Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On 9/16/99 8:08 AM ken.lee@hbc.com wrote >On one side >of a path is pristine wilderness, on the other side, a garbage dump. You are >asked to photograph the are for the Sierra Club; which side of the path do >you shoot? Do you always shoot both sides? >If a political rally has 5000 people in attendance and two people get in a >fight the fight picture is usually what makes the news. Is this always the >editor's call? > >How do pj s deal with these issues (what to include/excluse in a picture? Ken, The answer to these questions is "What is the story you are trying to tell with your photo?" If you are sent by the Sierra club to show how a pristine wilderness is being damaged by random dumping then you try to show both in the image. If covering a political rally and one of the Presidents girlfriends shows up and makes a scene screaming and shouting, but the rest of the event is normal double talk then the story is the girl friend screaming....the key here is the second word "journalist" in the word photo journalist. Most people think one day we simply woke up and thought "Hey it'd be neat to be a newspaper photographer!"....they do not realize that we took as many, or more, journalism classes as the reporters took. We had to take a lot of the writing classes, yes we often even write our own stories, and then we had to take all the PJ classes also. We are trained in the gathering of news and do so as best as possible. Generally the photographer decides on the spot what to shoot....he has to make a snap judgment on what the "story" in the event is. Realize that often the photographer is the eyes AND ears on scene for his news outlet. Many time there is no reporter so in addition to getting the shots if he hears a good quote he will jot it down for use in the story. I can not remember how many times the lead in a news story I covered was directly from information I gathered on the scene. A good news photographer has to be a good journalist...maybe even more so than a writer since he has to make his decisions IMMEDIATELY...there is no calling up later to get the photo...it has to be made when it happens or the moment is lost forever. Do our personal views and opinions show in our work? Of course, to an extent, they will show just like a reporters view show in their work...heck look at most of Gene Smiths work...he definitely had a point of view. Look at the Farm Administration photos from the dust bowl...had a point of view....look at Natchewy's war photography...point of view...is any of their stuff less valid or telling of the stories they tell? NO!, IMHO they are much stronger because they convey more than just a photo, they convey a true communication. That is the goal to form photos and words that are greater than the sum of all the parts. Lastly being a news photographer is one of the most competitive fields in journalism....for any one opening there will be 500 or so applicants for the job. The only job in the media that is more competitive is on air anchor for a major network news show.... Harrison McClary email: harrison@mcclary.net http://www.mcclary.net preview my book: http://www.volmania.com