Research
For this Project we were ask to provide images both for journalism as well as for exhibition. Respectively, the work had to be demonstrating an aspect of the Salford considered as 'hidden'.
As a starting point, i have to become familiar with photojournalism in order to understand the needs of a photograph, in order of satisfying and supporting an article.
Photojournalism:
According the definition provided by Google, photojournalism
is the practice of communicating news by photographs, especially in magazines[1].
Hence my understanding is that the aim of the images that I have to capture is
to support the subject of the article. At the same time, the pictures should be
cable of forming an article.
Many photographers have been practicing this kind of
photography and throughout the years the responses to this area of photographic
practice have been rapidly developed, since the needs of the media are having
the same rhythms of growth.
·
Eddie
Adams
Eddie Adams was one of the greatest photojournalists. His photographs
had a great impact to society, as he captured the reality of the events at the
time he was practicing. Though his numerous photographs, it is shown that he
was interested in wars as well as portraits of politicians and celebrities.
One of his greatest photographs that offered him the Pulitzer
Prize was the 'General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in
Saigon'[2].
In relation to the photograph, many arguments and comments
were raised as it had a great impact to society. For instance, critic David D.
Perlmutter illustrated that 'no film footage did as much damage as AP
photographer Eddie Adams's 35mm shot taken on a Saigon street ... When people
talk or write about [the Tet Offensive] at least a sentence is devoted (often
with an illustration) to the Eddie Adams picture[3]
According to his Adams wording, “The general killed the Viet
Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most
powerful weapon in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even
without manipulation. They are only half-truths. … What the photograph didn’t
say was, ‘What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on
that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two
or three American people?”[4]
·
Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White is considered had a great impact to
the history of photojournalism, since she gained great titles of being the
first female war correspondent, the first female to work in a combat zone, the
first foreign photographer to be granted the right to photograph the Soviet
Industry, and the first female to have her photograph grace the cover of Life
magazine. During her career, she had worked for several world known magazines
such as Time Magazine and Life Magazine.
Respectively, she offered great pictures that had a great impact to the
magazine and most importantly to the society[5].
Her photograph that was used as a cover to the Life Magazine
was a portrait of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin[6].
For Life Magazine,
Margaret also offered the great photograph of Gandhi[7].
In response nowadays the magazine is
showing their appreciation to her by dedicating articles embracing the
importance of her work. Hence it was stated that “Bourke-White was, of course,
one of the century’s most intrepid chroniclers of conflict and strife: her
pictures from Buchenwald in 1945, for instance, and from the horrific violence
that attended the 1947 partition of India and the creation of Pakistan are
among the most powerful of her extraordinary career. But she was also capable
of sensitively documenting the quieter — and, in many cases, the more
representative — moments from the lives of the great and the powerless, alike.
Incredibly, though, her now-famous picture of Gandhi did not appear in the LIFE
magazine article for which it was originally shot”[8].
My Understanding
Generally, i have now developed the basis of my understating related to the elements of a photograph that would play role in being selected for an article. Hence, i believe that a succeed image would be the one that would reflect upon an issue or a subject that would concern society or a group of people, that would be able to support a written description, and that would be beneficial for the magazine reputation or for the subject matter. The understanding of the readers, should be supported by the images and the images themselves should reflect to the sub-aspects drawn withing the story of an article.
In relation it was provided that:
I believe that the chief
value of photography as a means of communication depends entirely on the
ability of the camera to arrest life instantly. It thrills me to speculate how
the invention of photography has contributed to the speeding up of human
reflexes. The rapidly working camera has sharpened man’s capacity to observe
and observe rapidly; it has taught many of us to use our minds to classify
visual phenomena in an instant of time; to relate our own attitude to that of
the person in front of the camera in a split second. This to my mind is the
essence of photojournalism[9].
[1] https://www.google.com.uk/?gws_rd=cr&ei=8tXNUv3pCImItQbdu4G4Bg#q=photojournalism+definition
[2] ©
1968 Wide World Photos. Copy found at BBC News
[4] Adams, Eddie (27 July 1998). "Eulogy". Time Magazine.
[5] Gandhi
and his Spinning Wheel, 1946: The Story of a Famous Photograph | LIFE.com
[6] ©Margaret
Bourke-White/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, 1943
[7]©Margaret
Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images, 1946
[8] Gandhi and his Spinning Wheel, 1946: The
Story of a Famous Photograph | LIFE.com
[9] Jozef
Gross - “A point of view: fact of feeling?” [cited in: Creative Camera March
1968, p. 99]
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