The History of Photojournalism
Photojournalism has many definitions. The Merriam-Webster dictionary said that photojournalism is "the job or activity of using photographs to report news stories in magazines or newspapers." Photojournalism is the process of taking pictures and writing about those pictures. Professor Nordell explained it best, he said that to truly define photojournalism you have to look at the words “photo” and “journalism”. Meaning that a photo journalist cannot just be a great photographer or a great journalist, they have to be good at both. It is not enough to just know all about how to get a good photo because you also need to be able to know why you are photographing the event. Having background information on the event is very important as well. Also you cannot just be a good journalist because you need to know what camera equipment and angles are important to take a good photo. A good photojournalist has both skills sets.
There are many different types of photo journalists. There are photo journalists like Zoriah and Alissa, who were mentioned in the course content video. Both of these photojournalists cover conflict areas. This is mostly covering wars and war torn areas. These photojournalists put there lives on the line to get photographs that are not guaranteed to even get published. There are also photojournalists who work for local publications and they cover all sorts of local events. In one of the videos from the course content it talks about Jason Henske who is a local photojournalist. He explains that it is hard to work as a photojournalist in a small town because you know everyone. This makes it hard to separate you're feeling from your work. There are also many more types of photojournalists.
Image source: http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/43443/101-images-for-press-freedom-wednesday-nov-14/
Photojournalism is very important because it help us document history. Knowing about the history of photojournalism is crucial. It says it perfectly in the “Why history is important” video, it said "history is the window to the past". It also said that "understanding the past is the key to understanding the present." I agree with this one hundred percent. Photojournalists help to document history and with that history documented we are able to learn from the past. We can use that information later on in the future. Without photojournalists we would be unable to get a clear idea or “picture” of what went on in the past and this could cause use to have to unnecessarily relive certain parts of history.
Photojournalism helps us to see different peoples view points and ideals.The history of photojournalism helps us learn from our mistakes and figure out things worked well. Some people might say that knowing about history is not important because what is going to happen will happen regardless of whether or not we know history. This is not true because if we learn from photojournalists we can attempt to stop history from repeating itself. Knowing about the history of photojournalism is vital to learning and knowing about our pasts.
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