Another way to tell a story

Actually, this is the third time I’ve based a lesson on news photos. Some of you may remember from last term that I asked Sombat Raksakul, the Bangkok’s photo editor, to explain how he chooses the news photos that appear in our paper. Then, last year I showed you how you can often use photos and their captions to guess the meanings of unfamiliar words. This week I am going to combine these two topics to make a single lesson.

Let’s begin with a quick look at photo captions

If you look closely, you will see that the Bangkok Post uses two types of captions on its news pages. The first type goes along with a news story. It does not contain a title and consists of one or more sentences explaining or describing elements in the photo. Here is an example from a recent issue of the Bangkok Post:

A beach house at Ban Nai Plao in Khanom district, Nakhon Sri Thammarat, tilts into the sea after being battered by waves for several days. Huge seas have been pounding the southern coastline, inundating many villages and leaving hundreds of people homeless. — TAWATCHAI KEMGUMNERD

In this example, you can see how easy it often is to learn new vocabulary simply by reading the caption, looking at the picture – and thinking. Try this method to determine the meaning of "tilts" in the above example.

The second type of photo and caption stand alone as a story in themselves. Here the caption contains a title, usually a short catchy phrase or idiom. These expressions are often "word plays" – they use the words in the phrase or idiom in an unusual or amusing way. There are several examples of this in today’s exercise.

According to Khun Sombat, our photo editor, news photos are chosen primarily for their content – their "news value" as we say in the newspaper business. But he also gave a list of four other factors that are considered in picture selection:

Action: Photos are most interesting if something is happening – if there is movement.

Expression: Photos attract attention if they show people (or animals) displaying strong emotions.

Composition: There is also "art" in good news photos. Sombat always looks for unity in the pictures he selects. He wants to see a good, harmonious relationship between the various elements in the picture.

Lighting: Finally, the lighting can add drama and impact to a photograph.

Obviously, not every picture will be strong in all five elements. Usually only two or three elements will dominate.

Khun Sombat explained that news photographers use three basic techniques to take their photos. First, if they are caught up in a fast-moving situation like a riot or a brief visit by a world leader, they have to snap their photos as quickly as possible, hoping to get one or two that are useable.

Typically, however, they will have more time. That allows them to plan their composition and you will often see news photographers moving from place to place to get the best camera angle. Sometimes they see a good shot before it happens. Then they choose a good location and wait for things to happen.

Sometimes, the photographer will take the planning one step further and actually stage the shot. This often means telling people exactly where to stand or sit.

Exercise

1. Quickly look through the captions below. What tense are they usually written in? Do they have complete sentences or do they generally use only incomplete phrases?
2. Answer the vocabulary questions for each by referring to the photos and the captions.
3. Decide which element(s) were most important in the choice of each photo for publication in the Bangkok Post, e.g., action, expression, composition or lighting.

HOME A young Indian woman sits in the rubble outside her damaged home after a strong earthquake shook her home town of Chamoli on Tuesday morning. The quake was 6.8 on the Richter scale. Rescue and relief work is still under way in the remote northern region, but at least 110 people are known to have perished in the earthquake. — REUTERS What do rubble and perished mean in the caption above? OUT OF THE FAST LANE Camel jockey Glenda Sutton urges Material Girl back to her feet at the Abdu Dhabi Cup at Moonee Valley Race Course near Melbourne yesterday. The beat sat down within sight of the finish line and refused to budge. Australia has the world’s only wild camels, and races the animals on a still-developing camel racing circuit. — REUTERS What does the word budge mean in the above? The phrase the "the fast lane" is often an idiom meaning very up-to-date and successful. Is this the idea expressed by the title or is the writer using the expression in a funny way to mean something else? A beast refers to a(n) _________ CHEAP BUT PRICELESS Motorcycle accident amputee Intanon Yeefun has his new artificial leg fitted by amateur prosthetics maker Woothiwong Toatong. The Thai-made limbs are much cheaper than foreign-made limbs. — REUTERS What is an amputee? What do you think the verb amputate means? Give an example of a limb. What do you call someone who makes artificial limbs? CHILLING OUT Frozen dewdrops cling to leaves in Phu Rua district of Loei province. Temperatures in the northeastern mountains at night have plummeted to between -2C and 4C. The mercury is expected to drop further today in most parts of the country, but temperatures are expected to get slightly warmer next week. Temperatures in the North would dip by 1-3 Celsius today. In Bangkok, the mercury will dip slightly to between 10-11 Celsius.— JETERAS NA RANONG What are dewdrops? What do the words cling, plummet and dip mean? The phrase "chill out" is usually used as an idiom meaning calm down or relax. Is that the way it is used in the title above? What part of the thermometer is known as the mercury? HAPPY NEW YEAR Revellers celebrate the arrival of the New Year in Gisborne, NZ, the first city in the world to see the dawn of each day. — REUTERS Revellers refer to people who are … RIVERS OF MUD Flood waters rush through the slum area of Los Erasos on the fringe of Caracas on Thursday, sweeping away makeshift houses and churning up tonnes of mud and debris. Torrential rains and mudslides have killed at least 137 people in Venezuela’s capital and along the coastline in the country’s worst natural disaster in 50 years, authorities said on Thursday. The downpours created raging rivers that swept through poor districts in the city of six million people, destroying hundreds of ramshackle homes and turning tourist beaches into ugly fields of thick, noxious mud strewn with tree trunks.— AFP Is a makeshift house one of high quality or low quality? Find a synonym (word with the same meaning) in the caption. What is a torrential rain? Find another word that refers to a torrential rain. What is debris? Look at the words you have learned from the previous captions. Can you find a word with a very similar meaning to "debris"?

If you are Post Tips regular, you will certainly recognise this as a classic lesson. In fact, this is the third time I have used basically the same theme in the past 13 months. All I’ve really had to do for this lesson is to find some new examples and write a new exercise.

The big reason I keep returning to this theme is that it works. Students are naturally attracted to the photos in the newspaper. This lesson simply points out how they can take advantage of the photos and their captions to learn English in a fun and painless way.

There is more, however. In this lesson, your students will actually use English to learn something new. First, they will learn a set of concepts about the basic principles behind news photography. Then they will apply what they have learned in a short problem-solving exercise.

This lesson is ideal for small groups and that is how I suggest you organise your class. Your job will largely be that of a discussion leader.

Begin by having your students read the introduction very carefully. Spend some time with the opening example. The word tilt (leaning at an angle) should be fairly obvious. Let them also try to guess the meanings of battered (hit hard) and inundating (flooding) as well.

I strongly suggest that you have your students analyse additional photographs from today’s Bangkok Post. Since there are so many photos, you can let your students choose which ones they want to analyse. Hopefully, this lesson will motivate them to see news photographs in an entirely different way from now on.

Answers: Captions are usually in the present tense (or present perfect) and they are written in complete sentences.
Picture 1: rubble - broken pieces of buildings, etc.; perished - died; (composition, expression)
Picture 2: budge - move; used in a funny way; beast - animal; (action)
Picture 3: A person who has lost one or more limbs (arms, legs); a prosthetics maker
Picture 4: small drops of water which form on the ground or on leaves when the air is wet and the temperature cools; cling - to hold on to; plummet - to drop (esp. far and fast) dip - to drop; the mercury is the reddish chemical in the tube which rises and falls with the temperature; "chilling out is not used idiomatically but instead refers to the cold (chilly) temperatures
Picture 5: celebrating
Picture 6: low quality, ramshackle; a very heavy rain, downpour; debris small pieces of broken or damaged materials, very similar to rubble

Next week: Liven up your class with an information gap activity.