Reflections on the Missouri Photo Workshop – Whitney Light (part 1)
Research, pitch, repeat
Delores Hilt with her daughter Makenly on the front porch of their house, September 23, 2013. (Photo – Whitney Light)
Two things drew me to the 65th Missouri Photo Workshop (MPW): the opportunity to meet many photographers and editors at once, and the promise of developing new insights into the do’s and don’ts of documentary storytelling.
Briefly, the annual week-long workshop goes like this: arrive in small-town America, meet MPW faculty, go in search of stories, pitch the best ideas to your “editors,” shoot, edit, and then show your work online and to all the townspeople in a public exhibition.
Like most people probably would, I thought that the story search would likely turn out to be the most challenging part. And it was. At some workshops, you’re handed a story lead upon arrival. But forcing us to practice the hard work of pre-reporting and story development was arguably the most valuable part of the week. As co-director David Rees laid it out on Monday night, in a world brimming with excellent shooters, the ability to find and pitch compelling stories is what editors and, ultimately, viewers want.
In some ways, Trenton, Missouri, is a fail-safe playground to practice in: small enough to cover on foot or bicycle, with a friendly population primed for the arrival of 45 photographers via an announcement in the local Republican Times. Trying to provide a rolling start, the workshop directors had also invited various prominent townspeople — the mayor, developers, businesspeople — to a welcome reception. Then we were on our own, 45 reporters on the beat.
Walking for blocks, I knocked on doors, visited offices and chatted up foodbank organizers, firemen and crinkly-eyed farmers.
After a long day of digging, however, I hadn’t found something that really had a hook. I had a few leads that would probably be workable but which felt booster-ish and one-dimensional. It showed when I returned to MPW headquarters at five o’clock. I met with my editorial team (Randy Olson and Preston Gannaway) to deliver half-hearted pitches. We agreed that I should take some more time, and I sat down to review my notes and strategize. Some part of me, however, was glad for being stuck. Here’s where you embrace the process, I remember thinking, and get used to it.
I found a story not that much later. I called back Delores, a woman who’d given me directions when I was lost among houses. We’d exchanged pleasantries and she’d told me she and her partner both worked at KFC. They were just about to go for an evening walk with their four kids. I’d taken a phone number and moved on.
Delores at home watching her children play in the front yard after school on September 26, 2013. (Photo – Whitney Light)
Now I was fishing for story ideas. Introducing myself again, I asked what should I know about Trenton. Did she know someone with a remarkable story about what life in this town is like?
Unexpectedly, Delores asked if it could be something from her own family. She had just got her children back, she said. They had been taken into foster care when she started using drugs and her first partner died in a car accident. She was clean now and she had a new partner, but things were still rough. They had a newborn to take care of, no car and rent to catch up.
Struck by Delores’ frankness about her life’s hardships and marginalized place in the town’s economy, I was pretty sure I had something.
I was also forming a list of do’s and don’ts:
1) Slow down and hang in there. Almost no one tells you anything interesting in the first ten minutes.
2) Don’t be too distracted by what strangers say. Go with your own story instincts.
3) Always get phone numbers.
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Whitney Light is a photographer and writer from Winnipeg, Canada, and is currently based in New York City. She recently completed an M.Sc. at the Columbia School of Journalism with a focus on magazine writing and photojournalism.
Whitney’s blog post continued in Part 2.
