What is photojournalism?

According to Greg Lewis photojournalism is the combination of two mediums, words and pictures and these two elements communicate facts and information to all of our perceptive faculties (pg 6). In its simplest form Lewis states that photojournalism is journalism in which a high proportion of pictorial presentation is used.

 

Photojournalism is not just pictures....

 He went further to state that we are visual communicators and this goes all the way back to the prehistoric cave paintings which documented ‘the hunt’ and told the stories of what happened at each hunt for food. Photojournalism is not just pictures; it is pictures and words working together....to produce a honest visual report of what happened. According to Hicks as cited in Lewis 1995, pictures can only capture the moment while words can describe attitudes and put things into context.

He further mentions that when one defines the word photojournalism, we must be sure that we don’t use “news photography,” “publication photography,” or a hyphenated “photo-journalism.”  “News photography is a part of photojournalism and publications photography includes all sorts of photos that don’t include the second half of the word: journalism.” He also mentions that Frank Luther a journalism educator made up the term ‘photojournalism’ in 1942.

On the other hand, the director of photography at the national geographic magazine Tom Kennedy defines photojournalism as “visual information that makes a difference in the lives of readers who see it. Implicit (implied) is an assumption that such information has value and serves a social good. If done in the right spirit, photojournalism can be a powerful tool for explaining the larger world by conveying essential truths about the human condition. (pg 9)

 

 

 

Characteristics of news worthy Events

• Consequence- an event that affects many people.

• Conflict- a clash between people or institutions

• Prominence- an event involving well-known personalities

• Proximity- nearby events

• Timeliness- a current situation

• Bizarre- the unusual, the curious or amusing (funny or interesting)

 

 

 

Points to note:

Photography is not a perfect language because each person who looks at it, they bring their own notions, ideas to the image when interpreting it. The image only shows what is happening at the moment of the exposure; it only allude to what happened before and after that instant (Lewis 1996, pg 7)

 

 

 

Lewis, G. (1995). Photojournalism: content and technique (2nd ed.). United States of     America: McGraw Hill Publishing.