(Josh Haner is talking about his photos. Photo by Charlene Yang)
Journalists don’t need to get on airplanes to tell good stories, a Pulitzer winning photographer said in a lecture at Hong Kong Baptist University today.
“Think about the stories that you can tell within your city and within your neighborhood. Just think what is going on around you and what stories there are going to tell. That’s the most important thing,” he said.
The lecture given by Josh Haner is one of the open lectures in the 8th Pulitzer Prize Winners Workshop this year. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for a photo essay documenting the recovery of a Boston Marathon bombing victim in 2014.
“One of the interesting things that I would be fascinated with in Hong Kong is focusing on just one street. That could be an amazing project that I would love to see is just what do you see on one block or one street that goes from one train station to the next train station,” he said.
He also said that digital media technology is the greatest thing to happen to photography. It could bring a diversity of voices to do journalism and visual journalism in particular.
“For the students of photo journalism, I think it is the greatest thing in the world that happened to have digital photography come about. Because that is the only way you are going to get better is to practice. There is no reason that you have to spend a lot of money on a fancy camera to be able to participate and tell stories,” Haner added.
Founded in 2006 by the Department of Journalism in HKBU, the Pulitzer Prize Winners Workshop aims to broaden the vision of journalism students and young journalists.
The lecture attracted nearly 120 people, including students from different universities, young journalists and visiting scholars from other countries.
“From his experience, I understand that it is important to combine your job with your passion. I always try to get the latest camera for shooting, but I totally forget I’ve already owned an incredible one – my cellphone. Josh said that your neighborhood could be a good storyteller, so I will meet her today, introduce myself and hope to find her amazing stories.” said Guo Longlong, a communications student at HKBU.
Charlene Yang 