PE: Understanding Photojournalism: The Basics (L1)

Welcome to your first lesson in Photojournalism on Project Educate.

In a nut shell, I will be explaining what encompasses being a photojournalist and what doesn't.

Photojournalism gives us newsworthy photographs wherein the primary motivation is to recount a story not assist a story. Of all galleries, this is the one that demands little to no post-process such as HDR techniques or Photoshop editing. In photojournalism, it should never be posed or planned. One doesn't aim to capture a picture here. One aims to capture a moment.

In a quick recap, here's a brief string of categories which I will very meticulously cover in later sessions, explaining how you can go about doing them.


Concerts & Musicians



Photographs of concerts, listeners, or other subjects documenting the lives and careers of musicians. In most sense of the word, one should not be abusing photoshop to bring out highlights in the photo or in any sense of the word, use HDR in the process to enhance the picture.




Documentary/Editorial

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Photographs taken to accompany an editorial piece or photographed in a documentary style including photo essays which can be spanned across a series of pictures, yet each of them uniquely being able to relate to the story.




Military



Photographs of military personnel, equipment, or other images documenting armed forces around the world. These pictures can at times be controversial due to the nature of some countries' politics being a part of war. Yet should it tell a story in the conflict zone or elsewhere, it can still be deemed a qualification in this category.




Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous photojournalistic photographs that tell a story yet do not have a place in any of the categories. More often than not, this category shouldn't be used because there's just so many categories that you can't go wrong.




Natural Events

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Photographs covering natural events and/or the results of such occurrences. Such examples are typhoons, fires and other acts of God that cannot be replicated by man.




People



Photojournalistic photographs depicting people in a newsworthy setting. They're more often than not, spontaneous and usable in magazines and whatnot. The difference between these and regular portraits would usually be the fact that they aren't posed.




Performing Arts



Photographs of performers of all kinds in action, including actors, dancers, and all other types of artistic entertainers. What we usually look for is the fact that these aren't posed. They are usually taken from a rehearsal or straight from production. See a trend here?




Places



Newsworthy photographs in which the location or setting is the main focus. Most of the time we see it as a focal point for news issue as well. One example is Stamatis' photo of the fire raging in Athens. It is a good landscape view of the city yet tells the story of what happened. This is the difference between other ordinary APN (Animal Plants and Nature) pictures.




Political



Photographs depicting political events. Communicating some kind of political message, or depicting people trying to make a change. Again, they tell a story, albeit a neutral one, so one should never take sides. Should you ever want to express your aggressive opinions, the last place you should do it is on the deviant's comment box.




Public Gatherings & Events

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Photographs depicting public events: rallies, riots, marches, protests and so on in a newsworthy setting.




Sports

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Photographs of sporting events, locations, equipment, or athletes taken to document the wide world of sports. Remember, it should never be posed.



Weddings



Photojournalistic photographs taken during a wedding or the reception. The definition has been pretty gray over the time i've observed as a moderator. One could almost note that there's a fine line between Pre-Wedding shoots and Wedding-day shoots itself. What Photojournalism is all about encompasses non-posed pictures. Thus the Wedding Portraits Section under the Portraits gallery which has recently been made particularly to address this issue.


Here ends the first lesson of Understanding Photojournalism.
Tune in again for more soon, spread the word and be enlightened.


Timothy-Sim
Photojournalism Gallery Moderator