1. HISTORICAL NOTE ON PHOTOJOURNALISM
The photograph has affected the way many cultures throughout the world understand and learn about their world. One of the main fields responsible for this paradigm is photojournalism. Photojournalism is the use of photographs in conjunction with the reporting of news in media such as print newspapers, magazines, television news and internet reporting. The incorporation of photographs into news reports is so ubiquitous that a story without photographs to a contemporary audience feels incomplete, as though they were only getting half the story. Consumers depend upon photojournalists to bring them the images that allow them to feel connected to far-away realities, and to be educated about those realities.
Photojournalism distinguishes itself from other forms of professional photography by its adherence to the principles of journalism: timeliness, accuracy, fair representation of the context of events and facts reported, and accountability to the public. While a wedding photographer may be documenting an actual event, his or her responsibility is to the client and the presentation that client would like to see. A journalist, on the other hand, cannot be held to the demands of the photographic subject, but rather he or she must be concerned with producing accurate news for the public.
In addition to accuracy, the photojournalist must be careful not to exclude important parts of the context of the event being photographed. A shot of an individual rioter breaking a store window can look like an isolated act of criminality if the photojournalist does not show it in the context of a larger social event whose significance goes beyond the individual act.
The emergence of photojournalism, along with its current trajectory, depends a great deal upon technological developments in the camera. As early as the Crimean War in the mid-19 th century, photographers were using the novel technology of the box camera to record images of British soldiers in the field. However, the widespread use of cameras as a way of reporting news didn’t come until the advent of smaller, more portable cameras which used the enlargeable film negative to record images. The introduction of the 35 mm Leica camera in the 1930’s made it possible for photographers to move with the action, taking shots of events as they are unfolding.
Newspapers quickly took advantage of this portability, and publications like Life, Sports Illustrated, and The Daily Mirror staked their reputation on fresh, timely images of matters of interest to their readers. In the first golden age of photojournalism, which lasted from the 1930’s to the 50’s, photographers such as Robert Capa and Alfred Eistenstaedt became household names for the news-consuming public. Capa would later go on to found, along with three other photojournalists, the Magnum agency, which supported photojournalists and negotiated to get them copyright of their images, as opposed to letting copyright revert to the publication.
In the late 1970’s, the cultural importance of photojournalism began to be recognized by the art world, and photojournalists were given exhibitions and retrospectives at museums and galleries. Photojournalists like Don McCullin received wide attention in retrospectives across the country. Today, most major museums will devote a showing or more a year to photojournalists and documentary photographers.
With the introduction of digital cameras, photojournalism has greatly augmented its capacity for reporting up-to-the-minute news from around the world. Not limited by exposures on a roll of film, digital chips can store up to a thousand images, and are less sensitive to airport x-rays and exposure to light. With a wireless internet connection, a photojournalist can send images from the field to his or her editor within seconds of their initial capture. As a medium, the digital photograph has opened up new venues for gathering news, from small, self-published newsletters, to the online blog. These new venues mean an increased market and an accelerated pace for the transmission of news through photographic images. (Excerpt by Dillon Westbrook)
For a comprehensive note you may click on this link http://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~rcollins/242photojournalism/historyofphotography.html
2. WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE A GREAT JOURNALIST?
A great journalist cares about people and an ideal world. A great journalist can approach a topic as vast as the universe and make it simple and interesting to the public including those who are trying to learn the language. The written word has power. With skill, reporters can expose the dark deeds of the world and bring them into the light. However, journalism is limited to the elite and the literate; the non-apathetic, monolinguistic people with some time to kill and a few neurons still firing.
Enter photojournalism. It destroys almost all barriers. Justice can draw its sword in the time it takes an eye to scan an image. An image has no age, language or intelligence limits.
A journalist tells stories. A photographer takes pictures of nouns (people, places and things). A photojournalist takes the best of both and locks it into the most powerful medium available - frozen images. Photojournalists capture "verbs." This sounds simple, but a room of professional photographers was dumbfounded by this realization. Even after a full-length lecture with documentation and visual evidence, half of the photographers still had no clue what the difference was.
At the end of the presentation. One man said (he really did), "So, what's the difference between photography and photojournalism?" Luckily, two people (only two) turned to him and yelled, "Verbs!"
Although photojournalists can take properly exposed and well composed photographs all day long, they hunt verbs. They hunt them, shoot them and show them to their readers. Then, they hunt more. A photojournalist has thousands of pairs of eyes looking over his shoulder constantly. The readers are insistent: "What are they doing?" "What did you see?" and "What happened?".
The readers wake PJs up at night. They keep PJs awake. The eyes always want to know what they missed. Readers can't see what they missed with a noun. It works if the question is specific enough (what did the condemned building look like?), but most answers require verbs.
To tell a story, a sentence needs a subject, a verb and a direct object. News photos need the same construction. Photojournalists tell stories with their images. Also, words are always used in conjunction with photojournalist's images.
The words below a photo are called a cutline (please click link to know how to write cutlines). It is also refered to as caption or the anchorage. At many newspapers, photographers provide names and nothing else. They don't write cutlines because they sometimes can't write a lead (lede) graph for a story. They also may not be able to photograph a sentence (sports being the exclusion, and there are plenty of supporting images to prove my point in this genre as well).
To be a photojournalist, we must understand the relationship between the image and these basic elements of language (all languages - worldwide).
The girl hits (or misses) the ball. There are no other options.
The girl is easy to photograph. The ball is easy to photograph. The verb is the hard part.
As a servant of the citizens, it's the photojournalist's OBLIGATION to capture the entire sentence involved in EVERY event. There are no excuses. It's hit or missed. Some photographers don't care. They have a picture of the bat. "Hey, that's what tried to hit the ball." They just don't get it.
A photojournalist is a visual reporter of facts. The public places trust in its reporters to tell the truth. The same trust is extended to photojournalists as visual reporters. This responsibility is paramount to a photojournalist. At all times, we have many thousands of people seeing through our eyes and expecting to see the truth. Most people immediately understand an image.
In today's world of grocery store tabloids and digital manipulation of images, the photojournalist must still tell the truth. The photojournalist constantly hunts for the images (or verbs), which tell of the day-to-day struggles and accomplishments of his community. These occurrences happen naturally. There is no need to "set up" reality. There is no need to lie to a community that bestows its trust. In a nutshell: If a photojournalist isn't going to fake a fire or a street stabbing scene, why would he set up "person A" giving "person B" an object (award, check, trophy etc.)? The photojournalist simply wants to hang around, be forgotten and wait for the right moment. Then, the hunt begins anew.
Like the police officer or firefighter, the photojournalist's concern is his community even if that means sacrificing comfort or life. Many photojournalists die every year in the process of collecting visual information, which lets the public know of atrocities, dangers and the mundane.
Photographers take pictures of nouns (people, places and things). Photojournalists shoot action verbs ("kicks," "explodes," "cries," etc.). Photojournalists do shoot some nouns. These nouns can be standard photos of people (portraits), places (proposed zoning areas or construction sites) and things (name it). However, the nouns we seek still must tell a story.
Reporters and editors should know how I work (ie: no set-ups, no nouns, no male bovine excrement). I have "holes" to fill each day. I track events in our community and anticipate what our readers expect to see. As a general rule, many daily newspapers expect three Page 1 news images, and one to four inside B&W news/business images, as well as two to nine Lifestyles images, and two to five Sports images. Metro papers expect more and have additional sections.
Assignments are honored on a first-come basis with exceptions. Once a section has its initial image quota, priority shifts to another section until each section is "safe." Then additional images are collected for future issues.
Primarily, editorial news judgment is applied to image priority (murder is more important than other planned occurrences). However, unlike text-based reporters, visual reporters must be on location when events occur. Therefore, events with flexible times fall lower on a fixed priority scale, but have a greater overall editorial priority (and may bump other items under time restrictions).
Additionally, anything with front page potential usually has priority over section front and inside images.
Since this is a newspaper, here is the loose shooting priority:
Breaking news (murders, hostages, natural disasters, major wrecks, etc.)
General news (funerals, courts, perp walks, dignitary visits, etc.)
Photo essays
Major feature events
Sporting events
Festivals
Educational events
Feature photos
Advertising (non-spec.)
Illustrations
Mug shots
Mug shots
Spec. items
"Photo oops" and other garbage to make a singular reader happy
A note on competition
Most photojournalists succumb to the vanity and competitive nature of contests. Unlike other journalism competitions, which separate stories by circulation, most photojournalists and photographers compete head-to-head with their best images. The winner takes all.
Consequently, additional enthusiasm and effort goes toward potentially competitive images more than non-competitive images.
The following items are generally non-competitive: set ups ("grip & grins"), mug shots, lecturers ("talking heads"), building exteriors, theater performers/performances, advertising and product shots.
Graft and gifts: The "Brown Envelope" Issue
All a photojournalist should require is unlimited access and documents. As the citizen's servant, a photojournalist can't accept anything other than water and an occasional cup of coffee during halftime of the sub-zero championship football game in the rain ("Why isn't this snow?"). If the photojournalist accepts gifts - any gifts - the photojournalist is perceived as corrupt and perpetuates the myth about the "evil media."
Consequently, everyone immediately offers them gifts and favors. Which PJs kindly turn down, and which, upon arrival at the newsroom, get chewed out for "not eating the old lady's darn cookie."
Personally, I'll use event passes on days off since my presence costs nothing additional to the host. The organizer often makes money from my purchases and still may get into the newspaper because I bring my camera.
In newspapers, there are coverage zones. Larger papers have larger pieces of turf. This zone is created by physical circulation geography, area of influence upon the circulation area and predominant interests of the area.
Outside of this area, the story must warrant leaving the community unattended by the photojournalist should breaking news occur. Traditionally, assigned events outside the circulation zone have included: spot news, general news (funerals, court cases, etc...), portions of photo essays, championship-level sporting events, and large events (fairs, festivals, and exhibitions) with an expected participation or spectator draw from the circulation area.
This is not a "glam" job. A photojournalist is a servant (like a waitress or a sanitation worker). They're expected to be on the job around the clock to serve the public.
News never stops. Again, NEWS NEVER STOPS. You sleep when you can. You eat when you're done. You're never really off the clock.
Photojournalists are role models. They don't want to be, but they are.
At a mid-sized or small newspaper, a photojournalist can't have a night on the town and neglect his or her city. Everyone from the little tykes to the senior citizens, from the street people to the debutantes, knows the photojournalist. The photojournalist is the visible portion of the newspaper.
Reporters can handle everything by phone. Editors can stay in their office and never talk to a soul. Press operators and graphic artists can go straight to the bar after work if they choose. However, the photojournalist must crawl the town digging for one important shoot.
STARTING THE CLASS: THE PRACTICAL ASPECT
There is a progression to PHOTOJOURNALIS. It involves a mastery of photography (evidentiary), documentary and finally photojournalism. Most beginning assignments tend to result in evidentiary images. It's a good place to start, but it's only the first step if PJ is the desired goal.
A logical class design would teach students about theequipment, working with people, writing cutlines, basic event coverage and finally story telling.
I always suggest it's wise to include "basic photography" in introductory photojournalism classes. It teaches the students to use the camera as a tool for their vision. It also teaches the abilities and limitations of the camera so they can refine their vision.
Photojournalism - like journalism - looks easy, but it takes a lot of training and mistakes to get it right. PJs must understand how to be a journalist and a photographer as well as post-production (publication applications) and media law.
Setting ground rules
First and foremost, teachers need to protect themselves legally. With the world being as crazy as it's become, teachers need to be absolutely certain students understand what are "inappropriate" photo subjects.
A common beginning assignment could be for students to document their day. Part of most 3rd-graders' days is bath time. It could be their most or least favorite part of the day. They may wish to document it. However, when they turn in a photo of their bath time, it's placed onto a school computer and has an entirely different meaning.
Consequently, bath time should be strictly off limits. If they want to show their little brother brushing his teeth while fully clothed, it's OK. But, draw this line early and don't allow anyone to cross it.
LEGAL ISSUES
As soon as a student has a camera in hand, legal issues arise. The camera is an instrument of freedom of speech and legal limitations. By including photography in a class setting, teachers must determine how much responsibility they're willing to accept.
Since this post is designed for primary and secondary teachers, it's probably best to tell the students and their parents that they're responsible for all their own actions. It's also best to inform them that the school is NOT willing to defend their freedom of speech or press rights. This keeps the teacher from having an unnecessary confrontation with parents, fellow teachers, a principal, school board members, a district attorney, etc. (and losing the battle as well as possibly a job).
Since this post is designed for primary and secondary teachers, it's probably best to tell the students and their parents that they're responsible for all their own actions. It's also best to inform them that the school is NOT willing to defend their freedom of speech or press rights. This keeps the teacher from having an unnecessary confrontation with parents, fellow teachers, a principal, school board members, a district attorney, etc. (and losing the battle as well as possibly a job).
Without delving too deep, the newbie students need to understand that if they do happen upon something scandalous, they won't get to publish it. Yes, it's newsworthy. Yes, it's a matter of freedom of speech and press, but they're in a controlled environment.
Juveniles have varying human rights. It's not fair, but it's a fact.Depending on the circumstances, law centers and other defenders will step up to protect children's rights (speech and press). But, don't count on it.
Prior restraint is alive and well for students (of all ages) in educational institutions.
These are some safe, broad boundaries to keep the students out of trouble.
1) Establish who can and can't be photographed.
1) Establish who can and can't be photographed.
2) Establish what is "public" for the students. This is different than the professional level because the students are actually in the facility more time.
3) Set off-campus shooting area limits. It's safe to limit photography to places the student lives, is invited to attend (friends' homes) and public facilities (parks, recreation centers and private vehicle commutes).
Equipment
Whenever possible, it's best to have all the students use the same style of camera. This makes critiques uniform and keeps the students from facing awkward/hateful conflicts.
For introductory classes, point-and-shoot digital or SMARTPHONES are probably best. Single lens reflex cameras are the best.
The next few sections of this series are about making assignments and letting the students find their vision.
Credit (M. Hancock, 2006)
