Conversations with a purpose

As an aspiring or established photojournalist you will have no doubt heard of the phrase:

"People the landscape with characters"

Without some kind of quote from an interesting character your article can appear a bit lifeless - a good selection of quotes can make the difference between publication or the round file.

This is where the best $ you'll ever spend comes in - having a notebook with you at all times is essential if you are to remember all of the small quotage nuggets people come up with all the time. Trying to remember what people have said at the end of the day is highly likely to lead to confusion over who said what, as well as the opportunity to misquote someone.

Here's an example of where an article was livened up through the use of quotes:

I had five days in the Maldives to come up with an angle for an article on the island of Filitheyo. After the first day's diving I found myself struggling until I met Dave, the central character in the article. How we both learnt to cope with the strong currents became the theme. Apparently the island was fully booked for the next period where strong currents would be experienced. Just goes to show how powerful your copy can be and how much of a responsibility it is to get it right.

Keep writing...

Brendan