Training your brain to see the silver linings and solutions is essential in several ways, from engaging your audience to gaining the interest of editors.
If you’ve been watching the news pretty much at all over the past couple of months, you know there’s a lot coming at us from all angles every day. For conservation photographers, this is kind of par for the course. We are wired to see what’s going on in the world that needs fixing, and we use our visual storytelling abilities to help fix it. It’s our job to address the bad and spark movement toward the good.
And that’s really key: sparking movement toward the good. Finding the silver lining in every story we work on is essential. We’re always looking for solutions. This step is crucial in crafting a narrative that wakes up an audience and inspires action. Having a positive angle to a story is beneficial in many ways. It helps you as the photographer to see why you’re working on a story, it helps your audience, and it increases your chances of getting your story out into the world. Seeing solutions and silver linings is critical stuff, right? Here are five strategies you can use to find that silver lining, so you and everyone else can benefit to the max from each conservation photo story you work on.
Why a Positive Spin Helps Your Story and Your Audience
As bad news constantly batters us, it’s easy to build up walls to protect ourselves from overwhelm and loss of hope. We all know what this feels like, especially lately with COVID-19. We’re dealing with a global pandemic, and it can be all too easy to shrug and think, “Everything’s going to pot anyway, so what difference could I possibly make?” But that loss of hope and understanding of our own individual power is as great a threat to a sustainable future as pollution, habitat destruction, and species extinction.
As conservation visual storytellers, we must show the realities of what is happening and highlight what could be. Especially now, with our relationship with the natural world leading to a global pandemic, it’s our job to point people toward hope and solutions. Finding a positive spin to your story helps move people from the problem to the solution and inspires their action. And goodness knows, we need everyone to take action on many issues right now.
Why a Positive Spin Helps Your Mind as a Conservation Photographer
Compassion fatigue is a very real thing, and there’s growing acknowledgment of its existence and effects. Compassion fatigue happens when you spend a lot of time dealing with people or animals in distress. This focus can cause extreme tension and preoccupation with the plight of those you’re trying to help, leading to your own trauma. Symptoms can range from isolation to high levels of stress and anxiety, insomnia, and fatigue. By training your brain to find hopeful spots, potential avenues for change, and paths to get there, you have tools to stave off compassion fatigue.
Your ability to zero in on bright spots of hope and paths toward hope is crucial for long-term work in conservation photography. It helps you navigate tough moments and stay focused on solutions.
Why a Positive Spin Helps Your Bank Account
Finding positive angles is not just for mental benefits but also affects your ability to get stories published. Editors are more likely to reject a bad news-only story but may accept one wrapped in hope for action because it’s easier to market. Editors know that continuously depressing their readership will lead to a decline. If you knew that every issue of a magazine contained only bad news, would you keep reading? Probably not. So if you can address an issue and help readers feel empowered or hopeful, they may take action or share the article with others. This makes your story more marketable.
However, finding a positive angle does not mean sugarcoating the story. It doesn’t mean making it overly Pollyanna or playing down the truth. We must both inform and inspire action through hope.
Strategy 1: Find the So-What Factor for the Audience
Why does this conservation issue matter to your audience? Go beyond why you think it should matter. From their perspective, how does it impact their health, financial security, shopping decisions, or understanding of political leaders? Relate it back to their daily experiences. Even if your story has a negative impact, you can reframe it positively in two ways:
- Future pace your audience and illustrate what it would look like if the negative impact were solved.
- Future pace your audience and illustrate how taking action now will result in positive change.
Strategy 2: Plan the Call to Action for the Audience
What can someone do about the issue? Once you know how the issue affects someone (from Strategy 1), you can identify high-quality actions they can take to avoid negative impacts. Knowing that you have the power to do something effective is incredibly hopeful. Find at least one actionable step for the viewer and highlight it.
Strategy 3: Imagine a Solution and Reverse Engineer the Actions Needed
If you’re stuck, imagine the ideal solution to the conservation issue. Picture what that looks like, then reverse engineer the actions needed to get there. Start with the perfect ending and work backward. Build a roadmap from the solution to the present situation. This helps you figure out the so-what factor and the call to action.
Strategy 4: Connect Your Story to a Broader Positive Aspect
Expand your focus to connect the bummer of a story to a larger context with positive angles. For example, if your story is about shark finning, you can expand to discuss how sharks benefit coral reefs, which house 25% of ocean biodiversity. Some places have banned finning and seen coral reefs bounce back. This broader context can reframe your story positively.
Strategy 5: Find Precedent for Success
Research similar success stories that can serve as examples. Seeing similar successes elsewhere provides hope and illustrates the possibility of success for your issue. For example, in Isla Mujeres near Cancun, Mexico, sharks are protected and draw tourists for snorkeling, providing a sustainable living from live sharks. Highlighting such success stories shows that significant changes are possible and inspires action.
Conclusion
Using these strategies, you can find the positive angle in any conservation story. Let’s recap:
- Find the so-what factor for the audience from their perspective.
- Plan a call to action to empower your audience.
- Imagine the ideal solution and reverse engineer the steps to get there.
- Connect your story to a broader positive aspect.
- Find precedent for success.
Finding and highlighting the positive angles in your conservation stories not only helps you maintain hope and resilience but also inspires your audience to take action. It increases the chances of your stories being published and making a real impact. So, start looking for those silver linings and keep pushing forward in your important work as a conservation visual storyteller.
