‘An eye for strong visuals is part of good storytelling’

Visual literacy is what journalists need in the age of multi-media.

Photojournalist Victor Kintanar  yesterday discussed how to use mobile phones for news coverage and taking photos.

“Through visuals, we can communicate more effectively with our viewers or readers,” he said.

This was one of several topics tackled in a New Media Meetup organized by InnoPub Media for journalists, writers, bloggers, and photographers.

Kintanar said that thinking and communicating visually is essential in today’s marketplace.

“The need for visual literacy has never been greater in the 21st century, especially because today anyone can be a photographer,” he added.

Yesterday’s participants included students from the University of San Carlos, Cebu Normal University, and University of San Jose-Recoletos.

Also present were government writers and representatives of the Cebu blogging community.

The event  was held in a conference hall at the PLDT compound along Osmeña Boulevard, Cebu City.

Kintanar discussed the use of basic tools of visual communication, and gave a refresher on the value of dots, lines, and shapes.

Horizontal lines represent rest, stillness, and tranquility. Vertical lines convey stability, uprightness, and worthiness.

He also explained dimension and direction, and the composition of photos, among others.

Photography is a never-ending learning process, he said.

Today readers demand more than just one photo in news articles.

“They’re not contented with just one picture, they want more,” said Kintanar.

InnoPub Media co-founder Max Limpag said good stories should always go with strong visuals.

He said the meetup was part of the effort to build a foundation for future news “hackathons” where people get together to create applications, programs, and websites dedicated to news content.

During the first meetup last year, the focus was on building communities through media.

In yesterday’s session, Sun.Star Cebu editor-in-chief Isolde Amante also discussed how to write good leads to start a story.

“There is a need to hook readers early. You need to start strong in your articles to make sure the readers finish it,” said Limpag.

Limpag also led a hands-on discussion on basic HTML/CSS literacy as a foundation for electronic books production and application development.

He discussed the use of Markdown, an application that makes it easier to format publication pages for online platforms.