Ever looked at a photo after you’ve taken it and seen something in it that you didn’t notice at the time, but is now the only thing you can see, since it seems to dominate the frame?
Journalists know all about this frustration.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve taken photos at various events and realized when I got back to the office that I essentially had a photo of an emergency exit sign (always helpfully lit up in red, of course). Oh, it’s in the background of the photograph, but manages to be so prominent that it’s the first thing your eye goes to when you look at the print. Or how about a photo of a dozen water bottles littering a table, otherwise known as a shot of the candidates at an all-candidates meeting?
And that’s not counting the shots where you didn’t notice the one kid who decided to make a funny face. Well, those can actually be a blessing in disguise, as they’re often totally charming — as long as it’s not somebody who’s decided to photobomb (the common term for hijacking a planned pic, for those who don’t know) with an obscene gesture.
These are just some of the things we journalists look at as we strive to ever-improve our work.
Our efforts to branch out into the world of video has also added a new twist to this age-old photo problem.
When you’re at an event shooting something you may not always know what your microphone is picking up. It’s not uncommon to head back to the newsroom to review your footage only to find out that someone behind you was swearing up a storm while the camera was rolling. Or somebody was having a personal conversation that’s definitely not part of the news, entertainment or community story you were trying to capture. Or perhaps someone made a really inappropriate comment that you only caught as you watched your video in retrospect.
It could even be as simple as shooting a plant or a garage sale where someone is bending over to grab an item from the ground and you’ve inadvertently captured a highly unflattering look at their underwear as their trousers don’t quite keep up with their calisthenics.
As with photos, cropping is our best friend in such situations. Live video, however, presents us with a tougher challenge in this regard. Sometimes all we can do is pull the live video down, and if it was compelling enough, edit it to exclude the parts we don’t want, then re-post.
So sometimes it’s not as easy as just taking a quick photo or shooting a quick video. Post-production, as it were, is still an integral part of the news gathering process.
