My Reflection on Photojournalism:
By: Michaelah Reynolds
The job of a Photojournalist is to capture moments with the camera’s eye and tell a story through the pictures that have been taken. Those stories which are newsworthy are most important to be captured this way as they visually tell a story that might not be described in words only. An example of this type, news event that really stood out to me in this course was the movie, “Hodoros” . Chris Hondros was a war time photographer. His fame was that he was known for capturing moments in war which really brought a person into this awful moment, his best work was made during the time when his life was most at risk. He was able to capture the horror of war, in moments, to allow people to really understand what was going on in the war and the impact that it had on other humans. This is where the true importance of photojournalism comes in and is so important; word would never have the visual impact that his pictures had. The pictures really drove the point of how horrible war is home.Chris Hondros
Because our world is continuing to grow and change, photojournalism has changed in many ways to grow with the world’s evolution. Now, it is easier to see pictures as the camera’s can instantly produce a picture with their chip, these pictures can then get out quickly all over the web. There are so many outlets for this that it makes the ‘news’ get out almost immediately. One problem with the new fastness and ability to get out into the world quickly is that there are some subjects that may not wish their actions or “what they are up to recorded
The rights of a photojournalist are not clearly defined as far as taking the image of a random person that they do not know or an event that they come across, and what they choose to do with those pictures. I have personally experienced that not everyone has a desire to be randomly photographed and not have a choice what is done with their personal images. I was doing a shoot one day in public, and there was a lady in my shot. She saw me taking the picture and came over to me and asked me to delete the photo of her, she spoke to me as if I had done something wrong and was a bit nasty. At first I was confused with this request, as she made it sound like I was doing something horrible and invading her home, but then I realized that I was in a public place and had done nothing wrong. Of course, in this instance I was nice and deleted the picture, however, had there been something truly newsworthy about it; she was robbing a store for example, well I just might have kept that picture. This problem, I think, may have always been an issue when photography was just starting, but I think not as much as it is today. Today, it is the job of the photojournalist to capture the moments in news events and the added problem of questioning themselves what is right and wrong to shoot is going to continue to be an issue; I don’t feel as if photojournalists need to have the hesitancy of having to think extra to do their job.
I also learned that you can not be shy; you can not be scared to go up to a complete stranger and ask to take their picture. The closer you are to the person that you want to shoot, or the event that you are there to shoot are better the closer or more in the middle of it that you can be. Most importantly, I learned that more is better; in order to get a great picture of a person or event you need to take many more pictures than you think. This is so that you can have a large selection to pick from, not just a few which could wind you up with none of good quality. Also, if you want to capture and bring an emotional response from others. A story has a lot more impact if it has a person’s face in it; the face shows emotions and tells a little bit more about the story. Personally, I think having a person’s face in the picture really is important to completely tell the story
At the start of this course, I did not know much about photography. I learned how to caption photos, and the importance of making it short and simple. What I did not really like much was how you have to get out of your comfort zone, and do things like speak to random people as a photojournalist/photographer.Some of the things I didn’t really like that much were that you have to out of your comfort zone when your a photographer, i I am just starting to like this part of it. I think that it also comes with personal growth being comfortable to do this. At the beginning of the semester, I felt so nervous to go up to people and ask to take their picture, but now I feel pretty comfortable doing this. I feel like I have really grown in that way. The other, and most important way that I have grown is I feel comfortable behind my camera. I feel like I actually know a thing or two about how my camera works and what I can do with it. I know that I still have a way to go, but have a good start. I suppose, overall, I am really happy to learn that I can tell stories the way that I would like without having to worry about the writing part. I am truly not the best writer, but that is getting better, slowly, the thought of keeping it short makes me very happy. I am hoping to continue with my photography storytelling so that I can have a part of it in my career in the future. I know I still have a long way to go with my writing as well as my photography, but I can truly say that I love telling a story through many pictures and little words. Photography, and this course, has impacted me in a positive way,
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