How to add meaning and impact to your photographs

This podcast was inspired by another podcast that I listen to (“The rest is history”) where they spoke about Lee Miller. This, in turn, was prompted by the 2023 movie starring Kate Winslet.

Lee Miller was largely forgotten until her biography came out in the 1980’s (she died in 1977). She had a privileged upbringing and, I think it’s fair to say, lacked any purpose in her life. This changed when the Second World War started, and she became a war photographer.

If you google Lee Miller, the first photograph you’re likely to see is of her in Hitler’s bath in his flat in Munich. I understand that she was in his apartment by accident and the reason for the bath was that she was washing off the mud from the Dachau concentration camp, which she’d just visited. 

Photojournalism is a central part of my approach to photography (the “visual storyteller”) and I always respect the people who are willing to put themselves on the front line. Lee Miller was in real danger of death, and journalists and photographers are often targeted to stop the truth from getting out (this is happening in Palestine as I write).

Another aspect is censorship and misinformation. In Lee Millers case, the photographs she took at Dachau featured in two spreads in Vogue, clearly showing what had happened there. Another set, showing American bombers dropping napalm on German positions, was censored.

So, what are the takeaways for our photography? I suggest these:

Imagine you only have a roll of 12 (or 24, or 36) images available and think before you press the shutter button: What is this photograph about? What is the story you want to tell?

Try a film camera if you’re not familiar with using them, as you need a different approach and I believe this will positively impact your work.

When is a photograph dishonest? For example, some, pre-Google maps, real estate photographs create an impression of space. So the question has to be, is the intention to deceive the viewer? What is your intention? This is important with the amount of misinformation we see today, much of it photographic. 

I hope you find it thought provoking...

Graham

It's time for another podcast...

Transcript

>> Speaker A: 0:17

Hello again. one of the things that I really love is history. So, I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to history. All sorts of history. I mean I grew up in England, so English history is, probably my first interest. but I, that kind of gets quite broad. Anyway. So, the reason I mentioned this is that the subject of this podcast is, a photographer called Lee Miller, who you may have heard of or maybe not. And the relevance to the podcast is I listen to a history podcast called the Rest is History and I really enjoy it. I think it's a great podcast. it's got quite a big following these days. They've been going quite a while and like four years, I think. yeah, so they talk about historical subjects, mostly British, but also, other countries too. So the particular, podcast that inspired me to do this was about Lee Miller. So Lee Miller is best known as, basicallyf photographer, ah, photojournalist in the Second World War. And she had a very interesting life, so sort of quite privileged initially and then ended up, on the front line taking photographs. I believe the first woman to do that, certainly, she was among the first, photographers allowed in to DK out concentration camp near, Munich when it was, liberated in 1945. So she's had that sort of experience. So I'll come back to some of that later. But, it got me thinking about photojournalism because that's something that, I also have an interest in. M. a certified photojournalist. not that I've ever really used that, but it is something I've trained for and qualified as. So not that I've kept going, but I had a press pass at one stage. And the reason I wanted to talk about all this is that, one of the fundamentals for me about how you approach photography is something that I use the phrase the visual storyteller. So if you ve listened to podcasts from me before or you've been on any of the webinars or listened or watched any of the webinars, I've put together, you'll know that, the visual storyteller is pretty much the cornerstone of my approach to photography. And the reason for that, is that, I believe we're naturally wired for stories. If you think about, how we like to relay information, we love stories. I mean, look at Hollywood, look, at tv, these are huge industries. But if you go back Hundreds of years or thousands of years. We can go back, to cave paintings and there are some knots so far from me where I live here in France. So hence the history thing. and it's very easy to imagine because we've probably all done it san around a campfire at some point or another telling, stories. Might be life stories, it might be stories about other people or stories that we've heard from other people, whatever it is. But we love stories. So to do that visually and to take that approach to your photography means that you are sort of tuning into how we like to get information. And the other side to that, and this is one of the questions that I recommend people ask when they're taking a photograph, is what's the story with the photograph? It doesn't have to be a big one, but when you're standing there and you have your camera, you're in this situation. What is it about that situation that is prompting you to take a photograph? What is it that is, maybe appealing to you? Something that you like. It might be something that horrifies you, but you feel a need to tell that story to let the world know about what's going on. So there are different angles to this. And I thought with Lee Miller, just, I suppose, looking at her. And also there's ah, I think a movie with Kate Winslet that came out, I think last year, 2023. so I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how good he is. I gather it's a sort of fair representation of at least parts of Lee Miller's life. I think some of the names have been changed, but essentially it's reasonably faithful to her story. So the reason for talking about her is that she was in that situation where she was a wharfgrapher. she went from photographing handbags for Vogue in London at the beginning of the war, the sort of phony war in the early part, to actually getting out into the front line after D day. And some of her photographs got a huge feature in Vogue magazine of all magazines. And these were the photographs she took at the Dakau concentration camp, which is near Munich. And she was with the first group of photographers, journalists, allowed to visit the camp once it had been liberated. And it's difficult for us to imagine, or most of us anyway, to imagine what that would have been like. I think it was either 37 or 39 railway carts full of bodies and bodies. So it must have been absolutely horrendous and a number of the journalists, photographers just threw up when they were there. It must have been just such a shock and such an appalling thing to have to see. But she did her job, took all of these photographs. I forget how many rolls of filmed. Now these are rolls of 12 images, 12 frames on a roll. So this also takes us back to being a bit choosy about what you photograph and actually having a discipline about what you photograph and really think about what you're photographing rather than just blast away that we can do these days with digital cameras. So that was one set of photographs that was actually used by Vogue in, I think it was a two part, spread, I think over two months. and telling the story, showing what it was like to see that situation and convey the truth of it. So the whole ethics and information and misinformation is another aspect of what's prompted this podcast. There was also another set of photographs she took which were stopped. And I didn't know about this and I think it was Sam Malo. So I might have got that wrong with the French town that the Americans were trying to get the Germans out, but the German forces were well dug in. And she took photographs of the American Air force dropping napalm on the German positions. Now Idol was associated napalm with the Vietnam War, but apparently the napalm is pretty nasty stuff. But that was something that was censored essentially. They wouldn't show those pictures. And of course this is another aspect of photojournalism and it's something we see today. if you're photographing things that the people with the power don't want the world in general to see, they will definitely censor it. And as we're seeing in places like Palestine at the moment, the Israeli invasion, occupation force, whatever we want to call them, are targeting photographers and journalists so that they can't tell the truth of what's going on in Palestine. And obviously, this is not a unique situation. It happens pretty much everywhere, this conflict. But it adds that other sense. It's another aspect of photoj journalism. And I think it's fair to say that for Lee Miller, that there was kind of a high point for her. She really found purpose. she had all the adrenaline rushes, in her time as a wolf photographer on the front line. She was shot at. She was easily in situations where she could have been killed. And there's a whole adrenaline rush for some people in those situations and everything else before, her story's quite confused. She's sort of all over the place. And afterwards there's a real anticlimax, dropped into depression and all sorts. So, there's all of those aspects. Coming back to the photography part of it, there's a couple of things I really want to talk about. One is the visual storyteller part. And if you grew up with film and I grew up with film and then later moved to digital, but I think there were some really good disciplines. If you haven't used film, I do recommend that you have a go, simply because it's actually a very different way of taking photographs and everything. You know, DSLRs, SLRs and DSLRs look very similar, but how you use them is actually quite different. And I guess the aspect about film photography I'm talking about is there'you've got first of all, film speed. You need to learn a little bit about film and what sort of speed you want because that's it. On your roll you can push and pull, which means basically shoot a, a different ISO to what the film is rated at. But that's it for the whole role. So you've got to make that decision for the whole role, not just one image, which obviously with digital we can do, make all of those changes on an image by image basis. The other thing is that you've got a very limited number of frames on the roll. It might be 12, 24 or 36, the normal 35 millime rolls. If you're using medium format, you may have at 15 and 30. So either way you're pretty limited. It depends on the filmack that you're using if you're using medium. But film first of all means you've got to be a lot more disciplined about and thoughtful I suppose, about what photograph it is that you're taking. And it brings you back to that question, or it's at least one that I recommend people think about and that is to ask the question, what is it about this situation that I want to photograph? What's the story? Going back to photojournalism. Visual storyteller I want to share with anybody who looks at this image. What is it I'm trying to convey? Is it the emotion of an event? And I think if you photograph emotional situations, these are the photographs with the biggest impact. And if you're not familiar with doing that, then a challenge you can set yourself is to photograph emotions. So pick some emotions Happiness, anger, depression, frustration, all. Go Google some emotions. But knock out a list of emotions. Exc me and try photographing them. How do you convey anger visually? we'll all have, ideas, about that. But it's a great discipline to get into because I think when you do that, it adds another level or another depth to the work that you're producing, to the photographs that you produce. So think about what is it about that situation that you want to convey? for sure, some of it will be the factual aspects of what's there, what it looks like to be in that situation. And I will come on to misrepresentation as well. But go beyond that. You can see a scene and anyone can take a photograph of the scene. You just photograph your camera in that direction and press the shutter button. But, what's more about it, start thinking about things like, your composition. what's the subject? Is there an interaction between your subject and somebody or something else in the image? What are the aspects? What is it? How do you capture what you're seeing in such a way that someone will want to stand and look at it and look at it and look at it? And something I've shared before is that one of the best definitions I've heard of what makes a good photograph is that the longer somebody stands looking at it, the better. Hopefully that's not trying to make sense of it, but actually seeing the more they look at it, the more things they see, the more elements they see. More of the story begins to reveal itself, as somebody looks at it. So when you're using film cameras, you've got fixed speed for the role, you've got what's in the viewfinder. so you really want to do as much. You pretty much do everything in the viewfinder. the approach I learned when I was learning portrait and wedding photographer from professional photographer and this was using film, was that you do everything through the viewfinder, so cropping, composition, absolutely everything. And once you press the shutter button, once that was done, that was the end of it. You just then printed there. Because if you think of it from photography as a job, you want to be getting through every individual image as quickly as possible. Because this is all time. And your time has, a monetary value. And I remember there was somebody on this, course I was doing who had shot a wedding and then spent, I think he shortot it on the Saturday and then spent the following four or five days post processing everything. And she said him, well, you know that's not a business, that's a hobby. because you just don't have that time. So one of the, I think one of the marks of a good professional photography is that they pretty much do everything through the viewfinder. there'be some sort of processing going on after but it's probably measured in minutes and certainly not hours or days in some cases. So using film you are more limited on the technology, what it can deliver for you and you are more limited in the number of frames you have before you have to change roles. So with Lee Miller in her situation she went around with two cameras because that way she was always ready to capture what was going on to take the photograph. So if one camera had reached the end of the roll and you obviously rewind, rewind the film and then reload it, there was still another camera, camera ready to go. And I certainly used to do that. My early days of whale photography was exactly that. It was film, cameras. I had 2x500s. I think they were the Alburn altarss completed the same motor drives, everything else. And they were both ready to go. Both had a ah, 35, 36 frame role in them and as soon as one role finished I would reload it on the fly. So it's an interesting discipline to work with and I think in doing, if you do get the chance to work with film, if you've never done it before, I think it just gives you a bit more discipline about what you're taking and asking that question why. So I think it gets you to be a bit more, there's a bit more critical thinking goes on before you actually press the shutter button. So that is one aspect of it. I've spoke about misinformation and ethics and this is something I've definitely been asked about several times. When it comes to post processing, is it ethical? And my answer always comes down to what is your intent? Because if your intent is to deceive then in my opinion that's not ethical if your intent is to maybe make the subject clearer or make it easier for people to see what's going on. Because we've all had the situation where we shot something but the camera doesn't always see what we see. because our brain and our eye combination is doing all sorts of automatic adjustment that the camera isn't just capable, isn't really capable of or definitely isn't capable of. So and sunsets are the classic where you've got an Amazing sunset. You're absolutely blown away by it and you take a photograph and then what you look at is the old sort of limp biscuit. It's pretty awful. And, you have to fiddle around with it in post. But again, for me, when I'm working on post, so what I tend to do with color, because mostly I'm working in nature, photographing animals. Usually there's grass around or something green, and I just get my greens right. That's my reference point. And I can always look out of the window where I am if I'm working at home and see what green looks like. And, as long as I'm getting more or less that on the, PC screen, that tells me that my color saturation is about right now. Equally, I don't think there's anything wrong with oversaturating an image if it is for the purpose of art. And frankly, you, know, we call ourselves photographers, so hopefully we do, but we're also artists, we're creating images. And as I've already been talking about, if you get an image that has an emotional response with the viewer, that's more powerful. But at that point we're. To me, that's art. to me, art is about representing something and conveying that to the viewer and hopefully getting some sort of a response to it. that, to me, is what art is. You may well have different definition, and that's fine. You might not agree with me, that's fine as well. but the point is that once we've finished working on our photograph and we get it printed, stick it on a wall or put it on Instagram or somewhere else, and it's out there, other people will look at that image and certainly if it's a good one, if you think about it, they'll get some meaning from it. it could be. That's a nice dolphin, you know, that might be one meaning. But if you froze an action, it's where you. To me, this one of the things I love about, photographing things like dolphins, if you can actually freeze them in a moment. So you've got a. A millisecond that you've now frozen for, well, maybe not quite eternity, but for a long time. People, can pick apart that moment, everything about that image, shape of the animal that it's taken, its colour, how the water's streaming off the body, that kind of thing. You know, the water around, how it's broken. know there's lots of things to unpak there. Maybe there's another dolphin under the water near the subject and how are those two swimming together? That kind of thing. So there's a lot in there. But somebody else looking at that picture might see something completely different. And the reason is that we're always looking at ah, everything around us through the lens of our own life experience. So something I might regard as completely factual. You might completely disagree with moon landings and flat earths. A couple that spring to mind. So yeah, I'm confident the moon landings did happen. But I've had lots of discussions from time to time with people who are sort of questioning it. And that turnative photography is quite fun because it's quite easy to debunk the arguments that people put up about the photograph showing that it was it wasn't actually real. But that's another subject. So but the ethics of it. So yeah, what is your intention? And obviously one of the things that is very relevant at the moment is the amount of misinformation that goes out. Photographs that have been edited deliberately to deceive or they've been taken in one place of the subject and they are put out as being taken somewhere completely different and a completely different context. So there's lots of those sorts of things going on. Our friends in Israel are very good at that. I'll just say that and then leave that one where it is. But yeah, there's a lot of stuff right now. And I suppose in situations where there is conflict, often it's the oppressors will be doing a lot of the let's say being very creative with the truth and possibly the oppressed people are as well to get support. But you have to look at the situation. And what are the motivations when it comes to us doing our photographs? Ah, what is our motivation? What are we trying to convey? And is it, are we giving an honest representation of what's going on M. Or are we trying to deceive? So I don't know why we would do that. So an obvious example is real estate and pick on real estate now. so I don't know if you've been in the situation where you're looking at a property and you look at the picture online or whatever and it looks great. I'm really talking about the days before Google Earth. You couldn't virtually walk up the street and have a look around. But in the good old days it might have been a photograph in a newspaper I've certainly had this situation where I'm looking at property looks great. It looks like it's reading the isolated. All the rest of it. I get down there and it's absolutely cut. You know, there's places everywhere. The environment is totally different to what I was expecting. This to me is misrepresentation, because I've not got a true sense of where things are at. Again, you're welcome to disagree with me about that one. That's fine. So it comes back to where I'WANT to pull this back to is, you know, the photojournal isism aspect. And the reason I talk about that is obviously it's a fundamental driver to the visual storyteller, which to me is a great way of approaching photography because, yeah, not every photograph we take is going to have a huge emotional impact. That kind of stuff. It's not going to be a brilliant piece of art. a son, friend, whatever, having an event, get an award, playing the sport, doing whatever, it's fun. And those sort of things are really representative of that event in somebody's life. It may have no interest at all for anybody outside the family say, but generations from now might, love to see those photographs. So, where you might not get the emotional impact that you get in really, these iconic kind of images that I'm sure we can all think of them, what you will do if you think about composition and telling the story, you're providing context, all these sorts of things, they do add value to the image. And these are the things that I think we can do every day and every time you press the shutter button. And the more that becomes second nature, the better because I think that improves the standard of photography that we have. And when we are in a situation that is a bit more, emotive perhaps, a bit more, excuse me, different. we can put out a photograph that is really good and without consciously having to think about it too much. because what we're doing naturally is applying the kind of rules that apply to us or appeal to us in our style of photography that gives you a good result. So, I think that probably covers off everything that I had in mind, for this particular podcast. In fact, there's an iconic picture of Lee Miller and it's probably the picture that you'll see if you Google her. And she's actually sitting in Hitler's bath. And I believe the story is that, because Hitler had a flat in Munich that he maintained while he was being Fr and all we rest to it. And as I understand it Lee Miller and the guy she was with, they were just looking for somewhere to clean up really. Just came across this and went to this apartment and I don't think they knew who it was until they were looking around and saw a lot of anagram stuff with ah, and a swastika on it and they realized where they were. But the picture you'll see is of Lee Miller in Hitler's bath taking a bath. And her boots are by the bath and all this. And Yeah to some extent it's staged because the guy I think was another photographer she was with took the picture. but the reason for taking the bath is that they'd just been to dak out as I say that's near Munich. And what she was doing was getting all the mud off her which was the mud of dac out. So that was the reality was behind that photograph. And then obviously to advance to the moment and where they were to do this iconic photograph. But that's the story of that photograph that you'll see if you Google Lee Miller. So I guess key things from this are ah, if you do have a favorite photographer, maybe find out a bit more about them and maybe in doing that you'll be a bit more inspired and their work will have more meaning to you as somebody who's getting to know them. another thing is to be the photojournalist, tell the story. And it doesn't have to be every story, it doesn't have to be a long story. So not every photograph you take will be this amazing story. But do maybe have keep in mind that the picture you take today, particularly it'family one. as that goes down generations that will perhaps have more and more value, more and more meaning to people who you'll never meet, know three, four, five generations away. And so you're not only creating the photograph for yourself but also the people who you'll never meet who perhaps want some sense of the person that you're taking the photograph of. If you do get the opportunity to use ah, film if you haven't done it before then it's something I do recommend because it is just a different How you approach your photography, how you approach taking the photograph is different because the technology is different. And in how you use the camera, you really need probably you'll be using manual cameras do have auto modes. I mean the later film cameras Definitely have them. But if you've not used manual before, it's always good to try out a little bit of manual photography just to really start to understand how everything works together. Sensitivity, ISO, shutter speed and aperture, how that works together. If you don't have a good feel for that, you know, it's another thing you can do. You can do it with digital as well, but it's something that is perhaps a little bit more relevant. Film cameras, because they tend to be a little bit more manual in their operation. and they have auto modes and all the rest of it as well. But it's another part of, using film. But you do have that limited number of shots. So, that can be a challenge to maybe have a day or a couple of days or whatever period it is where you only shoot film and you've got one rol of film and that should limit. So, if you go somewhere where there's a lot of photo opportunities, as it were, that can be a really good discipline to get into because rather than blasting away and taking hundreds, you've got to really start thinking and being picky and choosy about what you're photographing. And I think all of that does contribute in a positive way to, your photography. And I'm a believer that when you're a photographer, you're constantly learning. You never get to the end of it where you know it all. I think there's always something new to be learned. You get an idea, you get an inspiration, you see somebody else's work. there's always something new or that you change your camera and it has new things that you can explore. So I think photography, one of the things that appeals to me about photography is that you're constantly learning. There's always new things to learn. So hopefully that's something that appeals to you too. Okay, that's it for this podcast. Thank you very much. Hope you found that interesting, useful, and I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now.

>> Speaker B: 28:13

Just before I go, I wanted to remind you that, first of all, I have an offer running, with, my free download. So if you go on to the website and there's a link at the bottom of the description of this particular podcast, and that will take you to a link, to where you can give me your email, I will send you, a PDF which is 10 Simple Steps to improve your photography today. So it includes the kind of things that I talk about in the podcast. So it's all there in black and white with some examples. You can see what's going on. And also remember, I offer, online photography courses. I do fine art. If you haven't checked out my galleries, please do. The links are, again, below the description of the podcast. And don't forget to help me out. So you're welcome to subscribe both to the podcast and you can become a member of my Patreon membership and, join me there. So in that membership, you get, access to me, and also you get advance notice of things that are coming up. I'll tell you about other things that are going on that I don't share in my Facebook group or on Instagram.

>> Speaker A: 29:22

Or anywhere else, really.

>> Speaker B: 29:23

So it is, just a membership where if you like what I do and you just want to be a part of it, the subscriptions are really low. It's just a couple a cup of coffee a month. So, how much better could I be than that? So please take a look and, I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now.