Where does photojournalism fit in the future of news?

Session facilitator(s): Neil Bedi

Day & Time: Friday, 12-1pm

Room: Classroom 305

NEIL: It looks like we’re going to have a tiny group, so everyone can – Hi, everyone, I’m Neil. I’m a technologist, but I first got into photojournalism through journalism. I was first a photojournalist. And because of that I have a lot of close friends that are photojournalists. So on a regular basis, I know how tough it is to be a photojournalist right now. Not a lot of people are hiring, most people are firing. It’s not a good place.

So the first time I pitched this was how can we help save photojournalism? But that was a shitty title.

[Laughter]

But what it came down to was as a technologist, even though it’s hard to get a job, newspapers are hiring more technologists because they see it as a investment in their future; right? Because technology is the future. So if you’re a newspaper, and you want to be around five, ten years from now, you have technologists now. Whereas at least from what I can tell, most newspapers don’t see that with photojournalists. And that’s the big gap I’ve noticed. Why hire photojournalist when you can get an image subscription? Or why hire photojournalists when we can have a reporter with an iPhone for local stuff? So I really wanted to just talk about where can photojournalism fit into the future of news? And does it even belong in the future of news?

So you’re allowed to be here and say, no, like, it’s the end. Maybe we’ll have a few, but it will never be as big as it once was.

So I hate talking, and I’m happy it’s a small group because it’s a lot easier to manage. But my entire introduction is just discussion points.

So I have a few to start. Anyone want to list some of their favorite pieces they remember recently?

I’ll tell you my recent favorite piece of photojournalism, and you’re allowed to be flexible about what photojournalism is or isn’t. But my favorite one recently is Tampa Bay times did their huge mental health investigation, and their lead was a narrated lead. And it was about a woman who was working at one of these facilities who ended up getting stabbed multiple times in the face by a patient, and it was because the facilities weren’t set up correctly, and it was a bunch of errors.

But you go through this lead and they have the photo of the woman what she looked like after the stabbing. And it had eyebrow, and it listed the stabbings. And that worked really well for me. So a flexible term. And flexible meaning newspaper, Instagram photos.

PARTICIPANT: A couple of years ago, we had a photographer who studied the anybody line of our marathon and took close up photos of people’s expressions at the finish line, and he did a 100 maybe. It was amazing to see the reaction on people’s faces, and it was really – I’ve never seen that kind of thing out of a marathon.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah. Cool. Anyone else?

PARTICIPANT: Brian in this northwest region did a series on the Ten Commandments. He did pictures of each commandment, and it was really cool to see the things – he chose a false idol, like, one of them was Elvis Presley and Santa Claus.

NEIL: Cool. Anyone else? H ow do you all work with photojournalists? And possibly it could be zero. You haven’t ever spoken to a photojournalist in your current job. I’m really looking at the entire range. So you can have an answer if you haven’t.

PARTICIPANT: I work extremely closely on our visuals team. And our solution has been combine technologists and photojournalists, like, actually put them on the same team. So our team is half designer and developers, I’m one of them, ask the other half is photo editors, researchers, and photojournalists. It’s about six and six. And that’s been really effective. So we can talk about more when –

NEIL: It has been very effective. Anyone else? Anyone from the other side of the spectrum?

PARTICIPANT: I’m the other side of the spectrum. York – we don’t do photojournalism that much.

NEIL: Sure. When you do use photos, what are they from?

PARTICIPANT: Typically what I’m thinking of when I have some shots mixed around us. But we also send people out to festivals and things like that and that’s telling the story of the festival. But as far as me as a developer, I don’t really interact with those – we get a dump of pictures and then that’s it. So we don’t know back and forth.That’s kind of why I’m here. I want to get more of a perspective of how that relationship works or should work.

PARTICIPANT: Sounds good. Anyone else?

PARTICIPANT: We currently don’t work with photojournalists. We’re from the Cornell project. One of the tools we’re building is the UGC tool, so one of the things that we’re currently does not but we will be trying to collect photos. So we want to learn some lessons photojournalism instead of how to best create galleries to tell stories with those photos.

NEIL: Sounds good.

PARTICIPANT: So I just walked in, and I’m doing photojournalism.

NEIL: And how is photojournalism right now?

PARTICIPANT: So I mean I really like it obviously. I think me personally I’m focusing a lot on the photo journal side, but there’s a lot of upgrading for the multimedia side as well. There’s an MPPA workshop here so it’s a bunch of visual journalism, and there’s people who have been in the business for 30 years just learning how to do video. So it’s a lot of mixing. If you’re doing photojournalism, you’re doing multimedia with it.

NEIL: Yeah, I’ve noticed a lot of people having to expand their expertise because photojournalism just isn’t enough anymore.

PARTICIPANT: I’m a computer programmer, but I’m interested in how to get into photography and also the cameras and everything. And I saw a really cool talk by someone who works on the camera systems for Androids who has been working on cameras for 30 years. And it’s actually super, super super complicated. And that’s obviously going to get better. And you don’t have a lens mount on your Android, so photographers won’t get it. But the fact of it that’s why we’re here. There’s a dedicated photographer and that’s the one person that is going to capture the moment in a world that is an interesting topic I think. So, yeah, that’s my angle on the photojournalist. But I have a camera with me all the time, and I take photos that I want to be able to contribute to those photos in a way. But I don’t identify as a photojournalist. I think there’s a cultural barrier between the traditional you’re a designated photographer, you have to go out with a mission in capturing this. Versus there’s so many hobby photographers now and thinking about capturing what they already have and giving them a voice.

NEIL: Yeah, that’s another question but that’s a very real part of what photojournalism is becoming right now. Smartphones in general has changed the game, and you see a lot of old photojournalists that are pissed off about it.

PARTICIPANT: Well, even – I got a full frame camera for $700 used. And it’s, like – I mean that’s crazy.

NEIL: I have friends. Photojournalists don’t make much off of that. But I’ve had friends who have had to have like 10-K worth of gear just to –

PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

NEIL: And it’s weird I guess 10-K does push you over the line of separating you from other people. But before that, smartphone can compete with a lot of cameras now. Anyone else?

PARTICIPANT: So I do bigger long-term projects at our newsroom. So I work with photojournalists and photographers. Pretty extensively through the project, and we involve them very early on in discussing the stories and what we’re going to do and all of that. But there’s basically two problems. One is this often very chicken and egg problem of the photographer want a direction of what you want him to go and capture and the designer or me as the editor not really knowing what – how you’re going to structure the whole thing until you can see what you thought. So go out and shoot some basic stuff, come back, take a look at it, and then decide this is what we’re going to finally do and then get the proper stuff but also resource and time that never, ever happens. So that’s one of the big problems. And then the other problem is we’re a pretty big newsroom, but we still only have one staff photographer. So he is, like, literally the only guy I can go and have these longer term relationship and longer term discussion on the project. But the problem is that, like, he has a very distinctive style as a photographer; right? Really narrow field and everything. He’s the only guy I’ve got, and I can’t be having these questions with freelance photographers. So those are two things.

NEIL: That sounds very real.

PARTICIPANT: I actually manage our photo department. Not the day-to-day assignments but the next level up. I’ve had similar issues as to what Robin said. We have two and a half photographers. Two full-time, one part-time. So they’re always strapped for time and they don’t have time to come up with their own ideas, so they’re basically, like, order takers, which is frustrating for both them and us. Because it feels like you have to, like, give out all of these instructions of what exactly you’re looking for and everything instead of being, like, can you and the reporter just go out and use your brains and figure it out? But they’re never in the office, they don’t talk to each other, so we just have this cycle going of where I think we’re not using them to the fullest.

NEIL: And I don’t know if you want to speak to that. But NPR seems to solve.

PARTICIPANT: So we’re uniform; right? We’re a radio company. So the times we use anything beyond a wire photo is rank. And so we’re able to sort of treat our photojournalists with – at the end of the year we had someone who was killed in Afghanistan. He went to Afghanistan every year. Incredible. Even all those who go to Afghanistan or any other place. And that works because we didn’t need it for a while –

PARTICIPANT: You can be choosier about what they want.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah. We don’t have to take those, so it’s kind of what our own photo resources. But, yeah. If you can find a way to – and this gets harder and harder. But if you can – wire photos are great, they’re a wonderful resource. So if you can sort of get good photo editors. Photo editors are a huge piece. Huge, huge piece of making photojournalism. So get good photo editors, you can take good wide photos and go from there and use your photojournalists as people who can, like, really hammer out your best work.

PARTICIPANT: Can I add something to that?

NEIL: Sure.

PARTICIPANT: We have – we’re working on that approach and the push back we get from the photo department is that the stories that the wire services cover are the marquee stories.

PARTICIPANT: Sure.

PARTICIPANT: And they feel like they’re being left out or punished or whatever if they don’t get to go to the big political rallies or pro sports games and instead we’re asking them to do these local things, so that’s kind of a culture shift with struggling with –

PARTICIPANT: Certainly.

NEIL: Sure. Does photojournalism work better print or online right now?

PARTICIPANT: I strongly believe online.

PARTICIPANT: To counter that, I think it is not good in neither necessarily. Or as good as it could be and specifically talking about the online part, coming from a perspective of someone who builds online all the time. I’m, like, very disappointed in the state of sharing photos online. There’s, like, a bunch of different services that offer it, but they’re usually ridden with ads or they aren’t designed for public consumption. And, for instance, Google photos has three different ways to view photos. Two different ways on Google photos and on your Google drive. And it’s confusing about what the right way to share your photos is and none of them involve sharing them publically in a easy way. And flicker is opposite. Flicker has been reskinned all of these different times, and it’s okay sharing photos publically. But then you hit certain parts of the interface, and it’s a flashback to 2003. And I feel like obviously there’s a Facebook and Instagram but you’re constraint on Instagram 1,024 pixels. There’s something about a full size photo that that’s really where, like, photojournalism shines to me is when you get the maximum resolution. Like, that’s where the magic is. And a small meta photo in a picture is not good. And in general I’m sad how crappy photo ads are today. Especially when they pop up in photo galleries that are, like, using one fifth of your screen space. You know, like – I, like, want it to be better, nicer, bigger, faster, more resolution on the Web.

PARTICIPANT: I think that when you’re talking about online here, though, that kind of what he’s saying. Kind of have to split it in two experiences because you have the desktop experience and mobile experience. And the mobile experience, it sucks. You don’t get the impact because you’re looking on your phone, and you don’t get this nice, big right sized photo or whatever. So you have to zoom in and out on stuff that’s interesting in the picture or try to absorb or whatever you’re trying to convey on the screen. And it’s just really hard to get that. But that’s where we’re going now is mobile now so it’s how to get the impacts on your phone.

NEIL: And that’s tough because smaller screens since most readers use mobile now. One of the photos in print on the home page of the website, which has the bigger impact? And when were photojournalists more important?

PARTICIPANT: I don’t know about bigger impact, but maybe this is – on most home pages, the display photo is the same shape and size always, regardless of how that photo should be framed. And the newspaper you have the flexibility to run whatever shape and size it should be for what the content is. Which is very frustrating.

PARTICIPANT: Throughout the day more artists and –

PARTICIPANT: Maybe playing off what works better in offline or this day I get my news off Twitter. I’m seeing Seattle times posted this really cool march, and I’m seeing these really cool photos, and I’m stopping to look at them and also coming from a different state where I have a different appreciation for them. So, in my opinion, it’s working better online just because of access and whatnot. But I do agree, like, the difference of seeing a photo this small and then walking into a gallery and seeing it this big is a completely different feel. But at the end of the day how many people are doing that?

NEIL: Yeah, the reader has completely changed now.

PARTICIPANT: It reminds me, I’m a drummer, and I like to listen to drum solos. But when I talk to nondrummers, they hate drum solos. And I think photojournalism is the same. It’s the same problem where, like, if you’re a photographer, you only like photos in their fullest experience. But then most people are, like, I don’t care.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah. And just like even if you’re on Twitter, and you’re scrolling past, like, yeah, you’re going to stop. Most of the time readers want to read something when there’s something, like, a visual appearance. Like, that’s what’s grabbing them and entering them into it. If you had a newspaper that had zero photos next to one that was – had images all over. I’m sure we can all guess which one the reader is going to pick. But I think it has to do with, like, yeah, I have a different experience going through the photos than some people. But those photos also might be the same reasons on the story.

PARTICIPANT: Actually I have a question where you guys learned doing this?

PARTICIPANT: Yeah. We had a series of the visual stories. They were usually presented as sort of really fancy photo slide shows, like, they often integrated – this is my case. If you have resources that do this. But you’re able to integrate different forms of media. So allow them – some of them are told, like, what are tasks and use it to take out more interesting and just capturing and use it as a narrative builder. And sometimes we use audio, but not in like a video slide show kind of way, sort of a keeping them, like, they’re own – anyway we learned that. If you took out the text of these stories, 2- 3,000 word stories that are in depth, we see completion hits of those of 40, 50%. So they are really effective and effective for people to read through the story that is really long, and they wouldn’t normally read. So, yeah. That’s my case for online. But it is resources. We extend resources. That’s not something everyone has the luxury of doing, and I recognize that. And the thing you’re talking about flipping through, the person who wants to tell a story with a photo, yeah, we’re still struggling with that. That’s really hard. There’s a world of difference between the world.

NEIL: Going to a harder question. Photojournalism jobs are shrinking. Does it matter? Or maybe they should shrink right now.

PARTICIPANT: So I’ve been thinking besides, and I definitely think that photojournalism jobs are just changing. So like I was saying, like, you know, like, now you’re kind of being expected more for these people to do the multimedia pieces and can you – anything that’s a little bit more interactive than it was before. So I definitely think they’re shrinking, but more than anything, I just think they’re changing. And you of course have – all the people, you can take your iPhone out now and, like, do these things. So it’s making it a lot harder for the people who are, like, you spend three years in a degree and working towards it. But you can probably see the difference of just, like, the thought – like there is some things when you shoot a photo that are going to make an extreme difference. The angle you’re at, how close, how intimate the feel is, and I think people are going to have to adapt to those photos rather than what someone can take on a iPhone.

NEIL: Anyone else?

PARTICIPANT: I personally don’t care what someone calls themself, a photojournalist or full-time or part-time, it matters what results they get. Probably one of our best photographers right now actually was trained as a reporter and then just recently started moving into doing photos for us. I would say he’s still, like, maybe 20% of the time doing photojournalism, and he’s just as good as our guys who have been doing it for 20 years. So photojournalism matters and those jobs matter, but I think we shouldn’t get so hung up on how you were trained, and what you’ve always done, and how you call yourself, and things like that.

NEIL: Switching it up a bit. There have been quite a few – not quite a few. But a few papers that have fired their entire photojournalism staff recently. Does that matter? Do you think that’s the right choice? Wrong choice?

PARTICIPANT: I don’t know it’s just one of those things where I mean it’s going to suck either way. But, like, when you’re audience is changing, how your all by yourself audience is getting information changing, like, if you can’t change with the change, it’s no one’s fault but your own. Photojournalism is not what it was, so you need – you wanting to do this need to make the changes to just do it in any way that it’s working with the time.

PARTICIPANT: I would ask, like, if I can make one point. Are any newspapers without photojournalists, are they successful?

NEIL: The papers?

PARTICIPANT: Yeah. I can only think of the Chicago times.

NEIL: Before they fired them off, they had photojournalists that have done incredible work. But are they successful now? That’s a good question.

PARTICIPANT: Well, and I think – so me personally, like, I’m, like, yeah, what I’m told is I don’t really want to work in the newspaper, I’m not really sure. But I’m told that’s boot camp. You need to do it because it’s boot camp. And then from there, you have, like, personal projects that you’re working on that your people are applying for grants for, and you’re going to start working maybe, like, with actual companies doing other things that you want to do. So then you don’t get stuck with people who don’t want to go out and do those things because those people are only doing the things that they want to do. And hopefully they’re getting involved.

NEIL: Cool.

PARTICIPANT: Just one thing which is that oftentimes working with an outside freelancer doesn’t necessarily actually end up saving you. It actually ends up being more work. So not to do with photographers but illustrators, we had a project recently we needed illustration, and we went outside to work with a freelance illustrator and to make it really good, we actually putting one of our in-house designers full-time with liaising with the illustrator, so it ended uptaking two people’s time rather than if I had a really good in-house illustrator. So two people ended up doing maybe one person in-house could have done. You get whatever you get.

NEIL: Anything else?

PARTICIPANT: I think some of the BBC documentaries, they probably still do it this way. But there was one in 1994 called the world of cats I think, and they literally went to five continents to make a one-hour cat documentary. And they gave one person basically probably nine months, they flew them literally five – they went to Egypt, they went to Rome, they went to, like, China, they went to, like – it was insane. And, like, they didn’t make, like, 5’1” hour. They made one one hour. And I was, like, okay. That’s rad that the BBC does that. But at the same time, like, with the same amount of money and budget now, what could you do on a similar scale getting a bunch of small things out to individual artists with their voices? As opposed to doing one big project? And I wonder if photojournalism is going to go for, like, there’s a professional who gets to do big projects to, like, there’s a bunch of small individual artists that get to do – support themselves doing small projects and see it decentralize a little bit. And I would like to see more people who are upstarts where they don’t have to plan the big job. I wonder if because the job is going away that means it will just get replaced by a bunch of smaller distributed things and not even through traditional news outlets. But people just starting their own. And I think documentary is an interesting medium because it’s still stuck in the world where you make a documentary, and you get, like, an advancement on production company, and they own the rights and distribute it in physical theaters. And then after the theater runs in, you get DVDs. And I’m, like, Netflix is doing it as it’s happening. That’s what Netflix is doing, we don’t have to go through physical distribution or DVDs or our in-house computers. It doesn’t make sure anymore. But someone making those documentaries is still doing that. And it’s sad because, like, look at how Napster was and what happened with Spotify and streaming. That hasn’t happened for videos and photos yet, in my opinion, in terms of storytelling. Anyway I want to see more direct consumer to individual and less big jobs with big assignments where you get, like, a million dollars to make a one-hour video.

PARTICIPANT: And that’s kind of what I was kind of saying. Like, you’re going to end up with a lot more people just focusing on the things that they want to focus on and, like, having a good idea is half the battle of making a good project like that.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

NEIL: Cool. Sorry. These are almost done. Photojournalist versus a reporter with a smartphone? Can newspapers have a journalist with a smartphone and never have to hire a photojournalist? Bad? Good? What do they lose? What do they gain?

PARTICIPANT: I think it really depends. I definitely think you can send a reporter out to a smartphone with a car accident and doing all of that stuff, and you can run it, and be fine. But I don’t know if I was doing let’s same I’m an editor that has a feature story on this professional soccer player, I probablimented want to send my reporter out with him with a smartphone to snap a couple of head shots. So I think it depends on the story and the daily news and stuff like that. Like, why not? They’re already there, and they can do it, then why not? But then when you have bigger projects maybe like feature stories and long-term things, like, that might be the time you would want someone.

PARTICIPANT: We assign stories basically by their impact and by the difficulty. So if all you’re looking for is a glorified head shot. A reporter can probably do that. But if you’re going into a sensitive situation. We recently did a story about a 5-year-old who was transgender, and we were not allowed to show her face. And so someone had to go in and not only gave them the trust of this little girl and the family, but then also know how do I show someone visually without ever showing the front of her? That’s not something I think a reporter would have been able to do. So we make those decisions based on where is the photo going to play? Is it going to be black and white? Is it a difficult just shot to frame? What’s the access like? And then decide from there how much skill and resources do we want to put into that?

PARTICIPANT: I also want to, like, underestimate the impact on the reporter doing the job out there to do originally, which is, like, to get the information. So if suddenly they have to think about I’m going to talk to this person but, no, I’m going to shoot the photo as well, shit, I have to record the audio. The more tasks you stack onto what a reporter has to do in what is often a really, really brief period of opportunity they have, you might end up using some other stuff as well.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah. And that’s another thing we take into account. Like, what’s their access? Is it one shot you’ve got to be in and out? Or can you do, like, I’m going to do my reporting and now can we sit and do a portrait?

PARTICIPANT: And coming from I’ve done that multiple times, and it’s absolutely horrible. Just because it’s so – it seems like it should be so easy to go out and take a photo, but it’s not at all. And to be – I don’t know who in here does that. But it’s a completely – you’re asking all of these questions but, like, the photojournalism, you’re taking pictures of the questions with the answers. I don’t know. So it’s, like – and then half the time you’re trying to do this and do this where both things end up being sub par instead of one really good.

NEIL: I would like to skip the last one because I do technically have an activity. Split into groups. Let’s do two groups of four and then the third five people. So why did I think of this? People don’t view photojournalism in the future view in their heads. And because of that no one is thinking about how to utilize the craft of photojournalism for a lot of the modern problems we’re dealing with. So your task at hand today is to take – each group is going to take whatever monetary problem they want. I put a list of them up there. Things like push notifications or social media posts or even you guys can take the project and think about that. And the task isn’t to make the most successful idea. It’s to make the most photo centric idea.

So you want to use the craft of photojournalism to the highest extent possible while doing this. So I’ll be a lot happier if you come up with something that no one would ever want to look at. But somehow just uses photos the entire process. Second rule, I guess should be technically possible. I don’t want holograms. But you’re allowed to stretch that if you know that the technology sort of there, you would need a lot of money but pretend you have all the money in the world.

Avoid ideas similar to work you’ve done in the past. Sorry, Tyler. And do draw mockups. We’re going to look at this afterwards. So have an idea of the topic you chose. What specific aspect of that topic are you looking to improve? And draw mockups and be able to explain how you think your idea solved that. And so the one example I had was photo galleries. Are you general that photo galleries suck because it’s a bit contradictive to photos? Or swiping through your phone, so you’ve lost impact. I don’t know why I said that. But hate how people were digesting music, assign to museums, never sold it. But I was thinking what if we just put photo galleries in massive VR getups where you actually walk through a museum to see a photo essay. So obviously nobody would ever want to do that. But that’s the extent of I’m enhancing photo experience, I’m enhancing – fixing what’s wrong with photo galleries right now. And it’s technically possible. We could technically do that right now. S o for first three to four, five minutes if you’re done introducing yourselves, pick a topic and what you want to do about it. I’ll time you and then after five minutes, we should have a topic. And then you’ll have about ten minutes to brainstorm and actually come up with a full – not a full mockup, but a drawing and an idea. So have at it.

[Group activity]

NEIL: Everyone should have a topic by now. Eight minutes to come up with an idea.

[Group activity]

PARTICIPANT: So we kind of were talking about that people have to, like, interact with photos every couple of seconds and you can’t just chill and have the content delivered to you like in a video how easy it is to Netflix or TV to just be passive. So we had obviously there’s opportunities in VR to make it a little bit more interactive and then – but then we started talking about, like, less revolutionary ideas that VR would just approve. And we talked about what if we did a video of the future but have photos interspersed in the in the video and have a video that is a video but then you have photos on top. It’s basically you have a photographer, but you’re also a videographer. The thing that I have seen that does this okay is there’s this street photographer on YouTube called street hunter, and he walks around, and he’ll be walking – it’s, like, completely uncut half an hour of him walking through an area. And when he has a shot, he’ll superimpose the final edited shot on the video. But as you’re watching it, it’s sort of like watching a TV channel walking through his process, and then you see the photo, which is way better than the video. But the video also makes the photo better because you get the context and the storytelling. And you can always skip ahead if you’re bored.

So there’s that idea of sort of, like, instead of having to scroll through a bunch of videos or swipe through a bunch of photo galleries, like, do the work of making published timeline thing.

And then talking about the hybrid of the two where you have a photo capturing a period of time. And that’s as far as we got. But we felt like videos are inevitable. Or generally not video but interactive passive yet still interactive experiences where you’re not forced to scroll through a bunch of photos or swipe through a bunch of photos to see it. You can choose to skip ahead if you want, but you can also take a passive role. So use the option of being passive or active rather than forcing them to be active.

NEIL: Cool so extend photojournalism past its static form.

PARTICIPANT: Yeah, like a hybrid media form. Video and photo.

PARTICIPANT: What’s the name?

PARTICIPANT: Street hunters.

PARTICIPANT: Similar of you walk through a neighborhood, and you get a push notification with a picture.

PARTICIPANT: So, yeah, I was talking about mobile app but future in the iOS you’re going to have the ability to 3D touch or force top and a frame will pop up and anything can be in that frame. It could be a photo. So if you’re walking around and you have the app installed, you walk by some building. Here’s a photo of what it looked like 50 years ago, and you can press it and get the photo. And I don’t know what happens to the app if it goes to full screen, but if it did launch in the app.

NEIL: Cool. Pokémon Go for –

PARTICIPANT: Kind of. Yeah.

NEIL: Cool and you guys.

PARTICIPANT: So we kind of came up with, like, one of the points of the daily newsletter, so we started thinking about how do we get photo newsletter e-mail images. But our idea was essentially a photojournalist essay a day kind of aggregator where you get one big, beautiful image that will then take you to the Washington Post or NPR or whatever where you can start to explore. And then the idea being that you can also provide photo journals. They’re starting to do a little bit earlier. But people doing stuff on their own. They don’t have an outlet where they’re trying to get it. But we be that outlet, we can aggregate all of these different places and exposure hopefully to, you know, through the idea being that you get an image every day that propels you to – you don’t have to worry about cultivating experience because however they choose to present their story. Something in front of somebody every day.

PARTICIPANT: And then we talked about either having a comment view or, like, having an interactive place once you are on the site and looked at the photo. Kind of slow down the process. Liked it maybe there’s a little point you can pick at, and you can find out, like, pick the person you want to learn more about them, you click on the garden that’s there or the crop, and you learn a bit about the crop and how, like, maybe they just went through a drought or whatever maybe the farm belonged to their grandfather. So each photo it gives a context of why that’s chose kind of to implement that there. So that means people can slow down and enjoy it a little bit more.

NEIL: Cool. I think it has a little bit interactive.

PARTICIPANT: There’s a service called thing that does that. But it puts – it puts markers over the photos, so you can’t just, like, enjoy the photo.

NEIL: I’m out of time. But. Please keep continuing to talk.

PARTICIPANT: Thank you.

[Applause]