Start with the Audience

Fujifilm X-E2, FUJINON XF 18-55mm, 

Have you ever seen the acronym WIIFM? It stands for Whats In It For Me. It is the most important part of telling a story. You must understand who the audience is so you can craft a story that will appeal to their desires.

What's In It For Me, are without a doubt, the most important five letters in your business writing, your Web site, maybe even in your business success. Always tell people what's in it for them when they do business with you.

If you try to reach everyone you will likely appeal to no-one.

Nikon D5, Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM Art Lens, ISO 32000, ƒ/9, 1/100

Think of you talking one-on-one with someone in your audience. You need to have them in mind before you even pick your story that you are going to work on.

For there to be a story we have these basic four things:

1. Subject 
2. They WANT something
3. They overcome obstacles
4. To get it

The audience wants something to. They want to make a good story part of their story. This is often where the audience in a call to action is able to be the helper for the subject to attain their wants.

When I am teaching Missions Multimedia Storytelling Workshop the hardest part of the learning for the student, by the way which is their obstacle, has less to do about learning to use the gear. The real struggle is understanding the storyline.

They must toss out so much because it isn't engaging the audience. 

I get the deer in the headlights look over and over from students when they are showing me their work and I ask why should I care?

They are crafting a story that they are interested in and not one for the audience.

In the hero's journey storytelling model discovered by Joseph Campbell and modified by Chris Vogler there is a meeting of the mentor usually in Act 1. The mentor can be the role of the audience when it comes to the call to action for helping the subject attain their goal.

The keys to a good storyteller is understanding that the Audience, Subject and even you as a storyteller all have a storyline. The key to the successful story is when the Audience, Subject and even you as a storyteller all are able to get what they want.

If your story seems to be stuck check and see which of the storylines [Audience, Subject, Storyteller] is having problems.

One of the key things to evaluate is to constantly be asking how does this help us achieve our WANTS/GOAL. If it doesn't look at cutting it out.

Do You Know Something or Understand Something?

All artwork from "Design for Teaching and Training" by LeRoy Ford

The best classes I took for my masters degree was my education courses.

While journalists need to know their subject well, they also need to enough understanding of how persons learn to make the storytelling worthwhile.

While it is important to help people with knowledge it is very limiting. Knowledge is at the base of learning. This is where you memorize and recall information.

When you can take the pieces and create something new this is when you are demonstrating you understand the content. You are demonstrating comprehension, which is expressing ideas in new forms and even interpreting them.

You want to be able to get to the highest levels of understanding which is application, which is the transfer of the learning to a new situation.

Now you may think this is all common sense but I am finding that it isn't for many in the industry of communications.

One of the biggest issues I see with professional communicators is their lack of understanding that the content of the subject matter isn't really explored fully. While in this drawing you see how the audience has different ideas as to what is being taught, I am finding out that many communicators when they ask questions in the storytelling process with the subject they take what the subject says at face value.

They are not even aware that what the subject is talking about isn't what they are thinking they are talking about.

When I was in Nicaragua we had to have most of the students go back and clarify what the subject was talking about. They learned how to explore the subject and in the process learned how important this was to helping the audience really understand what was the problem they need help with.

Watch this package that Naomi Harward produced this story on Alvaro Ramirez and his wife, Erica, who are helping children with the issues of alcoholism and how it is affecting their country of Nicaragua.


What is important is that Naomi helped you through visuals and the audio to understand how alcoholism affects the entire family and community.

Another student covered the medical volunteers and what they were doing. Saying the people have medical needs isn't enough. By clarifying what type of services they were providing the audience now will understand we are talking about households having no medicine cabinet like we would have in our homes here. When they go and buy aspirin they don't have the money for a bottle and buy it one tablet at a time many times.

Most of the students in the class were anticipating the technical aspects of storytelling to be the biggest hurdle. They anticipated that learning how to use Adobe Premier was to be the most difficult to do.

Most realized pretty quickly understanding what a story is and capturing all the elements needed for a good storyline was quite difficult. Before they could really sit down at their computers and start sequencing their video clips and photos they had to have the content. This meant that as they were interviewing the subject they had to have a clear understanding of the objectives of the story.

There were Five Steps they had to understand about the problem to communicate it to the audience.

When working for a nonprofit the storyteller is helping educate the audience so that they understand the problem and how they can get involved in solving the problem with the organization.

Now while I am teaching the students about how to do effective storytelling I am moving the students through all these stages of learning.

We show them all the microphones they can use for an interview. [Knowledge] We show them how to record an interview. [Comprehension] Then we send them out to practice with each other so they are getting a clean audio and well exposed video. [Application]

Once they go out into the field and do the actual interview we review it with them. Together we talk about the issues that might exist. One that was pretty common was the wind noise. [Analysis]

They are sent out again to then address all the problems they had with their first interview and also a list of things that were missing in the content of their interview. [Synthesis]

As we near the end of the editing process we are asking them questions and they are evaluating their content and deciding what they need to include or exclude to tell an effective story. [Evaluation]

Now while this is what we are doing with the students to help them learn about storytelling they are doing the same process of applying this to getting the audience engaged and understanding how they too can get involved in solving the problem of the subject of the story.

It is one thing to help people know about something and quite different to get them to understand and how they need to be involved.

You need to know does the audience just know more about the subject due to your story or do they understand your subject and now are taking action to do something about it?

Transitioning From Photographer to Storyteller

photo courtesy of Knolan Benfield, Jr.

One of my earliest memories with our family is my grandfather, whom I called Daddy “B”, with his slide projector sharing his latest trip with all the family. The photo above is with my Daddy “B”, Nana “B”, my mother, sister and me wearing an indian hat watching a slideshow.

Once I started shooting myself I also got a slide projector and would have similar shows in our home.

In my second job with the International Mission Board I helped missionaries know how to construct a slideshow so that it told a story. I also was producing slideshows to music. This was in the late 1980’s.

Here is one I produced showing Don Rutledge’s coverage of Russia:

I was taught how to shoot “Photo Stories.” Here is what I was taught to capture:

1. Opener: Sets the scene for the story
2. Decisive moment: The one moment that can by itself tell the story
3. Details: Besides being like visual candy to the story, help often with transitions--especially in multimedia packages
4. Sequences: give a little variety to a situation
5. High overall shot: Gives a good perspective to how the elements all fit together
6. Closer: Besides the classic shot of the cowboy riding off into the sunset there are other visual ways to help bring the story to a close
7. Portraits: These photos are great for introducing the characters of the story

I was always working with a writer who captured the story as text and together our packages were produced in magazines or newspapers.

Looking back I would say I was getting elements of the story and really not responsible for the complete package.

In 2006 I bought a digital audio recorder, which changed my career trajectory. I produced my first package that I was responsible for all the parts to help tell a story. My friend Susan Shaw had started a business combining her art with love of farm animals.

Here is that first effort of mine to capture a story in 2006:


I was learning the craft of the storyline. Up until this point I was focusing on capturing the HOW? and WHAT? of the story and now I am laser focused on the WHY?.

One of my favorite stories where I could see some of the changes taking place was my first coverage of the Daddy Daughter Date Night at Chick-fil-A. Here is this story package I did in 2008:


Today I am producing on somewhat regular basis small two to three minute packages that are small stories.

Here is one of the latest stories I did recently for Honduras Outreach Inc.:

Here is what they have as their mission statement on their website:

HOI is a Christ-centered short-term mission organization working alongside people of developing countries who desire to implement sustainable development partnerships. We organize mission trips to Honduras and Nicaragua. 

HOI’s vision is to create life-changing relationships between the people of developing countries and North Americans, while promoting community directed and integrated spiritual, physical, educational and economic development of men, women and children in the developing world through the promotion of dignity, mutual cooperation and self-sufficiency.

My goal with the package was to help communicate the emotions and the heart of HOI.

This process has taken me more than thirty years to learn. Twenty of those years were learning how to produce compelling photo stories and the last ten have been executive producing storytelling packages.

I want to invite you to go with me to Romania to learn how to do this in just two weeks. We still have some slots open. Here is the link to that workshop www.storytellersabroad.com

If that doesn’t work for your calendar give me a call and let’s plan a personal workshop or group one for you.

Honduran Dentist prefers education to pulling teeth

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 12800, ƒ/16, 1/125, -1.0 EV—Off Camera Neewer TT850 using the Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel to control the flash

Dr. Natalia Velásquez Alonzo is a dentist in the rural Agalta Valley of Honduras. Here she is at her main office at Rancho el Paraíso of Honduras Outreach.

Fuji X-E2, 18-55mm, ISO 800, ƒ/7.1, 1/500

I went with her and the rest of the mobile medical team to a small village El Pedrero two hours north of the ranch on these dirt roads. I felt like a bobble head bouncing around for those two hours. About half way there the electricity to the area stopped.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/3.5, 1/1000

When HOI started going to this community they stopped before they crossed the river and would cross over in canoes. Today they have a bridge to get to the village. When they first started going this was what most of the village people lived in.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 8000, ƒ/5.6, 1/250

The inside of their houses were dirt floors and walls they let the wind and rain through.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 500, ƒ/3.8, 1/100

Dr. Natalia Alonzo worked for the government as a dentist before coming to HOI some five months ago. She went into the schools and taught as she is doing now for HOI.  Here she is teaching the students about dental hygiene in El Pedrero. She prefers doing this as to having to pull teeth.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 1000, ƒ/8, 1/250

Many of the government dentists do not have enough supplies and so many of the patients have many teeth pulled with just one shot or none at all. Dr. Alonzo really likes working with HOI where she has enough supplies to use what would be normal procedures to those in the United States due to the giving that supports the medical team.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/5, 1/1250

This is the medical clinic in the village El Pedrero. The Toyota Land Cruiser is their mobile medical truck. North Point ministries helped with other groups to buy this vehicle through their "Be Rich" campaign. The idea started at North Point Ministries five years ago and caught on quickly. The message from the pulpit was very simple–you have it, they don't.

Teams are going regularly from the US to help transform Honduras through HOI. The work they have done over the past twenty five years has gotten the attention of the government. Next month the President Juan Orlando Hernández and First Lady Ana García Carías of Honduras are coming to Atlanta to present HOI with an award for outstanding service to their country.

Why I changed my title from Photojournalist to Storyteller

Definition of Photojournalist

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (e.g., documentary photography, social documentary photography, street photography or celebrity photography) by complying with a rigid ethical framework which demands that the work is both honest and impartial whilst telling the story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists create pictures that contribute to the news media.

--Wikipedia

Photojournalism: the job or activity of using photographs to report news stories in magazines or newspapers

--Merriam-Webster 

This photo is from the East Carolina Buccaneer (college yearbook) 1984.  That is me on the left. I was the darkroom manager back then. The other photographers are Mark Barber and Mike Smith in the top middle photo, Gary Patterson, head photographer, center bottom and to the right Neil Johnson.

We all shot for the school newspaper and for the yearbook as "photojournalists."

Here I am shooting in 2005 in Burkina Faso and I still considered my work to be as a photojournalist. I was shooting for a Christian organization showing their work. It was to be used in materials for a fund raising program they did every year.

The choice of the words you use to communicate can make all the difference in the world.

"Language shapes our behavior and each word we use is imbued with multitudes of personal meaning. The right words spoken in the right way can bring us love, money and respect, while the wrong words—or even the right words spoken in the wrong way—can lead to a country to war. We must carefully orchestrate our speech if we want to achieve our goals and bring our dreams to fruition."

—Dr. Andrew Newberg, Words Can Change Your Brain

Client Centered Communication vs Self Centered 
Communications

If people find out I went to seminary they immediately want to know what church I pastor or where I pastored. You see there are assumptions made by the words I use with the audience.

Writers have always known that the right word can evoke so much more than just any synonym would do.

According to Compton’s Encyclopedia, the English language contains some 500,000 words. Yet the average person’s working vocabulary consists of 2,000. And the number of words we use most frequently—the words that make up our habitual vocabulary? For most people, it averages 200-300 words.

According to Oxford University, and the PBS series 'The History of English':

William Shakespeare used a total vocabulary of just over 24,000 words. In 2003 16,000 of those words are "obsolete".

Edgar Allen Poe used a total vocabulary of under 18,000 words. In 2003 9,550 of those words are "obsolete".

Is the word photojournalist obsolete? No, but if you are trying to communicate your value to a client using this word can create a hurdle or obstacle.

While you may see yourself as a photojournalist and understand fully what that means and that it doesn't mean you work at a newspaper but rather the approach you take, well that is great and maybe even 100% accurate.

Now take in your audience of who you are trying to convince them you are the person to help them tell their story.

I have started to use the descriptor Storyteller because this explains what I do and clients can see the need for a Storyteller much faster than they can see the need for a photojournalist.

Another term similar to the Storyteller that you might like is Narrative.

Humanitarian Photographer

For me the descriptor "Humanitarian Photographer" is too limiting. This tends to describe one as working with NGOs and nonprofits. While a corporation might look for a "Humanitarian Photographer" if they are trying to brand themselves as compassionate and that they give back it is most likely not what they are going to look for when they need to tell the story of there product and how it is transforming people's lives.

Examples of Photojournalist not working

I am member of Christians in Photojournalism. When people write to join many in the past have asked what newspaper do you work for today. Implying you must work for a newspaper to be a photojournalist or part of our organization.

Now as many of the members have lost their jobs with newspapers their identity as a photojournalist didn't change. They are still doing in their minds photojournalism for mission groups, NGOs and even corporate world, but telling stories that are accurate and truthful.

When I talk to people who do storytelling about Christians in Photojournalism you can tell many have a look on their face of I don't work for a newspaper.

For the past 20 years I have helped with staffing the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference. Some people who attend get very upset if any of the speakers are not working for a news organization. Some of the speakers have shared how they are helping pay their bills by doing photojournalistic weddings.

What we call the "Day In the Life" photo story is how many of these former photojournalists see themselves doing by covering weddings. Many have gone on to help cover water projects or other things like Habitat for Humanity around the world and show this as their "photojournalism."

The disconnect in both of these examples is those who could participate do not see themselves as photojournalists. The title to them means news organization photographer--not storyteller in the broader sense.

Don't become Obsolete

I believe that if I continue to use the term photojournalist to describe myself I would soon become obsolete because the word is not used the same with my audience as I use it.

To avoid becoming obsolete everyone, not just photojournalists, need to be less self centered and my client centered. What words in your clients vocabulary best describes you.

The power of made-up words cannot be underestimated either. My friends Dave Black and Zack Arias are great examples of creating new words. Dave talks about "silhouette reveal" verses "fill-flash." Zack often just makes up words for pieces of equipment in his demonstrations. Then he will say if you call up B&H and ask for a Big Bertha you might not get what he was using.

Remember you are trying to connect with your audience in order to get hired. Figure out their nomenclature that will help them understand your gifts and talents quickly.