A view of our third editing round before we chose the final 34 photos for the story.
Behind the Edit: Islands Assignment
Inspired by our recent trip to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for BioBlitz –a partnership between National Geographic and the National Park Service that promotes citizen science, the Your Shot team asked the community to tell us the story of the Islands. 11,176 submissions later, we made a story comprised of 34 photos that best represented the cultures, traditions, and sights of islands from around the world. However, there are often images that we as editors love and fight for that don’t make it pass the rounds of editing. Below are Jeanne, Marie and Monica’s top picks that didn’t make it into the story.
Jawed’s photo of the couple bringing in the net from the water caught my eye and made it to our second round of editing. The action of the dragging net combined with the group of flying birds in the right corner and the below eye-level point of view made for an dynamic scene. In the end, the lack of caption information plus the similarity to the other fishing photos in the story left it on the cutting room floor. —Jeanne Modderman, Photography Producer
Ranmali’s photo of the Toddy Tapper in Sri Lanka was one of my favorites that didn’t make the cut. I loved that it was a classic palm tree and blue sky scene that immediately says island, but beyond that it told a better story. The sunlit man is a “Toddy Tapper”, also known as a Raa. They extract palm oil from the trees to make an alcoholic beverage called Toddy or palm wine. Towards the end of the edit, I think what knocked it out was that despite being a strong composition, it was too hard to read. The main subject, the meat of the story, was overpowered by the palm leaves in the frame. —Marie McGrory, Assistant Photo Editor
I’ve always been drawn to photos shot in the square format—whether they are medium format film or today’s smartphones. Which is why I was initially attracted to David’s Na Pali Coast aerial and Johann’s Icelandic seagull. They are both clean shots with no distracting elements. They are simple and straightforward with the main subject obvious and clear. These are things I typically like, but when stacked against images that might have a little bit more information, a little bit more emotion, I tend to go the other way. Particularly when trying to tell a visual story, a narrative that hangs together and takes the viewer along for the ride. However, each of these photos tells their own story and I applaud them for that. —Monica Corcoran, Director
See more photos from the Islands assignment here.
Sig Nordal 