How we got 141,665 photos from readers

How many photo reporters can you assign to make a portrait of your country? 1? 2? 5? 10? 50? What about 25 thousand? It is possible, we have done it, writes Grzegorz Piechota of Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza.

Eight weeks ago we have launched the School of Photography Masters at Gazeta. All the readers have become its students and the best photo reporters have been telling them how to take better photos, sharing their tips and tricks.

Readers have got eight different tasks and have been submitting photos to Gazeta’s website. Gazeta’s photo editors have been reviewing their works and making comments on the school’s internet blog.

Readers’ engagement has been tremendous. We have collected in total 141,665 photos. They have been submitted by 25 thousand individuals. Most of the school’s students are aged 15-30.

The best photos are published on Monday, Sept. 22nd, 2008, in a printed edition of Gazeta’s feature supplement “Duzy Format” (Large Format). The best citizen reporters are awarded with professional Nikon D60 photo cameras (the main sponsor for this school is Nikon).

Here are some pages featuring the best photos submitted by readers (the front page of the supplement and the first two-page spread of the results):

Introduction to the photo school

Piotr Wojcik, a photo desk editor at Gazeta, officially opened the school on July 18th:

“During the next eight weeks eight great photo reporters will tell you how to take photos, how to look through camera’s lens to see more. We invite you to this unique school of watching and discovering the world that surrounds us.

Our masters of photography covered main political and sports events. Portrayed actors, writers, philosophers, wars and the beauty of nature. They got many prestigious awards. Today every reader and photo amateur can use their experience.

In the next eight weeks we will learn a story behind their best photos. We will learn how to embolden people to make them show in front of the camera their most interesting sides. We will learn how to make light show and not hide what we want. How to make an unique photo on the beach, in the garden, during lazy holidays and even at boring aunt’s birthday.”

Gazeta’s eight masters of photography were Krzysztof Miller, Kuba Atys, Adam Kozak, Adam Wajrak, Piotr Wojcik himself, Anna Bedynska, Jerzy Gumowski and Michal Mutor.

On the school’s first day they told stories behind the photos they are most proud of:

Lessons with masters

Articles related to the school were published on Fridays and Mondays in the printed edition of Gazeta. They were edited by Lukasz Ramlau, an editor working at Gazeta’s “Duzy Format” supplement.

Each lesson at this in-paper school consisted of three elements:

1. An interview with a master about his practice and tips he can share with readers.

Examples: how to learn about a person to make a good portrait? How to be parient enough to take a good photo of wild animals? How to avoid typical photos from holidays and how to show nudity without porn-style shots?

All the interviews were conducted by Magdalena Grzebalkowska, one of Gazeta’s best feature writers.

Her interviews were accompanied by showcases of masters’ works and stories behind their photos.

2. A story about a master of Gazeta’s masters. We were publishing works of the best photographers in the world that inspired Gazeta’s photo reporters and editors.

These galleries became main photo features of our Monday supplement “Duzy Format”.

3. Practical advice how to take better photos.

Examples: how to make a good portrait? How to take photos of kids? How to look at a landscape?

These practical tips were often presented in a simple Does-and-Don’ts way:

Tips and tricks section quickly started to use readers’ photos as examples:

Home works for readers

This unique guide to photography was accompanied by a contest for readers. We asked them to take and submit photos on eight topics:

• Love. Readers had to illustrate a poem written by K.J. Galczynski.
• Poland in color. The most colorful places, people and things around us.
• Scarecrows. What place in your city would not you show to any tourist?
• Disappearing world. House with a grass-made roof, wooden bridge, wild landscape…
• Meetings. People you met in your journey.
• Moves. Holiday sports activities: football, chess, swimming, bike riding.
• The strong man. In your family, in your city, in your building… Somebody whom you respect and admire.
• Paradise. Places and moments that you have been happy at.

To submit photos and enter the contest readers simply had to log in to our web portal or to the photo sharing site PhotoBlog.pl that cooperates with Gazeta:

Below is an example of the photo submitted by a reader. Other readers could make comments and often did. So the school’s students cooperated like in a real school.

Gazeta’s photo editors were browsing all the submitted photos and making comments on some of them on their official blog.

In-paper promotion

Gazeta used many formats of in-paper ads to invite readers to start learning at our school. Here are some examples:

What’s next?

We were thinking about this photo school as about an interactive feature for holiday season. But as readers liked it very much and we got over 140,000 thousand photos, we changed our plans and decided to extend the lessons and provide new services online and in print.

On Monday, Sept. 21st, we also launch a video school in association with TVN, a commercial Polish TV channel, and Lipton, a tea brand of Unilever.

Our video master is Slawomir Idziak, one of the best Polish cinematographers working in Hollywood, who was nominated for an Oscar award for “Black Hawk Down” (2001) and directed a photography also for “Proof of life” (2000), “King Arthur” (2004) and “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix” (2007).

Mr. Idziak will teach readers how to shoot videos with a mobile phone!

The lessons by Mr. Idziak will be accompanied by a competition. The winners will get 3,000 euros and watch their movies presented on a big screen at the OffCamera independent movie festival in Cracow in early October.

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