“When I’m reporting, I write everything down,” says Neil Shea. “I fill at least three or four notebooks during every story.” He also takes pictures of everyone he interviews. These chronicles become a way for him to better understand the situations he’s encountering.

An assignment with photographer Randy Olson in northern Kenya for a story on Lake Turkana took these field notes to a whole new level when Shea and Olson decided to join forces, pairing Olson’s photographs with Shea’s words and posting the resulting “word-picture” stories on Instagram. Here, “we could share a range of other of observations, voices, and moments that would never make it into the magazine.” (You can see their series on