Great New NGO Storytelling Blog

Here’s a great new blog from NGO photographer and videographer Laura Pohl called “NGO Storytelling:  A resource for telling stories about international development and humanitarian issues.”

Why is this blog really useful?

It’s simple.  When you’re shooting programming for an NGO, say of a water project, you can do one of two things:  either take photos of people using a well (which your NGO would probably be happy with), or you can dig deeper and show the affect that well has on the entire community by following one family.  By visually telling the story of how that well positively affects one family, they become a personal and tangible way of showing the impact the well has on the community as a whole. Now you’ve not only shown what the well does, but the viewers will have a human connection to that family — and ultimately to the NGO you’re shooting for.

We’ll talk a lot more about the importance of visual storytelling in future posts, but to get you started, Laura’s blog is a great resource.  She’s an excellent photographer and videographer who works as the Multimedia Manager at an NGO called Bread for the World and also teaches multimedia at the college level. She really knows visual storytelling.  Trust me, her blog is worth visiting often.  In a future post we’ll have an interview with Laura about visual storytelling.