Photo by: Lee Teter 1988
Image source: http://leeteter.com/reflections/
So what is it? Photojournalism is the capturing of a moment in time using visual mediums to tell a story. Anyone can write a story but not everyone can capture a photo so perfectly that it can tell the whole story. Time is of the essence. Photojournalists need to possess an important skill of having the capacity to capture an image in the blink of an eye. As said by Antonin Kratochvil and Michael Persson in the Nieman Report “Time in photography isn’t only about its passage, whether measured in hours, days or months. It’s about its captured moments, be it in a second, or five hundredths of a second”. We can all capture a photo but what the untrained capture are merely just objects. As John Nordell states in his video “Photojournalists photograph verbs, people doing things”. I never thought of it in that aspect and after pondering that statement it gave me a new aspect of photojournalism and photojournalists. We can take a picture of our dog or ourselves and if we don’t like it we can simply take it again, but a photojournalist does not have the opportunity to redo an event or action that has already happened, they need to be ready and capture it right the first time.
In order to capture an understanding of a current event in the world you need to know the history. You can’t identify progress if you don’t know the previous state. Every one of us is part of history and everything we do and use in our daily lives is part of history. As I type this paper with ease, it makes me appreciate how back in time there were no computers everything was hand written. Someone invented such a complex device at that time to enhance our ability to communicate. It could not have been done without some previous knowledge (history) that gave them the progressing steps to create it successfully. That right there is history! As stated in the you tube video Why Study History? “It helps us to appreciate multiple perspectives and interpretations”.
In order for you to see the importance of an image captured by a photojournalist of a major event, they need to know the importance of history. For example, when a photojournalist captured the image of President Barack Obama being sworn into office, they were not only capturing a photo of just another new president, they were capturing a huge milestone in history. Many years ago blacks were fighting to be equal in society, and when President Obama was sworn in, any photo captured of that moment was providing you with the major progress for equality of blacks, as he was to become our first black president. That moment will forever be a huge part of history. That is why photojournalism is so important in documenting progress. As mentioned in the you tube video History is, “History is righting wrongs”. For example, knowing the history of racism is what would allow a photojournalist to want to capture any current event of what would seem to be any form of racism, whether it be the events that happened recently in Ferguson, or a story on a cop shooting an unarmed black kid. As stated by George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. And how would we know the past and if were repeating it without the documenting images published in journals from beautiful photojournalism.
So what is it? Photojournalism is the capturing of a moment in time using visual mediums to tell a story. Anyone can write a story but not everyone can capture a photo so perfectly that it can tell the whole story. Time is of the essence. Photojournalists need to possess an important skill of having the capacity to capture an image in the blink of an eye. As said by Antonin Kratochvil and Michael Persson in the Nieman Report “Time in photography isn’t only about its passage, whether measured in hours, days or months. It’s about its captured moments, be it in a second, or five hundredths of a second”. We can all capture a photo but what the untrained capture are merely just objects. As John Nordell states in his video “Photojournalists photograph verbs, people doing things”. I never thought of it in that aspect and after pondering that statement it gave me a new aspect of photojournalism and photojournalists. We can take a picture of our dog or ourselves and if we don’t like it we can simply take it again, but a photojournalist does not have the opportunity to redo an event or action that has already happened, they need to be ready and capture it right the first time.
In order to capture an understanding of a current event in the world you need to know the history. You can’t identify progress if you don’t know the previous state. Every one of us is part of history and everything we do and use in our daily lives is part of history. As I type this paper with ease, it makes me appreciate how back in time there were no computers everything was hand written. Someone invented such a complex device at that time to enhance our ability to communicate. It could not have been done without some previous knowledge (history) that gave them the progressing steps to create it successfully. That right there is history! As stated in the you tube video Why Study History? “It helps us to appreciate multiple perspectives and interpretations”.
In order for you to see the importance of an image captured by a photojournalist of a major event, they need to know the importance of history. For example, when a photojournalist captured the image of President Barack Obama being sworn into office, they were not only capturing a photo of just another new president, they were capturing a huge milestone in history. Many years ago blacks were fighting to be equal in society, and when President Obama was sworn in, any photo captured of that moment was providing you with the major progress for equality of blacks, as he was to become our first black president. That moment will forever be a huge part of history. That is why photojournalism is so important in documenting progress. As mentioned in the you tube video History is, “History is righting wrongs”. For example, knowing the history of racism is what would allow a photojournalist to want to capture any current event of what would seem to be any form of racism, whether it be the events that happened recently in Ferguson, or a story on a cop shooting an unarmed black kid. As stated by George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. And how would we know the past and if were repeating it without the documenting images published in journals from beautiful photojournalism.
Photo by: Doug Mills 2009
Photo by: Doug Mills 2009
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