Photojournalism Intern

A news photograph must carry its story in a single frame, and its caption must supply everything the frame cannot.

This task trains both, using only a phone camera and subjects available to you at home or in your immediate surroundings.

First, study the standard.

Examine ten news photographs from major agencies and read their captions closely.

Note the caption structure these agencies use: what is happening, where, when, and who made the image.

Now make your own photograph.

Choose a subject that tells a story without needing explanation.

Everyday subjects work well: a household routine, an object that shows wear from use, light falling across a space at a particular hour, preparation of a meal, a workspace mid task.

Photograph only your own surroundings, your own belongings, or people in your household who have agreed to it.

Do not photograph strangers.

Shoot the subject at least twenty times, varying your distance, angle, and timing.

Then select one frame and be ready to explain why it beats the others.

Write a professional caption of 30 to 40 words following agency structure, stating what is happening, the location in general terms, the date, and your credit.

Keep it factual and avoid interpreting emotion you cannot know.

Work the subject properly rather than taking twenty near identical frames.

Change your height, move closer than feels comfortable, shoot from the opposite side, and wait for the light to shift.

Most of the improvement between a weak frame and a strong one comes from moving yourself, not from adjusting the camera.

Then edit within news limits.

You may crop, straighten, and adjust exposure and colour moderately.

You may not add or remove anything within the frame.

Record every adjustment you made, since this record is a professional requirement and the habit matters more than the specific edits.

Finally, write a short technical note covering the light source and its direction, your framing decision, the adjustments you made, and what you would do differently with another attempt.

Submit the selected image, three rejected frames showing different approaches, the caption, the edit record, and the technical note.

A photo essay tells a story across images in a deliberate sequence, where the order carries meaning just as paragraphs do in writing.

This task is built entirely from subjects within your own home and immediate surroundings, so nothing needs to be arranged or provided.

Choose a theme you can genuinely document where you are.

Strong options include the preparation of a meal from start to finish, a day as it moves through one room, the objects and tools of a household task, a plant or garden over several days, or the progress of light through a space from morning to night.

Plan before shooting.

Write down the sequence you expect to capture and the specific frames you need: an establishing wide shot, medium shots carrying the action, close details, and a closing image.

Now shoot.

Take far more frames than you need, at least sixty, across different times and angles.

Working the subject repeatedly is what separates a considered essay from a set of snapshots.

Select eight to ten images and sequence them so the essay has a clear beginning, development, and end.

The order must be a decision you can justify.

Write a caption of 25 to 35 words for each selected image, and a 200 word introduction establishing the theme and why it is worth a viewer's attention.

Pay attention to visual variety across the set.

An essay where every frame sits at the same distance and angle becomes monotonous however good the individual images are.

Check your selection for a genuine mix of wide, medium, and close frames, and replace any image that merely repeats what another already shows.

Then test the sequence by rearranging it.

Lay the images out in a different order and see whether the story still works.

This usually reveals that one or two images are doing far less than you thought, and that the opening and closing frames carry most of the weight.

Finally, write a one page note explaining your sequencing, the two images you cut and why, and which single frame you consider the strongest in the set with your reasoning.

Submit the essay as a single PDF with the images in sequence, all captions, the introduction, and the sequencing note.

News photography carries authority precisely because the audience believes the image shows what actually happened.

That trust rests on editing standards most viewers never see.

This is a research task, completed entirely online.

Begin with the standards themselves.

Find and read the published photo editing policies of at least three major news agencies or newspapers.

These are publicly available.

Record exactly what each permits, such as cropping, exposure adjustment, and colour correction, and what each forbids, such as adding or removing elements and altering content within a frame.

Next, study real cases.

Find five documented instances where a news photograph was withdrawn, corrected, or publicly disputed on manipulation grounds.

For each, record what was changed, how it was discovered, how the organisation responded, and what happened to the photographer.

Now analyse the boundary.

Several of your cases will involve editing that seemed minor to the photographer yet still breached policy.

Examine these closely and write about why the line sits where it does, in terms of what the reader is entitled to assume.

Extend the analysis to current questions, including staged or arranged images, misleading crops that remove essential context, captions that overstate what the frame shows, and AI generated imagery in news contexts.

Finally, write your own editing checklist of ten points that a working news photographer could apply before filing any image.

Then apply the standards to your own work.

Return to the images you produced in your earlier photography tasks and audit them against the policies you studied.

Record whether every adjustment you made would be permitted, and whether each of your captions accurately describes what the frame actually shows rather than what you know about the situation.

Also address the caption question directly, since manipulation by caption is more common than manipulation by editing.

A truthful image with a misleading caption deceives the reader just as effectively.

Find two examples where this occurred and analyse how.

Submit a report of about 1000 words with the policy comparison, the five case studies with sources, your boundary analysis, the caption examples, the audit of your own work, and the checklist.

Objects carry evidence of the people who use them, and photographing them well is a quiet but powerful form of documentary work.

It is also entirely achievable at home, since every household contains objects with history.

No other person needs to be involved.

Choose three objects from your own home that carry genuine stories.

Strong subjects show use rather than newness: a worn tool, a repaired item, something inherited, a well used kitchen vessel, a book with annotations, shoes shaped by walking.

For each object, first write its story in about 100 words, recording where it came from, who used it, how long it has been in the household, and what has happened to it.

Now photograph each object three ways.

Make one image isolating the object against a plain background with controlled light.

Make a second showing the object in the place where it actually lives, so the surroundings add meaning.

Make a third as a close detail of the part that best shows use, such as a worn edge, a repair, a stain, or a mark.

Use only natural light from a window and any plain surface available.

Shoot each setup repeatedly and vary the angle of light by moving the object rather than the window.

Select your nine final images, three per object, and write a 30 word caption for each.

Experiment deliberately with the light rather than accepting what you find.

Photograph the same object with the light coming from the side, from behind, and from the front, and observe how side light reveals texture while front light flattens it.

For an object whose story is written in wear and use, this difference decides whether the photograph works at all.

Then consider the background as part of the subject.

Remove anything in the frame that does not contribute, and where the surroundings matter, include enough of them to establish context without competing for attention.

Finally, write a one page note on how light direction changed what each object communicated, which of the three objects proved hardest to photograph meaningfully, and what the exercise taught you about showing a person through their belongings.

Submit the nine images, the three object stories, all captions, the lighting comparison frames, and the note.