The job at hand: vary the approach and context to create meaningful images of people at work.

The most common kind of image featured in organizational publications is the photo of someone at work. It usually shows somebody sitting at a computer, talking on the phone, participating in a meeting, or working in a manufacturing or service situation. It describes, rather than interprets, the job at hand. When published, these photos are often numbingly similar from page to page, issue to issue.

In my travels, I often photograph people at work. I try to do whatever I can to vary my approach, the context in which I present their work, and the ultimate meaning.

My first example is what's often called a "candid portrait." This woman, working on a sugarcane farm near Pakxe, Laos, is making molds for candies produced from the sugarcane she grows, harvests and cooks. I captured this moment of gentle expression and body language as she looked away from her work to listen to a coworker. She fills the frame from top to bottom. I emphasize her, and only imply what she is doing rather than describe it. She knew I was photographing her, and earlier she had been self-consciously smiling, but the more I shot, the more relaxed she became. (Digital images are essentially free. I usually shoot dozens of images until I get what I want.)

My second example (bottom right) is also a picture of a person at work, but made in an entirely different way, and expressing a different idea. This image tells us what it must feel like to water flowers all day in a Chengdu, China, flower shop. In the face and body language of this worker I saw exhaustion, resignation and tedium. I built a frame out of the shop's doorway and sign, and waited for her to spontaneously arrange herself within it. The setting here is larger than the subject, and as important to the meaning. The watering can, the plants arrayed behind her, and the sign, which identifies the store as a flower shop, provide context. She did not pose for me--she simply went about her work, and after a while she seemed to forget that I was even there.

I made my third example in a market in Vientiane, Laos. The people who sell fish here are confident and proud of their product and their service. I could feel it in how they stood at that table as I photographed them. This is a group environ mental portrait, an entirely different approach from my other examples. They are posing for me, but doing so naturally; without pretension or embarrassment. I gave them no direction. They present themselves to us exactly as their customers will see them--ready to sell them fresh fish of their choice. I emphasize those fish by moving in on them with my 24mm wide-angle lens, pulling the viewer into the image. Laotians are not only kind and open; they may be resolute and tough as well. I think this image makes that point.

My fourth and final example is an entirely different concept. In this image, the worker takes up very little space in the frame. He remains its focal point, but it's the wealth of the detail surrounding him that tells his story. I made this picture in the colorful Bagdad Cafe, a remote roadhouse in California's Mojave Desert. (It was the location for a German cult film of the same name, shot here in 1988.) The cook peers out at us from the clutter of his surroundings with a wary eye--he has seen many cameras across the counter from him over the years, and I'm just another lens in his face.

None of these images of people at work uses the same idea to express meaning. They vary in concept, distance, scale, awareness, attitude and purpose.

take your best shot

Send photos for possible use in this column to The Douglis Visual Workshops, 2505 E. Carol Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85028 USA.

Philip N. Douglis, ABC, directs The Douglis Visual Workshops, now in its 35th year of training communicators in visual literacy. Douglis, an IABC Fellow, is the most widely known consultant on editorial photography for organizations. He offers his comprehensive six-person "Communicating with Pictures" workshops every May and October in Oak Creek Canyon, near Sedona, Arizona. For registration information, call +1 602.493.6709 or e-mail [e-mail].

You can view Douglis' multi-gallery cyberbook on expressive digital travel photography at www.pbase.com/pnd1.