Final project 2

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Image by: Halima Johnson
Image by: Halima Johnson
Image by: Halima Johnson
Image by: Halima Johnson
Image by: Halima Johnson

For my creative experiential exercise, my friends and I went to a friend’s grandfather's cabin for the weekend and we had woken up in the morning talking outside when I decided to channel my inner photojournalist while attempting to take pictures of the sunrise. While taking these pictures, it was pretty difficult to take the exact moment that the sunrises. I then thought about how it must have been for real photojournalists who have to take pictures during war or those who travel to other states and have to take gruesome pictures to share with the world. The timing and stress the photojournalists had to endure are truly unimaginable especially during the pre-digital era where the photojournalists could only hope that they had taken good pictures when they go over the images.

A few months ago, when I began this course, I came in with the mindset that the course will be boring because it will be predominantly about history, however, four months later I could not be more delighted to have taken this course. This course enlightened me about how unappreciated photography is and how it has an important history that accompanies it. The history of photojournalism is important because to an average individual, it differentiates photojournalism and photography. Coming into this course, I believed a photojournalist and a photographer are basically the same people however there are some respectable differences. Another reason as to why it is important is it enables us to cherish and appreciate what we have. Compared to the earlier generation, photojournalism is now easier and can reach many people all over the world. The last reason as to why the history of photojournalism is important is because of a young photojournalist who choose to pursue that path. Without learning the history of photojournalism, it is impossible for them to truly understand what it means.

My definition of photojournalism from the beginning of the semester and now is pretty similar. Earlier, photojournalism was the art of communicating a story or information through photography. Now, photojournalism to me is the use of photography to convey information to people as well as to relate to them emotionally. The reason as to why my definition changed was because while conveying a message to the audience is important to a photojournalist, it is also equally important for the image to communicate with them emotionally. In a situation in which the image requires actions, if the audience can not relate to an image or are not emotionally driven, the image loses its function. An example of this was a blog post titled Photojournalist profile by Ariyon Mickle in which she talked about photojournalist Carol Guzy. In her article, she wrote “Carol has covered many terrible events in history, such as floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. She made sure her images caught the truth, no matter how graphic they might have been. Her goal was for her images to send a message and show the people what was really going on.” Carol’s images impacted her audience which leads to people assisting Haiti as well as the other countries she visited.

During this course, I had different “ah-ha” moments however the first one that stood out to me was an image titled “I can’t breath” posted by Jannah Esa on her Blogspot. This image was the first image to change my definition of photojournalism as well as to enlighten me about the hidden messages that can be conveyed in a photo. On seeing the image it is very clear that the woman is protesting about something important to her. Without the photojournalist saying anything, I can tell that this woman of color clearly feels injustice is being directed towards her and as a woman of color it hurts to know that there are women of my race being faced with such scenarios.
Image by Patrick T. Fallon
Another “ah-ha” moment that I had during this course was an image posted by Shanon Hasting on her blog post titled “My take on photojournalism” Her post talks about the code of ethics in photojournalism and this post is a very controversial post for that topic. His image is controversial because it is clear that the child in the image is suffering as he is looked down upon by the vulture. As stated earlier in this post, there is also a hidden message that vulture represents hunger and famine. Regardless, some people argue that rather than assisting the boy first, the photojournalist decided what a picture was more important. This was the moment that I realized that some photojournalists who mean well face backlash for being brutally honest with their audience.
As mentioned earlier, I believe an image conveying information as well as emotions very powerful. When asked can photography change the world? My answer is the photography itself cannot necessarily change the world however the impact and actions of its audience would. An example would be if an image was shared by a photojournalist about a deadly disease going on in a particular country and the audience shares the image so much, it gains the attention of the president who decided to fund the country and eliminate the disease. This would be an amazing and notable change in the world. Looking back it was not the image that changed the world but rather the emotional impact that it carried. An image that has emotionally impacted me this semester was on Courtney Welsh ‘s blog post titled ‘My take on photojournalism’. This image of the girl’s corpse on the floor was very emotional for me. It hurt to watch the people in the background of the picture walking so casually as her dead body laid on the floor.
Image By: Paul Hansen

Another post that I found interesting was a post by Haley Pollo titled "Dorothea Lange." In her post, she talks about a well known female photojournalist called Dorothea Lange. The image below is as Haley explained "is Dorothea Lange's famous photograph, "Migrant Mother." While learning about this course, I had come across this image on multiple occasions without knowing where it originated from. According to Haley, the image was taken during the great depression and the woman in the picture who can clearly be called a mother was lost in thought about her children and how they would be fed. The image is very emotional and goes back to what I mentioned earlier in the post.

Photo By: Dorothea Lange
Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Owens_Thompson

After a few months of this course, I would like to joke around and consider myself an intermediate in the field of photojournalism. Like I mentioned earlier, the history of photojournalism is very important hence assisted me in my knowledge greatly. Another knowledge I gained from this course is the pre-digital photographic technologies that were used numerous years ago. Beginning with the most common technology which is a camera. In an article by Liliya Stepanchuk titled ‘All about photojournalism’, she wrote: “In just a few short decades, technological advances have had a major impact on our everyday lives.” Technology keeps growing and keeps updating the world with better cameras that give out more powerful photographs. When the first cameras were made, photojournalism was a much more difficult job. Those cameras made it that much harder and almost impossible to capture moments that needed to be seen by the public.” However, as the years went by, the cameras became smaller and much more efficient to use. The most efficient camera used by photojournalists was the Leica 35mm which was the beginning of the present digital camera used by various photojournalists as wells as photographers because of how simple it was. The Leica 35mm enabled photojournalists to carry around cameras that were used to take photos during wars which were later shared with the public through newspapers. Other well-known techniques used were the photogravure, rotogravure, dry and wet-plate method. If I were to compare my initial ideas with my current ideas, I would certainly say there is a big difference in my understanding of photojournalism in general compared to now.

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