From visual to ethical storytelling

Visuals are more important than ever

It is difficult to imagine our work without visuals. Audiences and stakeholders always look at the photo of an article first. A story, a publication – yes, even an entire organisation is largely defined by its visual language. Why? Because the human brain processes visual information much faster than written text. Visual stories keep audiences engaged and help break up walls of text.

Visuals should capture the audience and lead them to a text, video or podcast – it is not without reason that the term ‘eye-catchers’ exists. The photo has long since established itself as the most effective lure. At the same time, little importance is attached to visuals beyond this role. All too often there is a lack of appreciation for what good visual material is capable of. No matter where you look in the German-language NGO or impact companies landscape: Almost everywhere visuals are used as accessories or filler material. The goal of every visual department should be a visual signature that focuses on recognition value instead of arbitrariness. Easier said than done.

Especially in day-to-day business and with many freelance photographers to coordinate, time is often short. A concrete project brief or detailed brainstorming session aimed at doing things differently remains the exception. It is something we encourage and support our clients to do. Certainly, the type of visual creator you commission with a story plays an important role as well.

Those who demonstrate initiative are ahead of the game

We at Fairpicture guarantee that our visual creators are masters of their craft. They all have the necessary know-how in image design and editing. What has been missing in the visual language and communication of many NGOs is the courage to dare to do something new visually, to get inspired by other areas and experiment with different techniques, motives or perspectives. Experience has shown that those who demonstrate initiative and interest are ahead of the game.

Of course, such change in the visual language does not happen overnight, but without a start, unfortunately, everything remains as it is. And to start, one needs to have some knowledge about what makes good pictures. What are the elements or aspects we should pay attention to in order to describe the power of expressive pictures and photos?

The majority of Fabrice’s work was spent communicating to gain Dieudonnés confidence to open his heart and the door of his family home to him. To get there it took Fabrice over four intense days of conversations, explanations of the intentions of the project and its aim. What was needed was to create real familiarity between him and „Dio” until a friendship was born – that continues until today. This is just some background to better explain the last two aspects.

• Composition
  What do we see in the photo above? Downtown Bujumbura and Dieudonné – his stand, where he sells food and other products. This is his usual environment. We see many details. The photo composition was chosen that way to convey a lot of information. Thus, despite its many details, the composition appears visually calm. Through composition, we can make our audience look at a photo in a certain way. We are able to build tension, to target focus, but also to visually create calm. 
  
• Perspective
  For many, perspective is one of the most important design elements in the visualisation of an article. And something that photographers – apart from technical aspects such as focal length, aperture or shutter speed – can influence themselves. Below you can see Dieudonné’s line of vision and the observed situation. It corresponds to his own view of the street. As a viewer of the photo, you can literally feel how he moves with his wheelchair between these large buses.

Now we are going to dig a bit deeper into the core of Fairpicture. As our company name claims, we try to do visual communication in a fair manner. And when we talk about fairness, we pretty soon end up with the term „ethical“. Fair, ethical – what do those terms mean with regard to storytelling? When is a story fair or ethically “correct”?

Ethical storytelling – more than a buzzword

Although the term „ethical storytelling“ is pretty well discussed and a buzzword within our communities, I guess each person would come up with a different definition for it. But let’s give it a try and look what Google says: 

Ethical storytelling is the practice of honouring ourselves and others when sharing narratives. It is the practice of recognising that stories are beautiful, powerful representations of self and that no one has just a single story. We contain multitudes. We each have our own experiences, narratives, and complexity.

So, this is one definition. And it contains some of the values we share at Fairpicture. I also like „No-Wahala“‘s approach – an online magazine for authentic visual storytelling by African creators. They published an article about ethical storytelling and stated:

It is important to note that ethical storytelling is subjective, people’s thoughts on what is ethical and what isn’t may differ based on the context and circumstances of the situation. […]

There you go. Ethical storytelling depends on context, circumstances and the individual perspectives we all have due to our different societies and backgrounds. I think this is something we have to bear in mind. Something we can all agree on. At the same time, we at Fairpicture believe that there are some universal ideas on the fundamentals of what makes visual material ethical.

The 3 Rs at Fairpicture

After a lot of research and consulting work we did, e.g. for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) or the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) we came up with the following three terms:

• Relationships
• Rights
• Representation
  

We call them the 3 Rs, which include almost all of our ideas and became part of our “Theory of change”. I would like to explain what we mean with those three terms and share one example each from our latest assignments we executed with visual creators and clients in 2022. 

Relationships 

When we talk about relationships, we acknowledge the fact that we are all embedded in different power relations on many levels: globally and within our society. This structures our access to resources, information and opportunities.

And the visual industry is not a neutral field, but quite the contrary when it comes to the access to jobs and resources, which are unequally spread across the globe and within societies.

In the global context, Western visual creators have dominated storytelling about people from the Global South for a very long time. They were the ones with privileged access to resources and assignments. That’s why one objective of Fairpicture is to create opportunities and work with local visual creators from the Global South whenever possible.

All those points mentioned mean that we are moving within a field that is highly impacted by owner relations. To counteract unequal power relations, we have to be aware of them and do something against them.

Representation 

Every image that we create stands in connection to images created before. People from different groups and regions have historically been represented in different ways: disadvantaged, marginalised, and oppressed groups have largely been underrepresented. We and many of you are working in fields where this has been particularly strong: The development and humanitarian fields have relied heavily on problematic imagery. At the same time visuals have been crucial for documenting problematic situations and making visible the humanness of victims of violence, for example. And this is the interesting, crucial point for ethical storytelling: showing problems of the world without dehumanising those affected by them, without promoting stereotypes, without romanticising.

One strategy is linked to our first term (relationships) and a key element is diversifying the visual industry. For us this means: working with local visual creators whenever possible. 

This does not automatically mean that people from a particular context will create “better” visual material. However, diversification brings in different perspectives, always. Another important aspect for Fairpicture is the agency of those depicted: people from disadvantaged groups have not had the chance to tell their stories themselves for a long time. Their stories have been used and abused. Powerful people have told their stories, often in ways that did not reflect their experiences and realities.

But reality is complex and there is not only one perspective or interpretation. That is also why we speak of „truthful“ representation instead of „true“ representation. What is meant is a representation that gives justice to the people depicted and offers a variety of understandings. A representation that centres the dignity of those depicted and shows them as complex human beings. But also a representation that provides necessary background information to viewers who might not be familiar with the given context.