Why should photojournalists gather audio?
So, what’s this all about really? It does seem to fly in the face of what a still photojournalist does in their day-to-day routine. As documentary photographers we are encouraged to be a fly on the wall. We hang in the background and try to be invisible so that we can capture the subtle events in life. We adopt a “don’t look at me, don’t talk to me” attitude. In doing so, we can make some great pictures, but are we really capturing the complete story? Try it. Take the time to sit down with someone you’ve photographed and speak with them. This can be scary. It’s even scarier when you’re recording the conversation, but the end result will be the person in your pictures telling their own story, in their own voice. This isn’t easy. It takes time. It takes new equipment and new skills. It takes the courage to break out of your routine as a photographer and try something new. Getting a photographer to put the camera down is like talking a dog off a meat truck, but the benefits of taking this
