The Photo Story

More than just a bunch of pictures

By Bradley Wilson

A photo story in the newspaper is more like a spread in the yearbook or a magazine, except vertical (usually), than a typical newspaper page. The objective, using primarily visuals supplemented words rather than words supplemented by pictures, is to tell a story.

Below are six examples of photo pages that have appeared in the Technician. Critique them. See if they meet the criteria for a good photo page. Click on the low-resolution image here to download a high-resolution PDF file (averaging 6MB/page).

• Is there clear evidence of a reporter, a designer an editor and a photographer (PRED) working together?
• Is there a dominant visual to pull the reader's eye in to the page?
• Do the photos collectively tell a story with a beginning, middle and end?
• OR do the photos collectively tell a story with a tight shot, a wide shot, a medium shot and a detail shot at least?
• Are the internal margins (between photos, etc.) consistent?
• Does the headline accurately summarize the content while grabbing the reader's attention?
• Is the headline visually appealing?
• Does every photo have a caption and does the caption touch the photo it adds information about?
• Are the captions extentions of the story, not just stating the obvious?
• Are there appropriate photo credits and a byline on the page?
• Is there a story on the pages that tells, so to speak, the rest of the story?
• Does the lead on the story grab the reader's attention?
• Is the story full of meaningful quotes?
• Is there attractive use of white space?
• Are there design embellishments (such as the use of the ’Canes logo or initial letters) to add some design flair to the page?
• Does color add to the page, not distract from it?
• Does the page have the appropriate section head, name of the paper, page number and date?

Page 6, June 16, 2006	Page 3, July 13, 2006	Jan. 13, 2006
March 1, 2006	March 23, 2006	Feb. 10, 2006