Go vertical, meaning turn the camera vertically if the subject is vertical.
• Shoot action.

When shooting, the more pictures taken the better. It’s common sense really, the more pictures you take, the higher chance you have that you have some quality pictures. When I cover a basketball game, I usually take at least 100-150 pictures, in part because of the fact that the pictures are in motion but also so that I get better pictures. Of all those pictures, I usually only use about 14-20 that I think are worthy of publishing.

After learning the basics, taking pictures is just like writing. The more practice the better you’ll get at taking pictures, although you’ll also need better technology for better pictures.

That and being in the right place at the right time helps in capturing good pictures.