"One of the ways to staying in this business of being a photographer and being successful is you have to go with change and you have to roll with how the trends go along." -
Sean Arbabi, photographer
No other area of the industry was more affected by changing technology than photography. Every few years a major change was introduced -- from basic camera-programs (e.g. aperture or shutter speed priorities), auto-focus, lenses growing in length and width to handshake absorption and facial recognition. We survived a major switch from film to digital photography. And right now we are coming to terms with another switch: from still to moving pictures.
The photographers already mastered the art of telling a story in a single image. Now they need to expand their minds and learn to tell the story using all the other elements: movement, sound and time. Imagine the power when real masters of creative photography combine their sense for composition with these other elements of storytelling in a web video!
So, why is it not happening? Why is it so difficult to find a really well done web video? There are several explanations I could see:
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Problem: Photographers see an event as a bunch of 2-dimensional images.
Solution: Search for the story, not the image. Look for soundbites and the string of shots that will tell the story when combined. They don't need to stand out as individual shots.
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Problem: Understanding video technology could be overwhelming.
Solution: Well, there's no way around learning it. Solid understanding of camera operation: exposure, white balance, etc., should be easy as it isn't so much different from digital photography. Learn audio--what type of microphone to use in which situation--use headphones. As for the software, the better (and more expensive) it is, the more control you'll have over the edit. However, if the learning curve for, let's say, Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere is too steep, use simple consumer movie editing software (e.g. iMovie) until its limitations make you migrate to more advanced programs
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Problem: Trying to emulate TV's video.
Solution: Don't! TV does it better, they have bigger and more experienced crews and more money. Do it different, do what you're best at: shoot compelling images and bring out the journalist in you. Think what your audience would like to see that they can't see on TV.
Many of my colleagues resisted the initial switch from film to digital, just as many now resist the idea of shooting video instead of pictures. To them I can only say--the print newspaper is slowly giving way to the Internet. Maybe not as a full replacement, but as its complement. Internet needs video, advertisers want video. We are searching for solution to get the best quality image from the video frame to be used in the print. The change is already happening and it is up to individual photographer to embrace it or die (in professional sense).
The whole point of multimedia, as I see it, is to bring together different elements of the media into one sleek presentation. This project superbly executed by Las Vegas Sun is a great example of video, audio, photographs and graphics working together. Note how different elements of maps and slide shows appear at certain points of the video. Even if the water story isn't your thing, the way it's put together is something to learn from.
We like to browse through the video jungle on the web. Sometimes though, we may need a little help to get us through the volumes of (mostly) personal and (mostly) bad web videos.
Brian Storm's multimedia production studio called Media Storm was among the early adopters who realized the true potential of the news web video and set standards the rest of industry looks up to.
