Successful storytelling: how to keep audiences captivated

Stories help us to make sense of the world, and photography is a language that everyone can understand.

Successful visual storytelling should be engaging, informative and clear in its narrative. But that doesn't mean that the images you'll need to capture are obvious, or that it's easily apparent what should be included or excluded from an edit. So, what exactly is photojournalism storytelling and how does the genre tell a story?

In essence, photojournalism uses photographic images as the key component in a news story or article, the written word playing a supporting role in the storytelling process. Powerful and evocative imagery is therefore the essential ingredient to help capture and retain the audience's attention. In a world awash with digital images, less can be more. "When you have your story, you really have to edit," says journalist, educator and former Head of Photography at AFP Francis Kohn. He advises getting a good editor because "you can tell a very good story with 15 photos, or fewer".

Each year, many of the industry's best visual storytellers attend Professional Week at Visa pour l'Image in Perpignan, France. The event is an opportunity for picture editors and photographers to share their advice for developing a story with like-minded individuals. Here, Brent Stirton, Thomas Borberg, Laura Morton, Ilvy Njiokiktjien, Ivor Prickett and Pascal Maitre share how to identify a good story, when to know it's finished, and what to do with it next. We've also spoken to documentary and portrait photographer Natalya Saprunova – who was the recipient of the 2022 Canon Female Photojournalist Grant – about her experiences.

For Natalya, the human angle works best. "I like to tell stories about people and their way of life," she explains. "To do this effectively, I need to spend a lot of time with people – get to know them, see how they live and work and what's important to them. An agency can be helpful in pitching ideas for projects to various publishers. It's also good to build relationships with staff at magazines and other media outlets. That way, you can pick up assignments for stories as well as pitch your own ideas."

While it's advantageous to have more than one angle in mind, "it's usually best if a story is set in the context of what's going on in the world at the time," Natalya advises.

"The thing with being a photojournalist is there's a journalist aspect – and that needs to play out in the captions you write and the choices you make, in terms of what you prioritise in your visual assets," says documentary photographer and multi award-winning Canon Ambassador Brent Stirton. "What are the important aspects? In your edit, isolate things that really speak to those themes, then ask yourself, what's the sequence? How do I put these things together in such a way that, one, I engage an editor and, two, I engage an audience?"

"My best advice for developing a story is to talk to other people about it before you go out and when you come back," says Thomas Borberg, Photo Editor-in-Chief at Politiken newspaper in Denmark.

"Share your story, share your raw material and get feedback, because the editing process is as important as the pre-work that happens before you leave for the assignment," he continues. "There are no rules about how many pictures that story should contain – it depends on the story. Luckily there are very few rules, and if there are rules, I think you should actually break them."

"I think the first part of developing a good story is doing your research and reading and consuming as much material and information as possible, whether it's in the form of news, documentaries or books," says photojournalist and Canon Ambassador Ivor Prickett. "I find ideas from all of those places.

"Consume as much as you can and then, when you've got a good idea, give yourself time to explore it, because not everything that looks great on paper is going to work as a photo story. You've got to try a lot of different things to get the right idea going, and it can take a long time."

Natalya believes in sticking with a story where possible but she is also realistic. "I hate giving up on a project," she says. "If it's a story I want to tell, I tend to stick with it for as long as it takes. If a job is worth doing, it can't be rushed. Ultimately though, when photojournalism is your livelihood, you have to be able to move on if things aren't working out and start a new project."

"It's not just about images anymore," continues Natalya. "You need to think about how you're going to reach your target audience and use different media effectively. With so much publishing being done online, photojournalism has become more of a multimedia entity, so it pays to use mixed media to get your message across. It can be challenging to add video when you're shooting stills, especially when you're working alone, but there are times when movie footage can be highly effective in adding to the narrative."

"A good story is a story you can say in one line," says photojournalist and Canon Ambassador Pascal Maitre, who has spent more than 30 years covering stories in over 40 countries. "If you have to stop to explain your story, it means it would be very complex and if it's complex you will need many pictures, and magazines don't have the pages. If you are a photographer, you need to have a story with huge visual potential.

"At the beginning, you have an idea of what you will need to tell a story. Think of these stories as different chapters: you need all of these points and when you get a good picture in each part, you can say the story is more or less finished. You can do four years, but you will not get too much more. It's good to move on to the next story."