Meet the next generation: video's role in the future of photojournalism

With audiences increasingly sourcing information from image-led digital channels over traditional print media, and opting for videos over the written word, how important to a photojournalist's career is video, versus stills? This was a question that ran throughout the Canon Student Programme at the festival of photojournalism Visa pour l'Image 2019 in Perpignan, France.

Canon continued to inspire and educate the next generation of photojournalists, inviting over 240 photography students from schools and universities across Europe and the Middle East to the event. There they gained access to the world's leading professionals, who offered guidance and advice in navigating this ever-evolving environment.

Throughout Professional Week (2-7 September), the students attended lectures, guided tours, portfolio reviews and screenings. They met with industry professionals including journalist, educator and former Head of Photography at AFP Francis Kohn; Photo Editor-in-Chief at Politiken in Denmark Thomas Borberg; and award-winning photojournalist and Canon Ambassador Ilvy Njiokiktjien.

"Visa is the best platform in the world to meet professionals. In Perpignan, young photographers can meet people from The New York Times, Washington Post, National Geographic, Stern, Paris Match, the whole world," said Jean-François Leroy, Director of Visa pour l'mage. "As far as I’m concerned, there are less than 40 newspapers and magazines in the world that are giving time and money to produce great stories, and more than 30 of them attend Visa pour l’Image. Young people save money by coming here because they don’t have to travel to New York or LA, Berlin, Frankfurt or Rome – they can meet everybody in the same place."

Nadine Mabinda Kinzumba from Novia University of Applied Sciences in Jakobstad, Finland, said: "I've done a lot of video in the past, but now I'm more into stills. It's amazing to get to combine them. With stills, you capture a second of the moment but with video you get the whole moment, so depending on what you want to show, you can choose between the two of them.

"I studied media before photography, so we had a lot of video training incorporated within that. I think that learning video skills is really important for the next generation of photojournalists, because if you know both how to take video and still pictures then you can explore more, you can express yourself more and let other people express themselves more."

How to upskill to video

In terms of the ease of capturing stills versus video, Emma Egede Skafte said she felt confident in her video skills: "Where I'm studying [at DMJX], half of our education is video, because they see that video is everywhere and in such high demand. I hadn't done video a lot before, but now I've done it a lot in my studies. I like it."

Other students, such as Anastasia, have sought out opportunities to acquire video skills and experience: "To learn video skills I did an internship at a small multimedia agency in Hanover, set up by former photo students from my university. It was great, they showed me how to use everything and what you have to do. Video is a bit more complicated than stills so it's not so easy to teach yourself."

Emma Line Holm Sejersen agreed that shooting video is a learning curve for photographers accustomed to shooting stills: "It's very difficult to do video, and particularly to get good audio. And when audio is bad, the whole movie falls apart. Right now I'm jumping into it, using a Canon EOS 6D for video recording and trying to do my best. What's the worst that can happen? I'm not sure if my expectations of my own work are higher than the client's, but I really like the medium of video and I think it has so much potential."

Find all the Canon-related stories on the Visa pour l'Image event page.