Photo Story in Photojournalism

Photo story or also known as photo essay, is a compilation of photos taken by photojournalist. All of the photos taken are connected, its like an essay, but in visual form, since they cannot summarise the story they want to tell in just one photos. Making a photo story is not easy, because you have to make sure that each photos are carefully selected, in order to follow the narrative you want to tell with passion, care and most importantly, delivering the emotion.

Here is one example of photo story by Dima Garvysh, titled New York City Coffeehouses. Dima had worked as a documentary photographer for the past 13 years with major publications and news agencies such as Associated Press, Bloomberg News, and Agence France-Presse. He has also worked on multiple projects around the globe, including collaborations with Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations Population Fund and numerous recent embeds with the US Army in Afghanistan. Dima's work has appeared in a variety of international publications, including New York Times, Stern, Paris Match and Time. ( Source: cargocollective.com/gavrysh/Bio )

He had won numerous awards for his work, mostly the US Army in Afghanistan. Besides exploring the war through video installation, photography and data visualization, he is currently, working to publish his first book.

Awards:

• Tokyo International Photography Festival (Winner): 2014
• Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation - Space Program (Winner): 2013
• Magenta Flash Forward - (Winner): 2013
• PDN's 30: 2011
• Critical Mass - Top 50: 2011
• Magenta Foundation (Honorable mention): 2010
• PDN Photo Annual (Photojournalism winner): 2010
• AI+AP (American Photography + American Illustration): published in 2008–2010 yearbooks
• International Photography Awards – Lucie: honorable mention: 2008–2009
• PX3 - winner (portraiture): 2010
• PX3 - winner (travel) 1st, 2nd and 3rd place: 2008–2009
• XVIII Eddie Adams Workshop: 2005

Exhibitions:

Solo:

• Blue Sky gallery (Portland, OR) “Inshallah": 2015
• Davis Orton gallery (Hudson, NY) "Afghanistan", two person show with Andrea Camuto: 2014
• Circuit gallery (Toronto, Canada) “Embedded", two person show with Donald Weber: 2014
• Pictura gallery (Bloomington, IN) “Inshallah": 2013

Group:

• 4th Photoquai biennial at the Quai Branly Museum (Paris, France): 2013
• Annenberg Space for Photography (Los Angeles, CA) Slideshow Night "WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY": 2013
• Gelman gallery at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art (Providence, RI) “New Contemporaries 2012”: 2012
• Sol Koffler gallery (Providence, RI) "Flux Capacity": 2012
• Gelman gallery at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art (Providence, RI) “From This Point Forward”: 2012
• Cohen gallery at Brown University (Providence, RI) "Alternate Terrains: Photography Exhibition": 2012
• RING CUBE gallery (Tokyo, Japan) "PDN's 30": 2011
• RayKo Photo Center (San Francisco, CA) "Across the Divide": 2011
• Pelavin gallery (New York, NY) "A Field Guide To Getting Lost": 2011

Lectures:

• Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism (New York, NY): 2011
• CUNY Graduate School of Journalism (New York, NY): 2011

Articles & Reviews:

• Quill Magazine "We Own the Future of the News": 2012
• Photo District News: "Our Choice of 30 Photographers to Watch": 2011
• The New York Times LENS Blog "In Afghanistan, a Personal Perspective": 2010
• Slideluck Potshow "Interview with Dima Gavrysh": 2009
• Popular Photography: "Holi Festival by Dima Gavrysh": 2009

Another normal day as the hustle and bustle in a coffee shop continues in Bluebird Coffee Shop, as the sound of the coffee machine grinding the coffee bean, cups clinging the saucer, people talking and laughing.
Photographed by Dima Garvysh.

This work of art by Dima are different than his previous work, especially the American war in Afghanistan, which he used black and white photos, because he wanted to depict a dark fairytale full of fears and dreams. The coffee house series used a warm tone, I think he wanted to portray everyday life through his lens. Just like Bazuki Muhammad said before, "the best lens is our eyes". Each pictures are connected to one another, he also made us feel connected to it! Its like we were passing by some coffee shop but the smell of the fragrance coffee made us stop to catch a glimpse of what is happening there, its the view that is common in our daily life.

The reason why I chose it because of my undying love for coffee, hence the name of this blog's Uniform Resource Locators (URL), drinking coffee with some sinful chocolate muffin, while reading books, is my favourite pastime hobby. Other than that, I can relate to the photos by imagining that I am actually at the coffee house! I can feel the warm welcome of those aromatic smell of coffee and freshly baked pastries. I have a quite experience myself when I was in Busan, South Korea, during my exchange student period, I had the chance to actually experience all sorts of coffee shops there. Me and my friends would refer to it as "Cafe Hunting" as we would hunt every coffee shops they have in Busan. Its like one coffee shop a day, but too bad I did not took a lot of pictures though!

Well, enough of me rambling, lets get to the best part, that is the photos of Dima Garvysh:

I can picture myself as the girl in the photo above, sitting on the stool, figuring what the man outside trying to say, or whether just daydreaming, one of those happy days.

   

Maybe the waiter is trying to transfer the cups by carrying them all at one time. Save time, save your energy.

Those time when I went "Cafe Hunting", I usually went there with my friends but at times, I went alone. Yes, I am that brave, walking down the street alone is like an adventure itself, I used to get lost when I cannot find the "Cafe Street" they have in Seomyeon, Busan, and a lot of walking around there, being lost, was not that scary actually. 

Here is some of my photos of the coffee shop in Busan, that I managed to captured during the "Cafe Hunting" session I had, most of the time I went alone, so there are no pictures of me or my friends. My photos do not have emotions as there are not a lot of customer or people since I went during weekdays or office hours. I let you be the judge, from your observation, are these photos of mine qualify to be a compilation of a photo story?

Smores Cafe at Cafe Street in Seomyeon, Busan.

Various choices of cakes at Smores Cafe.

This little quaint coffee shop is situated at Gamcheon Culture Village, one of the many Busan tourists attractions.

Another coffee shop at the Cafe Street, named Road 209.

This is actually a photo booth at the Cube Cafe, which is an entertainment company whose produced Kpop artist. This coffee shop was the only one that I managed to go when I was in Seoul.

One of the best coffee shop in town, as they served good coffee and delicious dessert with great hospitality.

Hot chocolate latte to feed the hungry soul!

One of my favourite coffee shop in Busan, the Charlie Brown's Cafe! I am not an avid fan of Snoopy, but I did enjoy watching the cartoon when I was a child.

Charlie Brown's Cafe is full of colours and illustrations!

Most of the coffee shop here provides photo booth for their customer.

The entrance to Charlie Brown's Cafe.

Obviously I fail in an attempt to make my own version of photo story above, since most of it just showcase the environment of the place only, so its more to me promoting the coffee shop! Well, Dima's photos above are a bit tempting for me to visit those coffee houses in America making me to add another country to my list of countries to visit for their coffee.

Nowadays, there are a lot of people who document their life event for personal experience through Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. But now there are websites build specially for non-photojournalist to showcase their work or they just want to be heard or share their experiences through photo story like Pictory and Cowbird. As of now, Pictory do not accept submissions of photos anymore, but you can still view other peoples version of photo story.

Cowbird main website. Source: Retrieved from http://cowbird.com/

Pictory main website. Source: Retrieved from http://www.pictorymag.com/