5 Tips for Telling Better Stories With Natalie Keyssar

Telling a story is more than taking pretty images. Here are five tips from photojournalist Natalie Keyssar that will help you build a better story.

For those who don't know, Natalie is a Canon Explorer of Light who primarily practices in the world of photojournalism. Based out of Brooklyn, NY, her work focuses on the personal effects of political turmoil and conflict, youth culture, and migration. Her work has been supported by The Pulitzer Center, The Magnum Foundation, The National Geographic Society, and the IWMF among many others. So, in short, she knows what she is talking about. When I had the chance to sit down for a virtual chat with her, she sent me a list of a few topics to choose from. But rather than choose one, I asked if I could choose them all, and she gracefully agreed. This virtual chat ended up being broken up into two sections. This first section is about storytelling, and the second section will be more about the business side of being a photojournalist. 

How To Choose a Story 

In this section, Natalie talks about the importance of choosing a story. She feels that a lot of people overlook this important step by diving into a topic simply because it's popular at the time or because photographers feel like it's a story they are supposed to care about. Instead, she says that choosing a story should be like falling in love. It should be a topic that drives you crazy with passion in either a good or bad way. Because most photojournalistic stories are long-term endeavors, there are going to be easy days and hard days. There are going to be times when things don't go as planned, and there will even be roadblocks that seemingly stop you in your tracks. So the topic of the story needs to be something that drives you and motivates you enough to keep going in times of struggle. Otherwise, you could end up with a bunch of half-told stories that never get finished.

Getting Started: How To Make Contact

In the world of photojournalism, access is king. You could have a great idea for a story you want to tell, but if you don't get access to the key players, the idea will never become a reality. In this section of the chat, Natalie talked about the difficulty new photographers have with walking into a new space with a nice camera and asking to take someone's photo. This is an area where the story you choose can help in a big way. One of the easiest ways to connect with people is through shared interests. So if the story you are trying to tell is something you are passionate about, simply sharing that passion with the potential subject can go a long way in gaining trust and access. For situations where you may be passionate about telling a story that you may not know a lot about, simply asking someone to teach and mentor you about the topic while you document it could also be a good way of getting in. She also feels it's important to be open and transparent in what you are doing, why you are doing it, and where the images could be seen (more on ethics later).

Visual Style

In this section, Natalie talks about the fact that your visual style can go a long way in defining how a situation or subject can be perceived by the viewer. Traditionally, a lot of underrepresented people are photographed in a way that leaves little attention to their appearance and are often photographed in a dark, underlit way. Where people of the high class are traditionally photographed with a lot of attention to the way they look, oftentimes with a team of people to make sure the details of every image are taken into account. But just because you are photographing a person in struggle doesn't mean you can't photograph them to look powerful or to make sure you capture them in a flattering way. She also touches on the fact that the tools you use for your style can affect your images. For example, she loves to use flash in her work, but there are situations where maybe someone is in a very vulnerable moment, and it could be very disrespectful to be popping a flash in their face.

New Media and Collaborative Approaches

Most of the time in photojournalism, the photographer strictly relies on their images to tell the story. But in this section, Natalie talks about the possibilities of making a story more powerful by expanding that medium and making the process a more collaborative effort. An example she gave is if you are working on a story about a painter, it may make sense to have the images printed and the painter paint on the images produced. This intertwining of mediums not only helps tell a better story, but the collaboration with the subject can also go a long way in producing a more heartfelt and engaging story. Obviously, this technique won't apply to every story, but I like the idea of keeping an eye out for these types of possibilities, whether it be painting, embroidery, poetry, or any other type of medium.

Ethics and How To Protect The Community 

This last topic is not necessarily a tool for producing a better story, but it is always something that needs to be considered when figuring out how to tell the story. Especially if you are working on a story or with a subject that could be affected by the telling of the story. For example, if you are telling the story about the struggles of being an undocumented citizen, you obviously wouldn't want the publishing of that story to lead to the deportation of your subject. This also ties into what was previously talked about when gaining access to a subject. If the story has any potential to cause the subject harm in any way, you would want to be upfront and honest from the start of the conversation about those possibilities. Natalie also talks about the importance of this conversation being fluid and ongoing. Maybe the story was initially talked about being published in a local paper, but after the initial publication, the publisher wants to make it a national story. Or maybe a publisher in another country wants to run the story. These seemingly minor changes could have a drastic effect on your subject depending on their situation.

Conclusion

There is a ton more that goes into building and telling a better story. There is even a ton more that could be said about each of these topics that was shared. Nevertheless, I think there is a lot to be gathered and learned with even this brief overview. For me, my biggest takeaway was to choose a story based on passion rather than popularity. I also learned a ton about the mindset of gaining access to a subject. But if this topic is of interest to you, definitely check out more from Natalie Keyssar, because she offers in-person and virtual workshops about this topic and so much more.