Where to find stories and news?

[trever_hillis]

How do you find your next stories, spot news, general news, features, great

events, etc...? I am aware that a lot of photojournalists arm themselves with a

bountiful of radios and their cars have more antennas than any give police

officer's. However, with out those nice radio scanners and assignments being

given to you by the big man, where do you find most of your stories? Watch the

news? Read the paper? Or do you simply just go out and let them find you? Well

as you can tell I am in a bit of a "writers block," and can't seem to shake it

off. Thanks for reading my inquiries, hope to find some opinions from the more

experienced.

 

Thanks again.

[graham_line]

Watch, read the news, especially the alternative papers; circulate among people, keep your ears open. The idea is actually to anticipate the news so that when a story breaks, you're already backgrounded and two or three steps ahead. If you keep chasing, you're just one of the pack.

[j_sevigny]

If you're working for a local paper, the key is to really know your beat. For example, if you're covering criminal courts, you need to know everyone from the bailiffs to the prosecutors to the defense attorneys; from the secretaries in the clerks office, to the little old lady who sits in on every trial just out of curiousity.

 

If you're covering an entire city, state or country, you have to read everything, from the independent, tab-type publications to the regional glossies. Don't forget the briefs. A story that one publication considers a single-paragraph brief might fan out into something huge in another publication.

 

Another thing, and this sounds boring and maybe obvious, is to pay attention to national news trends every day, all the time. For example, in the Yahoo headlines at this very minute, there are two stories that might very wel be localized and have photographic potential depending on what kind of journalism you're doing.

 

The first is: Pivotal vote looms for immigration bill

 

So, do immigrants in your community know anything about the bill? If they do, what do they think of it? How do they live? Where do they live? Where do they go to church?

 

The second is: US consumer confidence plunges to 10-month low

 

Is this demonstrated by a lack of traffic at the local mall? Or does your city buck the trend?

 

A third is: Most "power couples" meet in big cities, study finds.

 

You see what I'm saying. But the main thing is to watch the world, be curious about the world, and cover the world, even on your own little street corner.

[trever_hillis]

All very quick and great responses! Thank you for all of your help, these are great ideas, tips, and a little inspiration as well. Looks like I will be busy for a while once again hunting for new stories and lifestyles in which to capture.

[jay ott]

Of course, the things you mention do generate ideas those are obvious places to get them, but I think it's more important to ask yourself what makes you respond to and cause you to photograph some things and not others. Why A and not B? Why photojournalism rather than landscapes? Photographers when interviewed always seem to be asked why? <p>

 

For Eliott Erwitt, it is "why dogs?" For Joel Meyerowitz, it is "why ground zero?" For Ansel Adams, it was why Yosemite in large format?" The list could go on and on.<p>

 

As to your photographs themselves and getting out of a block and a rut, you could start with why hard light rather than soft light? Why color rather than b&w? Why a long lens rather than a wide angle? Why that camera position and not that one? Why fine art rather than editorial? Why straight forward rather than abstract or surreal? Why does this photograph fail or succeed? <p>

 

I think asking what to photograph should be last on your list of questions. The most important question to the learning process I believe, is why. Perhaps just as important to ask is: what if. what if a wide angle? what if hard light? etc. What if I start a project which at first is a great idea but I find out later it becomes uninteresting or not sustainable?<p>

[trever_hillis]

Jay, I think you may have dug into my mind and pulled to main plug that stopping the flow of creativity that I usually have. I don't know why photojournalism is the genre of photography that I choose to dabble in. It is not that I don't enjoy the world of portraits, landscapes, still life, abstract, etc... The main problem that I may be having is finding a story that I absolutely want to photograph. A story that means more to me than anything else in the world. I have a great intensive passion towards photography, and in the past the subject's lives that I have captured so far. Lately I have been lacking of that passion towards the subjects, however the passion for photography is still there. I try to tell a story with a still image; I want that still image to be as accurate to what literally happened at that moment. As some may put it, truth photography. I suppose that drive to retain the truth of a story in one still frame is why photojournalism is the genre for me.

 

I want to be passionate towards the subjects that I photograph. I believe if they are allowing me to photograph them, I need to be 100% behind telling their stories/lives and have a burning desire to be the best that I am capable of being. The run of the mill news typically does not fire me up. I should have mentioned this in the first post of mine, however I did not. I suppose when I saw Matt Black speak, he really made it clear to me. His pure desire behind his stories come straight from his heart. He didn't talk about his images, or what equipment he used, the techniques or anything of the sort. He solely spoke about the lives of the people he photographed. So I suppose the question I really am asking, is how do you find those stories that mean more to you than anything? After all, why photograph something if you don't care about it?

[j_sevigny]

This is a very interesting post.

 

You asked how to find news stories, which is one thing. I think what you wanted to ask is how to find inspiration. A musician I know told me there's no such thing as inspiration, just work. The joy over having done something inspirational comes later, after the work is done. And I think there's some truth to that. You have to go out and shoot or write or whatever.

 

If you're looking for a subject you can connect with emotionally, you really have to explore your own heart. What makes you laugh, cry, punch the wall with rage?

 

On the other hand, what are you simply curious about? It might be what's behind some door downtown, or the way the widow up the street spends her lonely days. It might be something completely different, happier, sadder, more mundane. Only you know what you're curious about.

 

So I think that some projects start with an explosion of passion for a subject but far more (for me anyway) start with just a little curiosity that slowly expands into something fantastic. Like the Biblical mustard seed metaphor.

 

Diane Arbus said, "The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind."

[fullmetalphotograper]

Opportunities multiply as they are seized. - Sun Tzu

 

 

A friend recently asked me that it must be difficult to to find subjects so far from nature,

and to come up with different shots daily in urban environments. I told him I poor nature

photographer but I could always find something in a town or city. How many people do

you know? How many have you people do you see on the street. Each one of these people

has a story to be told.

 

Take a walk through your town, go through the downtown visit with people, you will be

surprised at how much you will find for stories. Walk through the different neighbor

hoods and really look at what is going on around you.

 

Most of the stories I cover are people driven some of the best stories I have simply around

me I just have to ask the right question.

 

"I drive at night, a police radio as my compass, looking for answers to questions I'm only

learning how to ask. About things adults dismiss...but children are right to fear. Shapes

that lurk in the darkness, nightmares that intrude from another realm, forces that spring

not from the imagination but live amongst us, unseen. These forces have taken something

from me, something I can never recover. So I stalk the night, looking...and knowing our

fear of the dark never really goes away. We just learn to pretend it's not there." - The

Nightstalker.<div></div>

[michael j hoffman]

Just keep photographing. The rest will take care of itself.

 

Michael J Hoffman

[rick_helmke]

I had an editor once who said you could find photos simply by stepping out the door. I thought that was was crap. He thought I was fired. We were both right.

 

Rick H.