Put simply, the advice was: Have a reason to be there. Tell their story.

Although Ami’s advice  was simple it still needs a little further explanation, so let me expand a little. The first thing that we need to do is to pick a subject and then tell the story of that subject. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, but in the act of creating a subject we create a focus for our images and the expectation that there is a story to be told. Maybe you don’t know the whole story yet, maybe the images are part of the journey. Maybe you have an idea, maybe a feeling or maybe an emotion that you are trying to share. But one thing is for sure is that the image that will really tell the story – the image that really connects with people – will come because you were acutely aware of the context. The story could be a single image or it could be a photo-essay – if it is the latter each image needs to stand on its own. But either way you can’t tell a story without a context. You can’t have the context without knowing what you are there to capture.

You are not just some accidental tourist, hoping to be in the right place at the right time to shoot the next iteration of Steve McCurry’s Afghan girl. This I suggest is missing the point. I am sure we have all done it. Day 1 of a workshop or holiday in a new country, over-run by potentially iconic shots and furiously snapping away as we tick off National Geographic’s next cover image in our mind. The reality though is that this scatter gun approach seldom yields result – it is akin to “being jack of all trades and master of none”.

And when we are out of synch with our environment then we are not really able to see where the real stories are. We haven’t tuned into the people around us and our part in their story.  As a result the images don’t quite hit the mark. They might be technically good, you might be a master of your craft but they still look like Marco Ryan images, not Ami Vitale images right?

For example let’s look at my picture of the “Egyptian man in the coffee shop” (left). A nice portrait, well executed and there is clearly a connection between us. Ami’s critique about the picture itself (good connection, great light, simple clean background, nice composition) were all positive and helpful, but, she suggested, had I shown him drinking coffee, or puffing on a sheesha pipe or a cigarette, the image would have had more impact. As submitted, you would never know where this man was sitting or what his story was – at least not from the picture. In fact, as Ami gently reminded me, the title tells you more than the picture – lovely though the light and tonal range might be! You’d never guess from this that he was a retired guide for the Pyramids would you? If I had slowed down, chosen my composition better, I could have given you a hint of  that story –  the tip of the great Pyramid was just visible through the window (out of shot) to the right. Why didn’t I include it? For once it was not because I was in a rush (see my last post about slowing down) – quite the opposite. I was probably just fixated on getting a good catchlight or the right tones or demonstrating my perceived mastery of the rule of thirds. The truth is I can’t remember. And that says it all doesn’t it? In effect I was in super-tourist mode (albeit a slightly over-camera’d tourist in this case!) and because I lacked a reason to be there – because I lacked a framework or context for the story – the picture became anonymous.

One of the ingredients that differentiates Ami’s images from, say, mine is that everything she shoots is contextual. Her images are compelling because they are a result of observation, communication, understanding and seeing the subject in the context of the story. She ALWAYS has a reason for being there. She always knows her story, her angle. And my images? Well if  I am brutally honest, they are probably still opportunistic. I kid myself that I am there for a reason – for example maybe I wanted to create a “Blurb” book as a Christmas present on “The Artisans of Old Cairo” –  but the reality is I am doing tick-box photo-journalism. In fact not even that.Tick box photo-tourism. It is not that the images are bad, it’s just that they are not great and they fail to really connect because I am not clear about what story I am trying to tell.

Because the real story is theirs, not mine. The real reason to be there is to capture some aspect of humanity, to tell their story. Travel photography is, Ami suggested, not about the location, but about being intimate with a place or a subject; seeing beyond the simple, and seeing things that create complexity in your images. You can only do that by knowing why you are there and what it is that you are trying to convey with your images.

Ami used my image of the father and son working on their lathe in their workshop (left) as dusk approaches, to amplify her point. As it stands it is a nice image. Good use of light, not bad composition, with some context provided by the use of contrast (both figurative contrast with the people’s difference in age and literal contrast with the use of light and shade) and with a a couple of things you might change (the red and blue bag behind the boy’s head for example). Overall then a pretty decent image. Yet it could be so much more. It is, Ami suggested, an image with potential. And here is is why.

It has the potential to tell an amazing story, but it loses impact because  it is unclear what  that story is. Is it about struggle? Is it about working conditions? Child labour? What does this image tell you? It loses impact because I haven’t provided the context and as a result it is unclear what story it is that I am trying to tell.

Lets pretend for a second that I had delivered an iconic image about manual labour. That starts to suggest a story. Manual labour, Ami suggested running with the example, is a powerful symbol of man’s toil for survival. It gives us a glimpse into the past, and a single portrait like this is like a single quotation: Interesting in its own right, perhaps even memorable, but when seen in context as part of a story, it can be so much more. In the (non existent) iconic version of the  image we are expressing the humanity of man’s struggle for survival. We have context. We have a reason to be there. Yet in my  actual version (left), because I lacked that reason, that context, so the story is unclear and the impact of the image is diluted.

Ami’s questions challenged my assumptions, yet inspired me to think differently. “What is the story then?”, she asked. It is simply not clear. Is it their suffering that they had no other work option or is this a joyous image of a father and son free to run their own family business? Is it the sheer daily graft that leaves them exhausted at the end of the day covered in oil? What were they making? What detail could we have shown that would have made this image more compelling? If I had spent all day there, would I have different images to show for it? What story would I be able to tell? Does my image express the humanity of the situation?

For example, Cairo is the second most densely populated city in the world, after Mexico City, with a population of about 26 million people. Yet this image doesn’t begin to convey that or to provide that context. Perhaps it was not meant to, but if you now view this image in that context, suddenly things change. It now becomes perhaps about their own private space, their room to breath amongst the suffocating urban sprawl. Perhaps the  toil and the light are symbolic of other small tradesmen struggling to eek an existence against the poverty that Cairo’s scale has made such an unhappy bedfellow? The message then is that the context and story are inextricably linked.

Of course I had seen this so differently before talking with Ami. Ami made me realise that having a reason to be there – having clarity about the story that you are telling – makes it relevant not just for me, but for them. Perhaps if I had gone there with a translator or learnt a phrase that explained why I was there, they might have posed or allowed me to spend the afternoon with them observing their life. Having the reason to be there then – that understanding of what story it is that you are there to tell – allows us to find the common ground, to be able to create the environment in which their story can emerge, rather than just being an observer with a lens.We become facilitators of them expressing their story not authors of how they fit into our story. Go back, she said. Go back to the same place time and time again with a story in mind. Spend time understanding the context, and then use that insight to create a compelling image, because in the case of the father and son above, the potential is there.

In my last post, I shared Ami’s advice on the need to slow down and immerse yourself in the environment. Each of the themes she raised with me  are strong enough to stand alone. Each one when applied independently will raise your game and improve your images. The real impact though happens when these themes get combined. Then we begin to see where the potential to improve really lies.

The next post will cover how to step-change our technical ability and craft, as well as overcoming technical issues and frustrations – again using a couple of images form the review set to illustrate Ami’s insight and advice. I count myself blessed to have been given such great mentoring. I would love it if, having read and enjoyed this, you felt motivated to share this with others. Please tweet, post on facebook, digg or whatever your social network preference is.