A presentation introducing undergraduate marketing students to the use of still pictures in storytelling. Part of a series of practical workshops designed to develop elementary multi-media journalism skills (part of a content marketing module).

1. Workshop 4
Telling stories with pictures

2. In this session
• The basics of good
photo-journalism
• Infographics
• Building proficiency
with image based
social media
• Using wordpress
photo features

6. Men watch the 2014 World Cup Group B soccer match between the Netherlands and Australia on a laptop,
at a camel market in Daba near Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, on June 18, 2014. (Reuters/Mohamed Alhwaity)

7. When to use stills
• When they help you tell a
story more effectively, more
clearly or more easily
• Online – where long copy
looks dull
• To identify the people
involved in a story
• Sometimes the image is the
story

8. Photo-journalism basics
• Learn the rule of thirds
• Shoot vertical and horizontal (landscape and
portrait) versions of each picture
• Shoot action – instigate it if you have to
• Be careful about the background
<find a funny background shot to insert here>

9. Composition: The rule of thirds
• Imagine two horizontal lines
and two vertical lines creating a
grid of nine squares
• There are four intersections of
four lines where you main
subject should be placed
• Creative cropping can help but
beware loss of resolution
• Be aware of key social media
formats e.g. profile pictures

10. Be aware of key social media formats

11. Pixels, you can’t see them but they’re there
• Q. What’s a 3 megapixel camera?
• A. One that can take a picture that is
2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels
• Think resolution: Measured in pixels
per square inch (comes from column
inches)
• Print is 200ppi to 300ppi for mags
• Most computers display at 72ppi
• Compressing a high resolution image,
reduces the file size for online use
• Formats: JPG (joint photography editors
group), GIF and TIF

12. Data journalism and infographics
• Which? infographic: Freshers – your first term in
numbers
• “Any time you get a story with dense statistical
information in it, or simply a load of figures, it is
worth considering whether an infographic could
help you tell it” (Bull 2010)
• Make sure your data is validated and make your
sources very clear
• www.piktochart.com let’s you make your own
infographic quickly and easily. Watch the demo
video here

13. Making more of images
• Captioning
• Galleries and slide shows
• Image based SNS including Instagram, Flickr
and Pinterest

14. Caption competition

15. Create a gallery on Wordpress
Use the add media function to create a gallery in a post or
page the select ‘create gallery’ from left hand options

16. Add an Instagram widget
Add widgets using the appearance tab on your dashboard

17. Using Instagram
• Twitter for photo journalists
• Mobile based but there are apps for PC use
• For example try iconosquare which offers a
photogallery widget you can drop into
Facebook or wordpress.com websites
(premium version)
• Create hashtag feeds
or link from your blog
site to your own
public iconosquare url

18. Using Pinterest
• A digital mood or storyboard
• Identify themes of interest to your audiences
• Follow those with similar interests – identify
feature angles and opportunities
• See amnesty case study in your workshop
tasksheet

19. Workshop activities
• Still photos: Crop, edit and caption the image you have
chosen to accompany your existing news story
• Datajournalism: Start to compile some statistics – see
Tasksheet for suggested sources and have a go at
creating your own infographic with
www.piktochart.com
• Pinterest: Identify a range of themes and create and
link to a Pinterest board from your website
• Instagram: Sign up, if you’re not already. Try out
iconosquare and organise your media into groups.
Identify hashtags of interest to your audience and
consider linking to a hashtag feed from your site

20. For next session
• Create a dynamic photo story using a slide show,
gallery or Pinterest board linked to one of your news
stories or create a new story based on photographs
• You may use webs.com inbuilt photo features or link to
another page or feed from your website
• NEWS GATHERING: Next session we’ll be writing and
publishing news bulletins. Using your established
online news sources identify at least 10 potential
stories. At least 1 or 2 you need to develop into a full
news article, others you can curate by tailoring a head
and intro for your target audience.