Launched in 2017 by the media and entertainment company First Look Media, Topic.com is an online storytelling platform that emphasizes photography and videos. Once a month, Topic releases an “issue” made up of about 15 articles, photo essays and videos, and each issue has a theme. Past themes have included “The State of the Union,” “Labor Days,” “Father Figures” and “Fear Itself.” While each issue is hosted on Topic.com, Topic content is also available on Instagram, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter and Topic’s newsletter. Visuals Editor Caroline Smith recently talked to PDN about the publication’s work with photographers and the kinds of stories she’s looking for. Before she joined Topic in November 2017, she had been the director of photography at Marie Claire. She has also worked as an editor at New York, Time, GQ and LIFE.

Caroline Smith

Visuals Editor

Topic

www.Topic.com

PDN: What’s Topic’s mission and who are its readers?

Caroline Smith: They are people who are interested in culture, social issues and the news as well. They are looking for stories that will have impact but feel outside the everyday news cycle. Our mission is to deliver premium storytelling that is creator driven, [and] stories that have relevance and entertainment [value]. We’re also new, so we’re growing our readership.

PDN: What makes Topic different from other publications, and what role does the photography play in distinguishing it?

CS: First, we’re visually led. The photographs we assign are not illustrating or punctuating text. We want the photography to tell its own story. Typically [online], we see a photo essay with a small amount of text or we see a long, written article with a few images that are meant to illustrate the text. [At Topic], we’re not asking photographers to read the writers’ text and follow it. What we are creating is space where both the image and the written word have a place to tell the narrative in each of their unique forms.

Second, our format sets us apart. It’s about our design and layouts and the way images work within them. We may run 20 to 25 images for a single story in order to fully form the visual narrative. Most publications think of online slide shows for long-form visual storytelling, though online offers so many more possibilities than just slide shows. I’m waiting for more publications to pop up like Topic, because online offers many great ways to showcase photography.

PDN: What is your role, and what’s the division of labor at Topic?

CS: I’m the visuals editor. My fellow editor David Barreda and I produce about 15 features [per issue]—or a little more. It’s all hands on deck. We ideate, we review and greenlight pitches with our editors. We assign stories, guide our photographs, edit their work and do the layouts.

PDN: How much of the photography you publish is assigned? How many stories are pitched by photographers?

CS: Anywhere from 60 to 80 percent of an issue is assigned, which means a writer pitched a story and we assigned a photographer, or we conceived a story in house and assigned a writer and a photographer. Maybe 20 percent of an issue comes from [photographers’] pitches. I wish it were different. I would like to see photographers bring us pitches as fully formed as something a writer would pitch, with characters, a point of view, and fully researched, so it shows the photographer knows [a similar] story hasn’t run in other publications. I think it is essential to photographers and their future in an ever-changing media industry to start pitching and to learn to do it well. In my experience, photographers are used to illustrating stories rather than driving them and that needs to change. When I do get pitches, a fair amount of them are not well thought through. The story has been covered elsewhere, or there is no clear point of view. All I can say is that I am over the moon when I get a clear, concise pitch that feels well researched.

PDN: What are some examples of good pitches that have turned into stories you’ve published?

CS: Jennifer Hueston did a story about the motion picture [retirement] home in LA. What was great is that she told me about this place where old people have found a home after they’ve retired from the movie business, yet they continue to make shows and movies for themselves. They have closed circuit TV in the home. That’s what made the story for me, that they continue to work long after retirement. You could recognize that’s a fantastic story, especially when you consider we’re also a film company.

Peter Funch and I were talking about what we could do together. I mentioned we were doing an issue on labor, and he suggested doing a typology on workers. He had great ideas of different workers he wanted to photograph.

We also license completed stories. We’re always happy to look at a completed project that hasn’t run all over the place. It’s great to be able to be an outlet for photographers’ stories.

PDN: A lot of Topic’s photo essays and videos can be found on several social media channels. I find most Topic stories through your newsletter. Does relying on those different platforms influence the photos you choose or how the images are edited?

CS: Both of these forms have severe limitations when it comes to visual storytelling, but that’s the challenge you have to embrace. With the newsletter, we’re beholden to Mail Chimp, which is great but not necessarily visually forward. We have found we have to limit the number of images we can use and how we use them in newsletters.

We promote everything we do on the site on Instagram, but not all the same way. Some things play better as a single image post while others benefit from a gallery. We definitely make our visual choices with Instagram in mind. What does well there is not necessarily what will lead a story on the site. Even though there are so many limitations, I still have a lot of interest in experimenting with storytelling on social media in general. I think there’s untapped potential there.

PDN: Where do you look for photographers?

CS: Like everyone else: Instagram, photo journals, Aperture, Foam, BJP, It’s Nice That, Victory Journal. I look at The New York Times, The California Sunday Magazine and other magazines.

I’m looking for something that stands out or sparks my interest. We don’t limit ourselves to any one genre. Photography drives our site, and we’re not interested in having just one photographic look or style. We’re open to everything from still life to photojournalism: You name it.

PDN: Is there anything besides great imagery that convinces you to trust a photographer with an assignment?

CS: I think personality definitely plays into who you send and where. If you know you have a difficult situation, maybe you’re not sending the newest candidate. When you need someone who can dive in, you send someone who likes to get into the fray. We did a story on bar mitzvah party starters, and we sent Daniel Arnold because he is happy to get in the middle of anything. He just did a story about BabyLand General Hospital [where Cabbage Patch Kid dolls are “born”], which is an odd place, and he was able to capture that oddity.

[Photo editors] send an email [when assigning photographers]. It’s [also] important to make a phone call so you get a feel for the personality of the person you’re assigning.

PDN: Is there anything you wish photographers understood better about your needs?

CS: We are not just interested in photojournalism or reportage. Photographers could bring us a food story or a story told through portraits. We can tell stories in multiple ways and I’d like to see pitches coming in from all different types of photographers.

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