Lecture 3- Telling stories with pictures

Really enjoyed today's lecture about using images to tell stories and it really made me realize how heavily we rely on images to both capture our attention and get our point across.
It's very rare today to see a news story without the accompanying pictures and as shallow as it sounds, few of us will continue to read if there's no pretty pictures to break up the hoard of text.


The double edge sword here is that the images we see are not always what they seem. One classic examples is the Dove Evolution video that highlights the incredible ability of photoshop to transform the most basic of faces into the next supermodel. The dangers with this kind of technology or 'faux'tography are obvious- we have already seen the body image epidemic sweeping the western world, highlighted in a recent study which found that only 2% of Australian women believe they are beautiful.


Aside from the negatives- no pun intended- what makes a great photo? According to Bruce it's:


-Framing
-Focus
-Angle and POV
-Exposure
-Timing
-Capturing 'the moment'
-Following the rule of thirds


The same goes for moving pictures however we also have to include:


-Editing
-Capturing the scene
-Sound dimension


Images have recently played a major part in the media with the London Riots, with much of the footage coming to us on social media sites and via youtube before it even hit our tv screens. What we have here is an opportunity for uncensored exposure to often horrific crimes and acts of violence. We now have to ask ourselves as a society, is it our right to view these images or do we have television broadcasting ratings and time slots for a reason. Do we really want our children, or even our own psyche, exposed to that kind of horror? 


In my opinion, individuals should have access to whatever they want in the privacy of their own computer room. However, when television stations try and compete with social media by showing more graphic and 'real' images on the 7.30 report, that's when it's gone too far. I would much rather see images that have been carefully thought out to tell a story by an experienced journalist than 30 seconds of scratchy footage shot on someone's mobile phone. 


At the end of the day, 'A picture has no meaning at all if it can't tell a story.'

-Euth Silanpaa