Photographers Without Borders

One of the leading agencies for visual story telling is Canada’s own Photographers Without Borders (PWB). PWB works with hundreds of NGOs around the world providing photographic and video services on a complimentary basis. Typically a photojournalist and/or videographer will self-fund or fundraise travel to an NGO’s location and work with the organization to provide whatever photo resources are needed.

Their major training offer, PWB School, takes groups of 10-15 aspiring photojournalists to apprentice on NGO work as above, intermixed with lectures, demos, discussions about photojournalism and visual storytelling, with time to gain some acquaintance with the local culture.

Since all PWB travel was paused in 2020 for the CoVid-19 pandemic, they shifted to an online course focusing on visual storytelling. I had the good fortune to attend the first run of this program, and highly recommend it for anyone considering photojournalism.

Finally, they periodically offer free webinars on the theme of Storytelling For Change.

Creative Live

Another resource is Creative Live (CL for short). CL puts on training events at their studio in Seattle. These are attended by a small studio audience who usually participate in some way. You can watch some events for free as they are being recorded but, once that live stream is done, the trainings are available for sale, either individually or with various passes. I’ve benefitted from their courses, including Nature and Conservation Photography by Cristina Mittermeier. Other relevant CL courses include Essential storytelling techniques, and this Photojournalism survival kit by Ron Haviv. There are lots of other courses on just about every photo topic, and some lifestyle and business topics too. I recommend CL’s large lineup for any photographer.

Books

Doing Documentary Work, by Robert Coles, M.D.

Background behind James Agee’s pioneering documentary work on the underprivileged farm workers who fed America in the 1930’s, along with discussion of documentary work itself.

On Photography by Susan Sontag

Serious critical analysis (i.e., heavy reading) of how photography has changed how we see the world, from its inception in the late 1800s through to the mid-1970s.

The Storyteller’s Secret, by Carmine Gallo

A lot of material on the verbal side of storytelling, by the author of "Talk Like Ted". Draws examples from Elon Musk, Greta Thunburg, Steve Jobs, and many more modern business and social leaders on how they construct powerful stories.

Disclaimer

The book links contain affiliate links which help to fund this web site. The other resources do not.