Notes, lessons, and hard truths from a talk by Michael Brochstein
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I’ve always been fascinated by photojournalism.
Before I ever thought seriously about style, personal projects, or social media, there were photographs that shaped how I understood the world. LIFE Magazine. National Geographic. Time. Vanity Fair. Images that didn’t just show events, but fixed them in history. Photographs that felt like witnesses.
So when I sat down to watch Michael Brochstein’s talk, “How to Get Started in Photojournalism,” it didn’t feel like gear advice or career coaching. It felt like someone calmly pulling back the curtain on how the photographs I’ve admired my whole life actually get made, delivered, and trusted.
What follows are my notes filtered through how I think about photography, visibility, and the discipline required to be taken seriously.
Photojournalism isn’t one thing
Brochstein starts by stripping away romance.
Photojournalism, at its most basic, lives in two worlds. There’s breaking (spot) news—fires, accidents, disasters—things you don’t schedule. And there’s general news—politics, civic events, protests, weather, culture—things you can plan for.
That distinction matters. If you’re starting out, general news is where you build repetition, confidence, and muscle memory. Waiting for chaos isn’t a strategy.
This immediately resonated with how I think about walking the city and working deliberately. You don’t wait for something extraordinary to happen; you show up often enough that you’re ready when it does. I’ve written about this from an urban photography perspective in Why Walking the City Is Essential to My Urban Photography Practice.
What actually gets published (and what doesn’t)
One of the most grounding points in the entire talk is this: most published photojournalism isn’t flashy.
It’s clear. It’s legible. It answers questions editors need answered. It’s usable.
Yes, originality matters. Yes, personal projects matter. But editors still need what Brochstein calls the insurance shots—the photographs that tell the story cleanly, even if nothing else works.
That doesn’t mean giving up on voice. It means earning the right to develop one.
This mirrors how I think about sequencing and narrative in a photo essay. Before you can bend the rules, you need to understand why they exist in the first place. That idea sits at the core of How to Build a LIFE Magazine Photo Essay: A Blueprint for Visual Storytelling.
The three shots you get before you get creative
If you take only one practical lesson from Brochstein’s talk, make it this.
When covering a speaking event—press conferences, political announcements, civic events—there are three shots editors expect you to deliver.
First, the medium shot. Clean, straightforward, unambiguous.
Second, the cutaway. The speaker and the audience together, often from the side, showing interaction and context.
Third, the wide shot. The photograph explains where we are and how big the moment is.
These shots are not glamorous. They are necessary.
Only after you have them do you start looking for close-ups, high or low angles, behind-the-scenes moments, or turnaround shots that show what’s happening behind you that might also be part of the story.
This discipline feels very familiar to me. It’s the same balance I chase between structure and exploration in street work, something I explored in Finding Style in the Street: The 28mm Field of View and the Discipline of Presence.
Photojournalism has its own language
Another underrated part of the talk is terminology.
Brochstein explains words that don’t appear in camera manuals but matter the moment you’re on assignment: buffer, throw, preset, stand-up. Knowing these terms isn’t about sounding smart; it’s about moving confidently in environments where hesitation is noticed immediately.
Understanding the language of the space helps you look like you belong. And in photojournalism, looking like you belong often determines whether you’re allowed to stay.
This idea—intentional presence—connects directly to how I think about visibility as a photographer. You don’t accidentally get taken seriously. You project readiness.
Photographing people who are talking
Talking heads make up a huge percentage of political and civic photojournalism, and they’re also where a lot of photographs fail.
Brochstein boils it down to three things to watch for: eyes, mouth, and gesture.
You avoid blinks in editing, not in real time. You avoid awkward mouth shapes by selecting carefully. And you wait for gesture, because gesture is where meaning lives.
If you’ve ever watched a press conference and heard a sudden explosion of shutters, it’s almost always tied to a raised hand or a pointed finger. Everyone is chasing the same visual punctuation.
This sensitivity to body language is something I strongly associate with portrait and street photography, and it’s a theme that runs through The First Portrait: Expanding My City Photography Through Street Portraiture.
The real work starts after the shutter
Photojournalism doesn’t end when you stop shooting.
In many ways, that’s when it actually begins.
Brochstein walks through a workflow designed for speed and accuracy: ingest fast, cull hard, caption accurately, crop responsibly, correct tone and color ethically, export to exact client specifications, and deliver immediately.
Captions aren’t optional. Metadata isn’t bureaucracy. It’s credibility.
This obsession with structure and systems has become increasingly familiar to me, whether I’m editing photographs, publishing essays, or even rebuilding the taxonomy of my own site. The same mindset shows up in How I Used ChatGPT to Rebuild My Site Taxonomy (and Why I Didn’t See the Problem Sooner).
Ethics are not flexible
Brochstein draws a clear, uncompromising line.
No cloning.
No adding or removing elements.
No manufacturing reality.
You can crop. You can correct exposure and white balance. You cannot change what happened.
In a field built on trust, a single ethical violation can end a career. That’s not hyperbole.
This respect for truth—even when it’s inconvenient—is one of the reasons I’ve always been drawn to the work of photographers like Garry Winogrand, whose influence I explored in Garry Winogrand and His 28mm Lens: How He Shaped How I See.
Access isn’t given, it’s earned
Press credentials feel mysterious until someone explains them plainly.
In places like New York City, access often requires proof that you’ve already been published, covering events that involved police lines. That creates an obvious catch-22.
Brochstein’s advice is pragmatic: shoot what you can without credentials, get published from outside the line, then use those clips to apply for access.
Legitimacy often comes after persistence, not before it.
Gear matters less than redundancy
There is gear talk in the presentation, but it’s refreshingly practical.
The emphasis isn’t on owning the best camera. It’s on not failing. Two bodies. Fast lenses. Enough batteries and cards. Insurance. A step stool. Rain protection. A way to file from the field.
This isn’t gear as identity. It’s gear as infrastructure.
That way of thinking mirrors how I approach tools more broadly—choosing what supports the work rather than what flatters the ego. I’ve explored that idea from a different angle in One Field of View, Three Sensors: What Tool Is Right for the Job?
Why this talk stayed with me
What I took away from Michael Brochstein’s talk isn’t a checklist. It’s a mindset.
Photojournalism rewards consistency over brilliance, clarity over cleverness, and discipline over spontaneity.
You don’t become a photojournalist by calling yourself one. You become one by showing up, understanding what’s required, and delivering—again and again.
And maybe that’s why I’ve always been drawn to it.
Because at its best, photojournalism isn’t about the photographer at all. It’s about standing close enough to history that someone else can see it clearly, long after the noise has faded.