Picture this. You’re on day two of a TV news shoot out-of-town, working with a freelance crew. Location: a high school auditorium. Day one was a morning session and the house lights were on. The photographer got plenty of shots of the action on stage and the audience reaction. Now it’s the evening of day [...]
What’s the connection between photography and terrorism? Apparently, it depends on where you sit and when you ask the question. Just after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, investigators urged anyone who’d been near the finish line to share photos or video they’d taken around the time of the explosions. But the very same day, [...]
Missed it! It’s an awful feeling. You’ve been waiting and waiting for a specific shot for a story and when it finally happens, you hit record just a wee bit too late. Maybe you’ve captured some of what you need, but it’s going to be hard to edit. If only you could turn back time. [...]
Can you be a good TV photojournalist and a lousy storyteller? Absolutely. Fabulous images alone won’t tell a great story. Award-winning videographer Nathan Thompson thinks of each story as a puzzle with five main pieces. If any one of them is missing, he says, the story won’t hang together. Thompson shared his keys to efficient [...]
Great photojournalists are sticklers about their gear. They check it thoroughly before and after every shoot. They supplement the standard-issue package with specialty items, from dimmers to clothespins to GoPros. They experiment and improvise, always on the hunt for new accessories that will save time or give them an edge on the competition. Jonathan Malat [...]
Video journalist Anne Herbst firmly believes in preparation. She does research on stories before leaving the newsroom. She shows up to assignments early so she can meet people and figure out in advance who might be a strong character. And she writes fast–an essential skill when you’re working by yourself and you have to do [...]
Darren Durlach left television almost two years ago to try something new. He’d won two consecutive NPPA TV Photographer of the Year awards and, unbeknownst to him, was on the verge of winning a third. He’s now senior multimedia producer at the Boston Globe, where he shoots and edits stories both alone and in collaboration [...]
How would you define a memorable TV news story? For reporter Boyd Huppert, it’s a story that connects with viewers, that goes beyond the facts to touch people in some way. To achieve that goal, Huppert looks for a character and a concept that will tie his story together. And when he writes the script, [...]
A front row seat to history. The privilege of sharing life’s most amazing moments. And the God-given right to eat behind the wheel. Nobody ever said working in TV news was all glamour, right? If you’ve ever been on a six-hour stake-out with no bathroom in sight, you’ve “enjoyed” one of the unique aspects of a TV [...]
From part-time, overnight camera operator in market 83 to best TV news photographer in the country in just six years: How did Nathan Thompson do it? Natural talent? Not at all, Thompson told NPPA’s News Photographer magazine. Instead, he credits hard work and a deliberate, methodical approach to learning on the job. When he started [...]
We all know the value of video in TV news, but great video alone isn’t enough. As a wise photojournalist once told me, “Sound is the other half of the picture.” I think of that adage often when I’m asked to critique stories in which sound is nothing more than narration and bites. Sound that [...]
Police invariably keep journalists so far back from crime scenes that it’s almost impossible to see what’s going on with the naked eye. That’s the situation KTUU’s Jason Lamb faced earlier this month, as police prepared to search a frozen lake for the body of a missing woman. Photographer Mike Nederbrock had a decent shot [...]
Finally, some good news. Two pending cases against police departments for civil rights violations have been settled in favor of the photographers. What’s not clear is what impact the settlements will have on the continuing problem of professional photojournalists being arrested for doing their jobs. In the first case, Las Vegas police have agreed to [...]
A new mobile app aims to give YouTube a run for its money in the “citizen journalist” assignment game. Rawporter is the latest competitor to YouTube Direct, giving newsrooms the ability to request and rebroadcast video from anyone who happens to be at or near the scene of a news event. What Rawporter offers that’s [...]
Television’s need for pictures can be a two-edged sword. Great pictures can make a story memorable, because viewers remember what they see longer than what they hear. But a lack of pictures can turn an important story into a throw-away anchor reader, giving it less time on air and leaving little impact. So TV’s bias [...]
Covering fires is a routine part of a television news photographer’s job. Clint Fillinger has been doing it for more than 40 years in Milwaukee, so he knows the drill: Stay behind the yellow police tape and roll on everything. But this fall, while doing exactly that, Fillinger went from shooting the news to making it [...]
by Mark Anderson, former NPPA photojournalist of the year Some of you may know that my dad recently passed. He was my hero and defined the words gentleman and optimist. When he was stationed over in France for the war, he and his Army buddies loved to read Shakespeare. Growing up in Iowa he quoted [...]
If you cover breaking news in just about any local market, you’ve probably had to come to terms with a new reality. Someone else is going to get pictures before you do. Their video may not be as good as yours, but they’ve probably captured something you’ve missed. So now what? “After 45 years of [...]
What do you get when you put two terrific storytellers in charge of a PR shoot? A great story, that’s what, and some useful lessons on how to capture stunning video with compact, light-weight equipment. “The Sewing Machine” is a video produced by former NBC reporter John Larson and one-time NPPA photojournalist of the year Lisa [...]
Working alone in the field can be a challenge, but it’s a challenge that Michelle Michael has mastered. Since 2003, she’s been shooting, writing and editing her own stories for the US Armed Forces Network. This year, she won the NPPA Solo Video Journalist of the Year award. What’s her advice to other one-man-bands? “If [...]