In the late-2000s and early 2010s, newspapers were scrambling to find a way to gracefully transition from relying exclusively on the print product to bringing a premium and immersive storytelling experience to the internet. One of the biggest trends among photojournalists looking for a multimedia experience emerged called the Audio Slideshow, a powerful combination of ambient sounds, interviews, and/or voiceovers paired with images from their assignments. Some of the greatest photojournalists in the world were creating compelling and emotional audio slideshows for outlets like the New York Times, Boston Globe, LA Times, and more. There was a building excitement around the format, and its power to tell a great story was obvious.
The Problem
However, this was a time when YouTube was limited to 480p streaming, whose low-resolution robbed the still images of their greatest advantage when converted into a video format. The best alternatives for higher-resolution Audio Slideshows were built using Flash Player and embedded onto newspaper pages. While this solution granted greater control over the output of the slideshows along with its higher resolution, it was a short-lived one: Apple announced they were ceasing Flash Player support in 2011, in the infancy of the Audio Slideshow, and photojournalists were left without a truly viable option to share new slideshows even as their existing slideshows began vanishing from the internet as Flash support came to an end. And so, as quickly as the trend caught on, the Audio Slideshow faded away into obscurity by the mid-2010s.
Why Now?
Despite the early limitations, it was clear that the audio slideshow could be a viable way to add greater dimension to a photographic story, especially now that high resolution videos, speedy internet, and smartphones have become ubiquitous. So now, in the age of Tik Tok, Instagram, and 4k streaming video, the technology has finally caught up to the audio slideshow and the appetite for short-form video storytelling is stronger than it has ever been.
While the Audio Slideshow never caught back on with photojournalists, I believe strongly in the potential of the format, and want to make it available to more people for more reasons than newspapers could ever justify. I rebranded the old Audio Slideshow into the Photo Documentary in part because I believe the name is more representative of the format’s potential, and to bring a previously exclusive idea to a wider audience. While a family’s oral history or an “ordinary” person’s life story might not be “newsworthy” enough for a newspaper, there’s no question that it has an importance all its own, and it’s my mission to immortalize and preserve those stories for many years to come.