Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism (the collecting, editing, and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast) that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (e.g., documentary photography, social documentary photography, street photography or celebrity photography) by complying with a rigid ethical framework which demands that the work is both honest and impartial whilst telling the story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists create pictures that contribute to the news media. • Timeliness — the images have meaning in the context of a recently published record of events. • Objectivity — the situation implied by the images is a fair and accurate representation of the events they depict in both content and tone. • Narrative — the images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural level. _______________________________________ Qualities of a photo journalist Curiosity The photo journalists need to maintain an intense, child-like curiosity about the world, the people they meet, and the places they visit. Though they’ve been all over the globe, they’re anything but the kind of jaded, been-there, done-that, continually unimpressed traveler that we’ve all had the misfortune to run into. No matter how many times they’ve been to a city, they still appreciate the small moments: kids getting out of school, a cobbler at work, a woman buying eggs street-side, an old man’s quiet afternoon with a newspaper, lovers holding hands. Compassion If there’s one ingredient that really distinguishes a good image from a great image, a good photojournalist from a great one, it is compassion. Photojournalism is about capturing candid moments, but this does not mean that photojournalists are detached, stealthy observers hiding behind a lens. Great photojournalists have an innate ability to connect with people, reaching out across the borders and boundaries of race, age, ethnicity, and language. Confidence Photojournalism is not for the timid. It might not be a war you’re photographing, but even capturing street moments requires a lot of confidence. The best images usually aren’t taken from behind a pillar in the shadows. All of the photographers I worked with were confident as they walked down the street with their cameras. They didn’t call attention to themselves, but they didn’t shy away from putting themselves in the best position to get the best shots. Patience Photojournalists are patient and spend just as much time (if not more!) observing as taking pictures. After all, if you’re constantly behind a lens you might miss some of the magic happening right next to you! That said, they also have incredible reflexes and seem to know just when to click! Intuition Photo journalists all seem to know when the perfect moment is going to happen before it actually happens. They’re just really good observers, and part of being a photojournalist requires a deep understanding of human behavior and emotions. Strength and Stamina Photojournalists start their day when the sun rises and usually stop clicking well after the light fades. They’re on their feet all day and are often carrying multiple lenses or cameras in heavy packs. They photograph in some of the hottest and most humid weather, as well as the freezing cold, and I haven’t heard one of them ever complain. I have so much respect for their stamina and strength. Creativity Finally, creativity, that hard to define characteristic that in this case entails not only intuitively knowing when to click, but also how to frame the shot, where the light will hit, and which angle works best. It’s all these conscious and subconscious details and decisions that make it more than just a photograph and elevate it to art. Henri Cartier-Bresson said Washington Post: “There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative.” ____________________________________________ Digital photography uses an array of electronic photodetectors to capture the image focused by the lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The captured image is then digitized and stored as a computer file ready for digital processing, viewing, digital publishing or printing. Until the advent of such technology, photographs were made by exposing light sensitive photographic film, and used chemical photographic processing to develop and stabilize the image. By contrast, digital photographs can be displayed, printed, stored, manipulated, transmitted, and archived using digital and computer techniques, without chemical processing. _________________________________ Crop - Simply cut away some at the edges, to include less area in the final image. A little like zooming in a little tighter, but done afterwards. Same action as scissors on paper, so to speak. Cropping discards those trimmed pixels, making the image dimensions smaller, but primarily, it changes the scene included, and often the shape too. Different paper sizes (4x6, 5x7, 8x10 inches, are each a different shape - more below in Crop section - therefore we also often crop to make our image shape match the paper shape. Our camera always makes its images of the same one shape (aspect ratio, which is width:height), but our intended use often needs other shape(s), to fit it to the printed paper size or viewing screen size. And frankly, a little cropping often improves the composition of many images, removing uninteresting blank nothingness around the edges, concentrating the actual subject larger (zooming tighter, so to speak). Scale - Scaling is sometimes called Resize, and Resample is even sometimes called scaling, (not really unreasonable), so the terms can be questionable (what they actually mean in the given usage). My definition of Scaling is about changing the size the image will print on paper (inches), specifically WITHOUT any pixel resampling. It is about declaring the dpi number, in preparation for printing a certain size on paper. This is by far the simplest operation, but sometimes a bit harder to grasp it.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 07:31:02 +0000
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