5 things I learned as an NPPA Clips Contest judge
Notes on visualizing journalistic integrity
In February, I was asked to judge the Monthly News Clip Contest at the National Press Photographers Association. To engage in a critical discourse on photojournalistic integrity with Sarah Gordan (The Day) and Ryan Walker (MLB) was an honor. We judged portraits, sports, photo essays, and spot news. The entries covered the recent histories of January 2024 in the Mid-Atlantic, including Nikki Haley’s campaign, a U.S. Naval homecoming, and demonstrations in Washington.
Below are the winning images paired with photo colloquialisms that have been revitalized by these photographers. Here are some notes on perspective, subtlety, equipment, the decisive moment, and the contextualization of images in our increasingly digital age.
The power of perspective
Billy Schuerman’s point of view allows us to consider its content in a new way which, in turn, enhances the memorability of the moment. In sports photography, we see this anticipatory beat time and time again, but rarely from a bird's eye view. The ardent eyelines and the dialogue between the circular and angular strike the viewer. The strong hands made soft against the bold blue are evocative of neoclassical brush strokes…
It’s been said that one of the highest compliments to a photographer is comparing their work to painting. Why? As an art form, photography is young, and often considered a successor to painting. Dina Litovsky wrote about photography’s developmental phallic stage in relationship to its mother form: “Painting is so well established that the standards of what is 'good' are burned in our psyche,” she wrote. “Photography is not yet part of the cultural curriculum [...] Photography exists in a strange space, torn between its allegiance to the past and the possibilities of the future.” At once nostalgic and innovative, Schuerman’s image epitomizes the paradoxical promise of photography in adolescence.
Subtlety is the key to sophisticated symbolism
From the Haley campaign to Capitol conferences to the Iowa caucus, Julia Nikhinson’s political coverage is consistently compelling. Her eye for detail and composition allow her images to transcend the limitations of the assembly room, alluding to the existential weight of this election year.
Subtlety is a form enlivened in Nikhinson’s work, with details in the frame nodding to the conditions that constitute them. The fact that DeSantis placed second in the caucus resonates in the two campaign posters, two American flags, and his stark silhouette between them, as all the light in the frame leads to a hesitant gap between his foot and the stage — forever irresolute.
Photographic subtlety is undervalued in its ability to elicit social change. To play on tropes we’ve seen before is not only derivative but often blatantly disrespectful. You may recognize this point from any works in the postmodern canon of journalistic ethics, such as David Campbell’s critique on the iconography of the starving child in Imaging Famine. The intersection of critical thinking and symbolic subtlety moves photojournalism beyond its harmful habit of haphazard obviousness.
I’ve also heard it said that the viewer likes to feel smart. Nikhinson’s imagery is sophisticated — and by that, I do not mean pretentious. It operates carefully and at a high degree of complexity. Explicit or didactic messages can turn readership away from the news, but Nikhinson’s photography trusts the viewer to use discernment, make inferences, and spend time with the frame.
Use discernment when judging quality
I love this image by Mike Kropf. As a viewer, I enjoy being reminded of the photographer’s participation in the scene, and the tasteful eye contact and super-wide perspective in Kropf’s image do exactly that. They bring us in to engage with the chaotic celebration while still maintaining a degree of “objectivity.”
There is a minute amount of grain in the image that, although entirely too indistinct to critique, calls to mind a certain disclaimer: disregarding a good image on account of ISO contributes to the marginalization of low-income or early-career photographers.
Not to harp on this point (but also to absolutely harp on this point), I’d like to address the broad constituency of flash photographers currently enjoying their industry hegemony. To them, I ask: Does the flash enhance documentation or did you just throw it in because you managed to afford a $900 profoto? There is something to be said for quality, but to judge solely based on equipment is to propagate a culture of equipment fetishism that capitalizes on the gear-bro side of the industry. I digress.
Spot news is all about the decisive moment
Striking a balance between portrayal and reportage is a ceaseless effort in visual storytelling. Of course, the value in portrayal is found when the aestheticizing nature of photography is used as a means to social justice. As Marcus Bleasdale observed in his interview with Lauren Walsh for Conversations On Conflict Photography: “Photography fails if you just put it out there to say, Look at this. Isn’t it horrible? You have to say, Look at this. Isn’t it horrible? But here’s how you can make it stop.” Although valuable, compositional flair takes time, and often fails to meet the spot news prerogative: to intimately and accurately reflect the instantaneous moment. In rare cases does timing miraculously align with the intersection of portrayal and reportage, so generally, in cases of spot news, reportage is valorized.
There were many visually stunning entries (eg. Benjamin B. Braun’s frame that worked wonders with backlight), but as Sarah Gordon wrote in our comments: “A lot of these frames were great but when we read the cutlines we felt they really didn't portray the gravity of the situation, they didn't read how many lives were lost or firefighters sent to the hospital and we really wish they had.” Ultimately we selected the comprehensive images that lent themselves entirely to the newsworthy moment.
Proper captioning facilitates trust in the photographer
The camera is an amoral apparatus capable of prompting great help and great harm. Its product, the photograph, can never self-explicate. For this reason, it is our highest responsibility to contextualize our images in our text.
In On Photography, Susan Sontag is very critical of photography – and justifiably so. She unveils the violent potential of the medium: “To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves.”
As Sontag said, “Moralists who love photographs always hope that words will save the picture. The opposite approach to that of the museum curator who, in order to turn a photojournalist’s work into art, shows the photographs without their original captions.” (Emphasis mine.) The image and its caption are mutually constitutive in the world of journalism.
So, when our team identified an image we found compelling, the first thing we did was look in the metadata for a name. As an indicator of their engagement with subjects, names facilitate deeper trust in the image-maker. This is a standard practice that excludes instances of protecting a subject’s identity or unavailable conversation (eg. protests). It harmonizes with a virtue listed in the NPPA Code of Ethics: “Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.”
Amidst the rapid decline of the newspaper industry, the responsibility to properly contextualize images extends beyond the newsroom and into the hands of every person who has been made a documentarian in an increasingly digital age. As generative AI continues to develop and threaten the veracity of photography, the evolving conversation around proper contextualization is paramount… but more on this in an upcoming newsletter.
‘Til then, take responsibility, and don’t neglect your caption!
That’s all for today, thanks for reading.
Tomorrow, I’ll be managing the Social Documentary Network 2024 Portfolio Reviews. Hope to see some of you there!
Blessings.
Enjoyed the "insiders" look into journalistic photography.