As a teenager, before mobile phones, I carried an SLR camera everywhere. I’d take random shots of random things. Mostly, though, I was ready for something bigger - a car crash, a terrorist attack, a breaking story. A little morbid, I know, but I had decided I wanted to be a war photographer.
I was fascinated by the opportunity to witness and capture the human condition at its most extreme. Warzones see humans at their best and their worst, and that seemed like an exciting place for a teenager who was interested in the world to end up. I was captivated by the work of Don McCullin and Phillip Jones-Griffiths, Lee Miller, and Ernest Brooks.
One of my truest heroes, though, was Robert Capa, the Hungarian-American WWII photographer, who was as suave as he was brave. His life had all the adventure and intrigue a young Nick could hope to emulate.
He was as good as they have been, and his mantra was:
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”
That line has always fascinated me. It’s true from a photography standpoint. It’s also true for all of us looking to find and tell better stories.
Let me explain…
Get Closer
Yes, most photos do improve if you take a few steps forward (I always find family selfies are so much better than a shot taken by a kind passerby). But the real lesson is metaphysical: good stories come from proximity.
If your message feels thin, if it doesn’t spring to life onscreen, you’re probably still too far away from the subject. Corporate videos often fail because they miss the small, human touches - the eye contact, the hesitation, the laugh - that make something feel alive.
In a world where everything, every day, pushes us towards being faster and more efficient, sometimes it’s essential to build in that bit more time it takes to ‘be’ with the subject, in the location. That’s where we capture the tiny details that are so easy to miss.
Get closer to the people, the problem, the details. That’s where connection lives.
Be Believable
Every story operates on a contract with its audience. In fiction, that’s called the “willing suspension of disbelief.” In business storytelling, it’s simply credibility.
Who’s telling the story matters. Are they discovering alongside the audience, or speaking from authority? Both work - but only if the person has the gravitas or authenticity to carry it.
Without believability, your video might look polished, but it won’t land.
Keep It Clear
There’s a famous pitch story from the 1970s. British Rail, then seen as a national joke for their late and dirty trains, invited ad agencies to pitch for their account. They needed a relaunch to recapture the magic of rail. One agency invited the BR execs to their office. They then made them wait in a filthy, smoke-filled reception for 15 minutes, being ignored by the receptionists. The execs were just about to leave when the team from the agency burst into the room with the line:
“That’s how the public feels they’re treated by you. Now let’s fix it.”
They won the pitch.
They didn’t talk about rolling stock or tonnage, or all the places trains can take you. They stripped it back to one simple truth, made it visceral, and hammered it home. That’s clarity.
The biggest problem in corporate comms isn’t oversimplification - it’s the opposite. We drown people in detail because we know too much.
If your message isn’t simple, it won’t be heard. Simplicity isn’t dumbing down - it’s respect for the audience.
Make It Unexpected
The average consumer is bombarded with 4,000–10,000 commercial messages a day. Almost all of them vanish. To break through, you need surprise.
Take a look at this recent, amazing billboard from a colorectal and gut wellness clinic in Chennai, India. It's a cheeky pun, and a moment of marketing genius, which garnered over 1,000,000 shares on X/Twitter. It stays on the right side of the line of vulgarity and makes a traditional taboo accessible. Most of all, the juxtaposition of Elon Musk's space ambitions and the work of the clinic just pops off the board.
Your story doesn’t have to be surreal. But it does need a wrinkle, a twist, a different frame that makes people stop scrolling. Without it, you’re wallpaper.
Closing the Loop
I never became a war photographer. Life happened, I ended up at the BBC, and now I am sitting in San Francisco with Casual. But I’m still fascinated by what drew me towards it in the first place: the human stories, lived at the edge of our experience, documented from up close.
So next time your video feels flat, ask yourself three things:
- Am I close enough to the subject?
- Will the audience believe it?
- Is it simple and surprising enough to stick?
Get those right, and your message will be remembered.
Are you still standing too far away from the stories you want to tell?
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