Few photographic genres are plagued by as many misunderstandings as documentary photography. We photographers have come to classify every shot that isn’t prearranged into this genre. It’s most often confused with reportage. And meanwhile the two are easy to tell apart! Reportage is usually a short-term record of some event. While documentary work is always long-term. Its results never arrive immediately, and building up a gripping series can even take years.

In reportage, it’s important to be in the right place at the right time, and also to press the trigger at the right moment. That’s definitely the foundation, but it’s just as important to know how to put together a gripping story from the photos you get. Like every other story, a reportage should pull the audience in, keep them in suspense, and bring them a certain denouement. Now let’s take a look at how to tell it through photos.

You know the drill: Vacations, weekend trips, and even ordinary walks in the woods... They all churn out photos, but there’s never time to process and ponder them. But then you suddenly run into situations where you’re stuck at home and you don’t know what to do with your time. How can you turn this lemon of a situation into lemonade?