It is hard to imagine a journalistic report without photographs. Therefore, let’s talk about the general rules of photography in journalism. Many novice journalists do not understand what types of photos are interesting to editors and readers. Additionally, some press services send very poor-quality images. Examples of such subpar images include a photo of a milk carton accompanying a story about a dairy factory or a picture of a signboard with the factory’s name for news about the factory’s opening.

To put it very simply, every photo must include a person or people — this rule cannot be ignored. Photographing only a dog or a trophy at a dog show is a major mistake. In the case of a factory, the image should feature the workers, alongside the products, the signboard, and so on. For a dog show, the image could depict the owner of the winning dog with their pet or children enthusiastically interacting with pedigree dogs. Such photos are much more engaging and can serve as effective illustrations for journalistic material.

Here, we are discussing reportage photography, which involves capturing events. While at an event, make sure to clearly understand what is happening and mentally articulate the main event. For example: the opening of a new factory, a labor union’s speech at a rally, or the president’s visit to your city. Then consider which key moments will visually represent the event. Some moments can be anticipated, while others might occur spontaneously but still hold interest. For instance, during the opening of a new enterprise, you could capture the cutting of a symbolic ribbon, the pressing of a start button, a handshake between an official and the factory director, etc. Photograph from different angles and take many shots so you can select the most successful ones. Take a moment to review your photos on your camera or smartphone display. You might notice something that didn’t turn out well and figure out how to improve it.

However, simply documenting the event is the bare minimum. Let’s say we need to photograph a rally. You could just take a shot of the crowd, showing the event. The frame might include many participants with banners, and perhaps some police officers in the background. But that’s not enough; it’s the very minimum you can do. You need to convey the mood and capture some defining details of the event.

Photojournalism is journalism but conducted through photographs and captions. We agree with colleagues at Adobe, who state: “You can engage in photojournalism at any time, even if you have no experience. Regardless of who you are and what equipment you have, you can observe the world around you — whether on the streets of a small village or on the busy highways of a city.”

Remember, almost all journalistic materials have a news peg (sometimes called a “newsworthy reason”). Photojournalism requires this as well. The news peg should be an event that happened today or recently. Understand this fine distinction: a portrait of a famous writer in their study is not photojournalism, but photographs of the same writer meeting readers at the launch of a new book are. Pictures of a street are not photojournalism, but images of a dug-up street causing a traffic jam are photojournalism.