Photojournalism Features: Part 2.

Students and faculty gather at Wayne State's Gullen Mall Tuesday to mourn and celebrate the lives of the 11 people murdered at the Tree Of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

A list of the names of each victim from the Saturdays shooting. The names of the victims are surrounded by 12 shiva candles. Shiva candles are lit in accordance to Jewish tradition to commemorate the dead.

WSU student Annie Klinger eulogizes the victims as fellow student Jeremy Rosenberg lights the shiva candles in their honor.

Annie Klinger lights the shiva candles as students pass behind her.

Klinger lights one of the 12 shiva candles. The phrase "stronger than hate" is written on each candle.

WSU student, Eli Sherizen, speaks to crowd of mourners and onlookers, Oct 30.

Father John Fletcher speaks as part of a multi-faith coalition, offering his support to Detroits the Jewish Community in their time of mourning. "We have a choice to make to react with hate or react with love. Love is stronger than hate," said Fletcher.

Students from the Wayne State Jewish Student Organization singing the Hebrew hymn, Hine Mah Tov, whose lyrics translate to, “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity.”

WSU President Roy Wilson stands at the head of the crowd of mourners. Wilson was asked to light the 12th Shiva candle in honor of those injured on Saturdays attack and for all other victims of hate.

The job of the photojournalist, just like the job of the print journalist, is not just to inform their audience about an event or issue but to tell them a story about it. Stories that will—hopefully—engage their readers, helping them understand a subject in greater depth.

I tried to keep this in mind when I covered the memorial service for the 11 victims of Tree Of Life Synagogue shooting at Wayne State last Tuesday.

Memorial services like this one occurred on campuses all over the country in the wake of the attack. I knew that it was my job to try and capture the emotional elements of this story through pictures in a way that was unique to Wayne State.

Before I even began taking pictures, I made a list of photos I wanted to get in my head. The first I wanted was of the crowds gathering in front of the podium set up in Gullen Mall. The key to any good story is to introduce the setting. You need establishing shots in order to do this. They don't necessarily have to be wide or faraway shots which encapsulate the entire event, but rather they need to speak to the idea of the event itself. The second picture in my feature series depicts a list of the names of the victims surrounded by unlit memorial candles. Its an example of how you can establish the mood or feeling of an event.

Next, I wanted to move into the action. To capture small moments that occurred as the event unraveled. This included some of the speakers, the lighting of the candles, the emotional reactions of the crowd, etc. Shots like these are the heart of the story and serve to flesh out how the scene.

Its important for the photojournalist not to forget that their primary purpose is that of a storytellers. While it's true that even one skilled picture can tell a story, a series of pictures with proper curating can go even further, telling a story with much greater nuance and depth.