Impactful Climate Change Photography with Alastair Johnstone

Picture editor, Alastair Johnstone, shares practical guidance on what makes a truly impactful climate change photograph based on international social research on what engages audiences.

At the heart of our research is the seven Climate Visuals principles. We came up with these in 2016 and we've been trying to break them ever since, although we haven't quite managed it yet!

The principles are based on international social research on how audiences respond to different images of climate change. They’[re a useful guide when you're taking photographs, working with photography, publishing it, distributing it, and even just looking at it as well. i.e. thinking about what makes for a compelling photograph of climate change and a photograph that will really engage audiences and engage your viewers.

Show real people

We found in our research that photographs that show a person expressing an identifiable emotion in the image are powerful, and our discussion groups often favoured authentic images over staged photographs, which they commonly saw as gimmicky or even manipulative. 
And actually, beyond that, photographs that included politicians around climate change were particularly low on credibility and authenticity and attracted some of the worst reactions from audiences in our discussions.

So, when you're thinking about images of weather and you're taking images or you're selecting images of weather, it's worth thinking about: Can you add in a relatable human element? i.e. Some way to show the scale of the image, or just some kind of human connection that your viewer can identify with.

Tell new stories

When we show images to people that they can quickly and easily understand, they are often quite familiar, classic images, such as those of smokestacks or deforestation, or another very classic image of climate change – a polar bear clinging to a melting iceberg. 
These are often positively responded to in the initial reaction. They're a good way of signifying to people that this is a story or image about climate change. In this way, these images might be useful if you're using photography to communicate with people who maybe don't have such a detailed knowledge of climate change or aren’t so engaged with climate change is an issue. 

But something that we really advocate for is that these images, whilst they're good icons of climate change, don't engage audiences in the way we think photography needs to. They can promote a feeling of cynicism, a feeling of fatigue, and because people are very familiar with them, they don't have the depth of engagement. Whilst they might be an effective way of communicating to your audience through photography that the story is about climate change, you have to consider whether that’s a story they want to hear. When you're thinking about taking photographs of climate change or publishing photographs about climate change, you should be looking for less familiar and therefore more thought-provoking images that can really help tell a new story and remake the visual representation of climate change and weather in the public mind.

Show climate change causes at scale

It's worth remembering when you're thinking about your audience, that people don't necessarily understand the links between climate change and their daily lives, and they don't necessarily make the links from individual causes of climate change to climate change itself. And if they do make these links, photographs that kind of appear to pin the blame on individuals might provoke quite defensive reactions. 

So, what we're saying is, when you're visualising the links between these causes, between problematic behaviours and climate change itself, it’s worth visualising them at scale –using photography to show the scale of these problems. 

For example, if you were thinking about transportation and emissions and transportation, you might show a congested road network or highway rather than a single driver. If you were thinking about the impacts of fishing, you might show industrialised commercial fishing rather than an individual fishing person. The scale of an image is part of its power, but you're also talking about the subject on a big scale, on a massive system and scale. So that's a good way of communicating the scale of causes, the scale of problems to your viewer through photography,

Show emotionally powerful impacts

We've found from people viewing images of climate change impacts, particularly the ones of floods and the destruction wrought by extreme weather, that they're more emotionally powerful often than those of climate change causes and solutions.  i.e. We found that audiences are much more moved by images of impacts than they are by those of causes or solutions. 

We found that, because these impact images are particularly emotionally powerful, they can also prompt a real desire to respond in an audience. And I think we can all probably imagine a number of images of extreme weather and weather disasters and climate change impacts that have really sparked an emotional response in ourselves. 

But it's important to remember, within these – and this is particularly true in photojournalism – that these images of the impacts of extreme weather, they can be really overwhelming to audiences as well. So, what we suggest in terms of visual story-telling in climate change photography, is that you couple these images of emotionally powerful climate change impacts, with those of concrete behavioural action and with forward-thinking images that push towards solutions. Images that suggest actions that people can take and that suggest a kind of future to the narrative, but that they also acknowledge the importance and the emotional power of the impact as well. And again, it's important with impact to include that human connection, that level of relatability for your audience. That's another thing that people respond really strongly to.

Understand your audience

This really is at the heart of photography in general and is something you should always have in mind when you're thinking about producing new images and distributing them: Who's going to view them? Who are your audience? We found that somewhat unsurprisingly, levels of concern and scepticism about climate change really determined how people reacted to the images that they saw and the images that we tested.

It's really important when you're taking photographs to think about what your audience might be interested in. Who are your audience? Where are they? What visual clues might they really relate to? And really have them in mind from the start when you're thinking about what elements you might want to include, how you might want to frame something and how you might want to tell the story visually about climate change and extreme weather.

Show local but serious impacts

We found that when images of localised climate impacts show an individual person or a group of people with identifiable emotions, they're likely to be powerful and audiences are likely to engage with them the most. 

But there's a really important balance to be struck here, and it's the same with verbal and written communication about climate change too. You have to strike the balance between localising climate change so that people realise the issue is relevant to them, but not overly trivialising the issue by not making clear enough the links to the bigger picture. 

Through photography, you want to think about how you can make the connection with people, take people on a journey and a story, and make the connection between local experiences and the big global picture too. Maybe it's sequential use of photography, maybe it's telling clever stories in your use of images and how people are responding to different things. But how can you connect and help people see the connection between a very local experience and a more global picture too? So, help your viewer to make connections between local and global experiences. Suggest a kind of shared experience within the wider global experience of climate change and this sort of solidarity between local and global effects and impacts.

Be careful with protest imagery

I'm sure you're familiar with images of climate and environment protests being used to illustrate stories around climate change. But we've found that images depicting protests often attract widespread cynicism. Some of the lowest reviews from audiences in our survey and in the discussions we had about this, images of what people often described as “typical environmentalists” only resonated with the people in the group who already resonated with the subject of the protest itself. Often, when you have audiences who don't always feel an affinity with climate change protest, these images might not make the connection that you want them to.

However, there's a really important nuance to this as well, and that's the protest images that show people who are directly involved and affected by the impact and the issue at hand are seen as really authentic and more compelling by audiences.

So, that's the seven climate visuals principles. Obviously, they don't apply to every image, and they don't all apply to each image every time, but they're really interesting things to think about how your audience might respond to photographs of climate change and extreme weather.

Find out more about Climate Visuals