03 June 2009

Photojournalism


Reporters hate photographers. Reporters painstakingly gather the facts, write gripping articles and bold headlines. They bring people the news. They should be the stars of a newspaper. But then someone with a camera takes a picture - suddenly nobody is interested in reading anymore.

"A picture tells a thousand words." Rarely has a saying been more accurate or more used.

Witness the photo here: 'Migrant Mother' taken in America during the 1930s depression.

The Farm Security Administration (FSA) sent out a team of photographers to document rural poverty and the attempts to solve it.

[The US Library of Congress recently released an amazing set of these images on Flikr.]

Documentary photography was never the same again. Dorothea Lange's photo, here, was the beginning of a more compassionate style. One which took a humanitarian view and attempted to influence world opinion.

Some argue that photographers of this style are too biased, forcing their own beliefs onto the situation. But isn't a photo always subjective to some extent? Covering human stories needs a degree of human feeling.

Perhaps this is what infuriates reporters. How can their words ever capture the raw emotion expressed in a brilliant snapshot?


Sources:

Excellent blog post by BBC photo editor Phil Coomes
Further reading:

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