
Is mobile photography really photojournalism? Yes. And here’s why.
Is mobile photography really photojournalism? Yes. And here’s why.
If you’ve been using Instagram for a while, you would be aware of a very successful (and often very beautiful) account called Humans of New York. The Insta account has now grown to include a web page, Facebook page, and a book. It’s also spawned possibly thousands of storytelling sites just like it.
Read: The photograph and Australia: timeline
Look: 25 of the most iconic photographs and 40 Must-See photos from the past
Today we’ll have a brief look at the history of news photography and the “news” in news photography; we’ll consider photographers as journalists and vice versa (the blurred lines of being multiskilled) – and the importance of knowing the story and recognising the most significant element(s).
A list of our weekly exercises, which you’ll need to post as a portfolio of work in a gallery on your WordPress sites for assessment. Feel free to interpret each in any way you want to, though the theme of each photograph should be clear to a viewer.
You can also do more than one photo for each theme. The more we shoot, the better we get 🙂
#silhouette
#emotion
#reflection
#portrait by a window
#heat
#lines
#high key (not the musical kind!)
#low key (^ Ditto)
#autumn
#love
#rule of thirds
Photojournalists are witnesses and documenters of history, and journalistic photography is an important agent of social change.
South African Kevin Carter photographed a public execution, known as “necklacing” in the mid-1980s. He later said of his photographs: “I was appalled at what they were doing. I was appalled at what I was doing. But then people started talking about those pictures … then I felt that maybe my actions hadn’t been at all bad. Being a witness to something this horrible wasn’t necessarily such a bad thing to do.”
Eddie Adams’ and Nick Ut’s images questioned growing public unease with the actions of American and South Vietnamese troops in the Vietnam war. But Adams insisted that photographs should not be judged by their shocking or gruesome nature. Viewers should ask themselves, “How do you know you wouldn’t have pulled the trigger yourself?”
Photographers are journalists – they know the facts of each story they’re covering and recognise and translate the most newsworthy elements into one, striking image.
Continue reading “PhoJo: An intro to ethical & legal considerations”