Photographs
are a huge part of my middle-grade nonfiction STEM books for children. My books
feature environmental science in the field, and I’ve been lucky enough to have
a ready source of images from scientists excellent at documenting their work. Usually,
my challenge is one of quantity! With that in mind and considering that other
blogs in the NF Fest catalog focus on permissions and working with
photographers, I’d like to address how I choose the best photos from the
hundreds available to me.
For any
nonfiction book, images must add clarity to the text just as the illustrations in
picture books do. Photos are great for a step-by-step approach, to give readers
a sense of place, and to drop them into the adventure. But if you’re only using
your photos for clarity, you’re missing out on a fabulous opportunity to add
heart to your project.
The right
photographs can elicit emotions and ratchet up suspense. In each of my
environmental books, my goal is to help readers understand that we are not
separate from nature. We have a role to play. By establishing connections to
nature, I can help readers care enough to act. And photos help me do that.
After
collecting the photos, I create a digital folder for each chapter in my book project.
These folders are ultimately shared with the editorial and design teams. I add
images that best match the events and details described in each chapter. Then, I
drop in images that make me react in physical ways. I’m lucky enough to have a
design team at Millbrook Press who allow me to have input on the images we use.
Often, we swap out photos during the design process. Here are a few examples of
what we came up with:
On the last
pages of Plastic, Ahoy!, I quote Miriam Goldstein the lead scientist on one
of the first expeditions to study plastic in the North Pacific. She says,
“People want to know that there are wildernesses out there somewhere. If even
the open sea is no longer a wilderness, what is?” This thought-provoking statement paired
with Annie Crawley’s photo of a single water bottle floating in the vast sea still
takes my breath away.
Giant
Rays of Hope: Protecting Manta Rays to Safeguard the Sea focuses on an amazing conservation
project in Peru that uses giant manta rays as a flagship species to inspire the
community to protect the ocean. In a dramatic twist, the largest manta ray
anyone had ever seen was inadvertently caught in a fisher’s net. The media
called the manta a “monster” and vilified the fisher who brought it ashore. The
suspended manta gives readers an idea of the size of these creatures, and its
sad end shocks us into paying attention and urges us to find out more.
Planet
Ocean: Why We All Need a Healthy Ocean is a book about our connection to the sea. Throughout, Annie
Crawley and I use text, photos, and video QR codes to share the beauty of our
ocean, but also to explain and explore the devastating effects climate change
has on the sea. One of our favorite spreads includes two photos (see below,
right side). In the first, two children play on a trash-strewn beach. It
dawns on us that the kids probably have never seen a pristine beach. The second
photo shows a submerged baby doll that Annie calls the “creepy baby” photo. The
doll’s incongruous cheerful expression is at odds with her new underwater home
eliciting conflicting emotions in the reader, too.
In my books
about animals, photos illustrate a variety of cool behaviors to engage and
surprise readers and (I admit) appeal to their sense of awww. In Zoo
Scientists to the Rescue, Annie Crawley and I included a photo of an
orangutan inspecting a piece of fruit. His human-like dexterity, his curiosity,
and his sense of awareness draw us in.
In Eavesdropping
on Elephants: How Listening Helps Conservation, the photo of two
bulls fighting gets readers’ hearts pumping from the power and fierceness with
which male elephants protect their territory.
And in Sea Otter Heroes: The Predators That Saved an Ecosystem who can resist a raft of fuzzy-faced otters posing for the camera?
Reading
photos is a learned skill that our young audience must practice, but perhaps it
would benefit nonfiction authors to learn to get to the heart of their photos,
too! Check out this LitLinks lesson that provides a framework for describing,
analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating photos.
I wish you
much success in choosing the perfect photos to add heart to your project.
Patricia Newman
Sibert Honor author Patricia Newman uses social and environmental injustice to empower readers to seek connections to the real world and act on behalf of their communities. Patricia's nonfiction titles have received multiple starred reviews, ALA Notable Awards, two Orbis Pictus Awards (NCTE), two Green Earth Book Awards, and several Eureka! Awards (CRA). All her nonfiction titles are Junior Library Guild Selections, and most appear on the Bank Street College's Best Books of the Year lists. To learn more, visit her website at patriciamnewman.com or connect with her on BlueSky (@patricianewman.bsky.social), X (@PatriciaNewman), Instagram (@patricianewmanbooks), and Pinterest (@newmanbooks).
Great thoughts on adding heart through photos! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and process!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I have a historic proposal out on submission with just a few editors, but you've helped me rethink some of my photo planning! It may be different than your STEM books, but I think I can use photos very similarly.
ReplyDeleteFascinating! Thank you for sharing your expertise.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this helpful information! Your work sounds so wonderful and important and I'm following you on IG now!
ReplyDeleteWhat fantastic photos. You certainly have shown us how to get to the heart of the image in order to reach the heart of the readers. Thank you.
ReplyDeletePATRICIA: THANK YOU for INSPIRING us with SUCH BEAUTIFUL examples of how photos can add HEART to our stories. I LOVE the idea of using photos to ". . . drop [readers] into the adventure" going on in our books. But I ESPECIALLY LOVE how you pair this with using pictures to ENCOURAGE readers to act and bring about change: "We have a role to play. By establishing connections to nature, I can help readers care enough to act. And photos help me do that." BEAUTIFUL! THANK YOU!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great post! I also research photos to support the text for my leveled readers in the educational market. I agree that the right photo adds heart in addition to the text to elicit an emotional response from the reader, such as delight, awe, empathy, or humor.
ReplyDeletePatricia, I appreciate this dive into photos and how they can bring heart to nonfiction. Lesson learned!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Patricia, for sharing helpful tips.
ReplyDeleteThe photos in your books are beautiful and support the text.
Great post, Patricia! And what a great idea to link to the litlink photo exercise - that will really help me next time I'm thinking about which photos to include.
ReplyDelete