Experience. If your photographer has a press background, he or she knows what picture desk editors want and how to get it. I cut my teeth working for regional and national newspapers, photographing everything from big arts and sporting events through to royal visits, celebrity press calls and business news stories – and there is no better grounding to developing an eye for a winning shot.
Imagination. All news is about people. Press photography is a storytelling opportunity, a chance to create a narrative that jumps right off the page or screen. A photo of the chairman holding a giant cheque for a nursery won’t make a front page, but a shot of him on his knees in a suit, helping the children plant seeds will. It’s all about looking for a different angle to the obvious and coming up with a fresh, intriguing shot that draws readers in. Being in the right place at the right time so I can capture a key moment just before it happens is all part of the process, and often means going to lengths such as dangling my expensive camera over a fast-moving river, or crouching on a muddy touchline and hoping a prop forward doesn’t land on me.
News. A good picture can ‘become’ the news, for instance my photo of a child running through Middlesbrough with a ball bearing gun illustrated the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette’s successful campaign to ban them, and won a Tom Cordner North East Press award into the bargain. And some close up pictures of a very ill child awaiting an urgent transplant told the story more powerfully than a thousand words ever could.
Speed. A fantastic shot is no good if it’s sitting on your photographer’s camera, it needs to be with the picture desks as fast as possible. I was the only North East photographer to be chosen by global news agency Reuters to shoot American artist Spencer Tunick’s famous Naked City art installation, which saw 1700 people pose naked in Gateshead’s Baltic Square, and my pictures were picked up by international media sources within moments of the shoot.
Celebrities. Visiting heads of state, the royal family, ‘A’ list celebrities and sports stars can all give your pictures an advantage, but imagination and experience are still the key to good results. For instance when covering a royal visit, it’s the little girl presenting them with flowers who turns and beams at her mum (and straight at my camera) that makes the front page, rather than a close up of the royal themselves.
Sensitivity. How, where and in what format a picture editor uses a photo all depends on the subject and the story. When documenting some types of news event I’m careful to give them pictures that sum up the story with sensitivity, and are safely within the National Press Photographers Association code of ethics.
In summary, a front page picture is not always about the obvious. In my 25 years as a press, commercial and portrait photographer I’ve travelled the North East documenting life exactly as it is lived - but still always seeking out that different angle that perfectly sums up the story, and hits the front page.
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