Sublime photography but …
Written by duckrabbitI love the people at Daylight Magazine. There are few group emails that I don’t treat as spam but every month the Daylight email (letting me know what’s going on in the magazine) gets a well earned click from me.
BUT …
I think we have to try and get away from photographers reading scripts about their photography (please see update at the end of the post).
I need to be engaged with conversation, with passion, yes also with intelligence, but not so contrived that it has to be read.
Great photos. The delivery should match.
So how do you do it?
Just sit the photographer down and talk to them for twenty minutes about their work. Then edit it down to three minutes. Really, it’s that simple.
But it’s not always possible to get yourself in the same room as the photographer. In that case send them a digi recorder and do the interview over the phone. This is something I did a number of times when I was working on radio documentaries at the BBC, when I couldn’t get someone into a studio.
Here’s duckrabbit’s David White not reading, but talking about his project to photograph Brunel’s work using a replica camera from Brunel’s era. Sounds so much better then reading from a script and it’s an easy way for a photographer to squeeze a short photofilm out of an old body of work:
UPDATE: We recieved a comment that points out only the first section of this photofilm was read from a script. I have to be honest and say that I never got past that first section. Thanks for your comment Hugo. Just goes to show too how important that first minute is.
Hugo Figueiredo
June 6, 2011 at 19:17 · Reply · Edit
I didn’t find the audio pointless at all. The opening statement does sound bland but it then moves into an interview (1.30 in) with Katherine Ware, Curator of Photography which I found engaging, passionate, conversational, insightful and it shed new light on a fascinating project.
If it was just a photographer reading a script for 6 minutes (which your blogpost suggests it is) then sure, it would be pretty dull stuff, but I can’t see why you’d think the interview is pointless …
Author — duckrabbit
duckrabbit is a production company formed by radio producer/journalist Benjamin Chesterton and photographer David White. We specialize in digital storytelling.
Discussion (7 Comments)
Couldn’t agree more, really nice images, pointless audio.
I didn’t find the audio pointless at all. The opening statement does sound bland but it then moves into an interview (1.30 in) with Katherine Ware, Curator of Photography which I found engaging, passionate, conversational, insightful and it shed new light on a fascinating project.
If it was just a photographer reading a script for 6 minutes (which your blogpost suggests it is) then sure, it would be pretty dull stuff, but I can’t see why you’d think the interview is pointless …
Hi Hugo,
Damian probably did the same as me, listen to the first minute and then switched off when he heard the photographer read a very wordy script.
In an online age where you need a hook within 20 seconds to keep peoples attention, I can see the criticism your making, and I don’t like hearing something being read from the script either but the post suggested to me that it was six minutes of narration which its clearly not.
Just wanted to clarify as after listening and watching the piece I couldn’t understand the suggestion to ‘record an interview’ when clearly thats exactly what has been done. Anyway, nice website and lots of interesting links.
Hugo
Hi Hugo,
thanks for importantly pointing this out … I will amend the post with your comment …
I thought this was great, I didn’t think the opening had a problem with it and I’m speaking as somebody who doesn’t have much of an attent