Journalism in Photos

There is an impressive image alongside the news story. So what? The photo is there to supplement the story, right? Right. But, how many people understand the field of photojournalism? Check out American award-winning photojournalist, Ed Kashi, sharing his professional skills.

Decades before photography was invented newspapers used hand drawn images to illustrate news tories.

Along with the first pictures of the American Civil War, photojournalism was born. Photo-historian Mathew Brady is considered the father of photojournalism.

For more than 150 years photojournalists have been capturing images of the world’s most memorable events and personalities.

It is not just news photography anymore. A whole story can be told in one picture. There are images that become icons. Remember Alfred Eisenstaedt “VJ Day” photo?And there are images that touch us emotionally. Remember the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti or the 2004 Tsunami in Indonesia? Those are images that make us feel sorrow and compassion.

Now, if you want to see what is happening in Egypt during the government protests, just write the right world in a search engine and there you go. You will find hundreds of photos generated from media all over the world.

How do you know you are looking at photojournalism ?

·   It is timely; it represents something that has just happened.

·      It is relevant with the story.

·      It creates an emotional attachment.

Photojournalism has become almost an art. Photojournalists have to be at the center of an event, prepared and ready to catch the decisive moment.

The power of visual material is huge. People want to see visual illustrations of what is happening around the world. Today technology allows doing it fast, cheap and easy. Photos located near the news story should encourage the reader to read the text. But in many situations the image tells the story before the person even starts to scan through the text.

Photojournalism is powerful and should never go unappreciated.

Kristine Miluna

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