M11- Chapter 8 - Photojournalism and Bias

      By-Ed Clark 

      "Going Home"

      Image Source-  http://www.thegreatleapsideways.com/?p=209

      Photo of- Navy ship man Graham Jackson 

This photo is of Graham Jackson. He was a Navy ship man and is very emotional because he is playing for Franklin D. Roosevelts burial. He and the other people are very emotional. This was a very emotional time for a lot of people. Clark did a very good job of capturing the emotion of the people and how they were feeling at that time. I can not stress enough how there is so much emotion that just pours out of the photo. These people obviously had a lot respect and love for Franklin D. Roosevelt. You can see when looking deeper into the photo that some of the women in the background are also very emotional about the loss of the leader. Clark took this picture from what seems to be a little bit of a distance. His distance was perfect to capture the emotion without it looking like people were posing for the photo. The course content video talks about how photojournalists should "tell peoples stories" and I think that Clark did a great job of this. He really showed how those people were feeling at that time and I think he did it tastefully. It means so much to me that one person could have such a major effect on such a large group of people.

Subjects Expression- The subjects expression really brings this picture together. Graham does not look posed at all. This is raw emotion I do not think that he is hamming anything up at all. He is crying. This is not a candid shot at all. 

Is the image black & white or color- This image is black and white. This photo had to be taken in black and white. It is a great black and white photo. 

In or out of Focus- The image is very sharp. Graham is very very clear and as you look deeper into the photo the women become a little out of focus. This adds to the intensity of Graham's emotion. 

Image of Truth

Image source- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/picturegalleries/7977730/Muhammad-Ali-The-Champ-previously-unseen-photographs.html?image=9
By- Michael Gaffney


This is the image of truth I picked. This is a photo of three very famous boxers. the boxers are Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Sugar Ray Leonard. I know this seems like like a strange photo to pick for this topic but to me it shows truth. To me it shows even though these me are fierce competitors in the ring they are just normal people. It shows how just because they portray one thing in the the ring they can be completely different outside the ring. One of the articles talks about how photos could be a facade. I feel that this photo is not a facade I feel like they are actually like this. It shows how they can be friends and competitors. This photo shows there softer side. It tells the truth about how they are not always so series and how they can have fun. Professor Nordell talks about biases in the media. It would have been very easy for the photojournalist to capture a more serious forcefully picture of them because most people are biased towards boxers images. It shows that you can not judge people off of one aspect of there life's. This is a great photo that makes all of them look good. Professor Nordell talks about how easy it is to take "not so flattering photos" of people to make them look bad. This photo however makes them all look good, but I am sure if the photojournalist wanted to he could have taken a very unflattering photo.  One of the articles talks about how "the photographer, storyteller, has the control of the stories." This photojournalist does a great job telling a story.

Depth of field- The right amount of area is focus. The three men are in perfect focus to draw your attention to them. It uses maximum depth of field. The depth of field directs your attention to the three men.

Obvious Main Subject. The Obvious main subject is very easy to identify. The three men are obviisly the main subject. They are in the middle of the photo. Since there are three men the main subject takes up a lot of space.

Texture- There is a smooth texture to the photo. It helps to add character to the photo. It helps to add a rustic feeling to the photo.

By-Ian Garland 

Source- http://hollywoodlife.com/2011/05/16/boy-nine-drunk-driving-arrested/

 

 

I do not think this is a truthful photo. I do not think it is truthful photo because this kid is obviously way to young to be driving.There is no way this photo can be true because it would be very hard for this little to operate a vehicle. It is also ethically murky because kids that young should not drive or think it is okay to drive. As one of the articles states " A technically proficient image may trick the viewer into thinking he or she is seeing something of substance". This photo represents this because we are being tricked into thinking the little boy is driving. Another article talks about how "you know certain things because you can apply logic and reasoning". When you logically look at this photo you can tell it can not be true. 

Keep it Simple- This is a very simple photo. There is only the car and the boy in the photo. The photo is of the boy in the drivers seat which is very simple.

What feelings does the image create?-  This photo is very eye catching and to me it makes you feel like it is not true. I feel like this because this boy is obviously not old enough to drive. The photo is very shocking because you do not see to many little kids in the driver seat of a car.

Background compliments or detracts from composition- The background of this photo compliments the composition. Nothing really competes with the main subject of the photo. The background which is the car is in focus.

Ethics

My Map
   
                   Their have been a lot of controversial ethical things done in photojournalism. It is something that happens all the time. One example is how when O.J. Simpson got was arrested for the murder of his wife a picture of him was altered. This was a huge deal because it was on the cover of a major magazine. The magazine that altered the photo was TIME magazine. This become very clear when Newsweek  magazine published the real photo. The photo was of O.J.’s  mugshot  from when he was arrest. TIME magazine edited the photo so that “Simpson's face as darker, blurrier, and unshaven”. The unedited photo published by Newsweek looked completely different, it was much brighter, clear and he was clean shaven.

Photo by- Newsweek Magazine
Source- http://franklinavenue.blogspot.com/2014/12/what-ever-happened-to-newsweek.html
Year- 1994
This is the unedited photo.

                 TIME magazine got caught because Newsweek published the real photo in the cover of their magazine. This brought a lot of scrutiny for TIME magazine. The photographer who edited the photo said he "wanted to make it more artful, more compelling”.  The editor James Gaines said  "The harshness of the mug shot—the merciless bright light, the stubble on Simpson's face, the cold specificity of the picture—had been subtly smoothed and shaped into an icon of tragedy. The expression on his face was not merely blank now; it was bottomless."   Some people said that the edit made the photo look racist. This did not make TIME magazine look good at all. The real photo is much different from the edited one.  Time has ethically is not supposed to edit photos.

Photo By-Matt Mahurin (TIME magazine)
Year -1994
Source- http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19940627,00.html
This is the edited photo.
  

                 I think that what TIME magazine did is very unethical. They should not have altered that photo at all. The edits made him look completely different and it made him look bad. In my opinion they made him look guilty by doing the edit. I can defiantly see how people could see that this as TIME magazine being racist. The edit made O.J. look really bad. It is almost like they tried to make him look like a criminal and as if he was in bad shape. TIME edited this photo when it really was not necessary at all. The photo would have been perfectly fine without the edit. Ethically I feel like they crossed a line. 

                Loyalty is a big thing for me, so I feel that TIME should be loyal to its readers and not edit things to taint there views. Trust is another big thing to me. TIME magazines readers trust that they are getting real news unedited and unbiased. They broke that trust when they edited that photo. If I was in charge I would not have edited that photo at all. I most definitely would have not published the edited photo if I was the editor.  They made O.J. look like he was sick or there was something wrong with him. It is not ethical to distort someones health like that. It was not fair for O.J.’s family and friends to have to see him like that, when that is not how he actually looked. Whether he was innocent or guilty does not matter they ethically crossed a line. It was not right to try to influence people by altering photos just to see magazines.  Morally this was very wrong and ethically just wrong.

M9 - Women Photojournalists - Trials and Triumphs

             There are many great female photojournalists that I found while doing my research. I chose to take a closer look at Eman Mohammed. Eman Mohammed is a photojournalist in Gaza. “She is the only female Gazan photojournalist operating out of Gaza and has been since she was 19.”  She is now 26 and still a great photojournalist. She has even spoke at the United Nations Geneva Peace Talks. It was not easy for her to get where she is today, she had to overcome a lot get to where she is. There are really no female photojournalists in Gaza. When she first started when she was 19 she was given a broken camera and was told that if she could fix then she could keep it. People would ask her boss "How could you hire a girl, she's wearing jeans and look how she holds her camera." 

            Lots of people criticized her because she was a female photojournalist. This is very similar to the what Lynsey Addario discussed in her video in the course module. Her boss ended up taking her camera away from her and saying she could only be an English/Arabic editor. She ended up resigning after a big fight with her boss where she was given the option to either resign or be fired. She was able to get enough money together to buy a camera a and two lenses. She then started covering the war that had just started. Her friends “thought I had thrown away a great opportunity to work behind a desk, because that's where women belong.”   She was even sexually harassed and left behind while photographing the war. She said “ I'm not the only woman left in the profession because I'm so good at it—it's just really hard to survive in that field.” Eman still covered the while she was pregnant.  She is now a very talented photojournalist but struggles with the way people look at her in Gaza.


               Workplace discrimination is still a huge problem today. This happens in all sorts of industries. A family friend worked for a company for a longtime did and was great at her job. It was very hard for her to move up in the company because she was a women. After years of working hard she was finally promoted to a higher level position in the company. However she did not make as much as the man that got promoted to the same position as a her. She also had to deal with men in the office not really respecting her authority. The men would not always listen to her and did not treat the same way they treated the male bosses. There were even comments made about how they would not take orders from a women. It took a very long time to get respect from her colleagues and still struggles with it today. There are many other examples of women being harassed and being treated differently in the module. The module talks about how there are inappropriate comments made by male employees to female employees.

             The corporate world has a lot of workplace discrimination. There are still big businesses that do not treat women the same as they treat men. In some corporations they do not pay women the same amount as they pay the men. Even when women are just as qualified as men some companies do not pay them the same as men.  Some people in corporations still think that women do not belong in high level positions in corporations which as most of us know is not true at all. This happens in all fields and the module talks about how women are looked down upon in some fields. This discrimination happens all the time in corporations all the time and it needs to stop. There are even cases where women are not hired because they are women even though this is illegal. This is something that goes on in all industries and it is not fair at all. It should not matter what gender, race, or religious beliefs are everyone should be treated equally.

Photo By- Grey Hutton
Year-2014
Image Source- http://www.vice.com/read/eman-mohammed-interview-129
This is a photo of Eman Mohammed

Principle 1- Subjects Expression

     The subjects expression is very posed. Her smile and body language fit her pose perfectly. She is looking at the camera and is not blinking. This most definitely is not a candid photo she is posing for the photographer.

Principle 2- Keep it Simple

    This is a very simple photo. It is a posed photo with no clutter at all. There is a very simple and plain background behind her. It is just her and what looks like a simple wall behind her in the photo.

Principle 3- Is the image black white or color
    This photo is a black and white photo. This was most definitely the photojournalists choice because it was taken in 2014. I think that the photo being black and white it adds character to the photo.

Why I chose this Image.

       I chose this image because it is a very nice photo. I really like the simplicity of the photo. It shows Eman Mohammed posing for a photo when she is usually the one taking he photographs. This photo really grabbed my eye when I saw the photo. Making the photo black and white was a great touch and it made me look at the photo.

Photo By- Shutterstock
Year-2013
Image Source- http://madamenoire.com/279178/minorities-and-racial-discrimination-in-the-workplace-are-we-exaggerating/


Principle 1- Abstraction

     This photo has some abstract qualities. To me it shows a women leading the meeting and being in charge. This shows that it does not matter your gender and anyone can be in charge. It shows that a women can be a boss.

Principle 2-Quality of Light

       The quality of light is good in my opinion. The light enhances the photo and draws attention to the women in charge. It is not distracting or to much it adds to the photo and makes the photo really pop. The natural light from the window is very nice and it adds to the photo.

Principle 3- Depth of Field
        This photo has a perfect depth of field. When looking at the photo the depth of field draws your eye to the women in charge. The depth of field really helps to show all the people but highlight the women standing.



Why I chose this Image.

       I chose this image because I really liked it. The photo spoke to me and caught my eye. I thought that the photo really showcased that women can and should have high power jobs. It shows that they are just a capable as men. this photo caught my because it had a message.

Photo By- Jacquelyn Martin
Year-2013
Image Source- http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/a-simple-legal-way-to-help-stop-employment-discrimination/274519/


Principle 1- In or out of focus

     This photo is in focus. This photo is very sharp and clear. The photo being in focus helps so it is easy to read the words on the signs the people are holding. It helped it to really bring the feeling out of the photo.

Principle 2-Exposure Time

       The exposure time is very important in how a photo ends up looking. This photo had a fast shutter speed. This is because it captured people moving around. This was important to make sure that the photo came out clearly. If the photojournalist had used a slow shutter speed the photo would have most likely been blurry.


Principle 3-What feeling does the image create


      The draws a feeling from you. The photo makes you feel for the people holding the signs. It makes you feel the passion that they have for there cause. It makes you want to join them. It makes you sympathetic to there cause.


Why I chose this Image.

       I chose this image because I agree completely with what they are saying.  I agree that everyone should be treated the same way regardless of there gender or anything else. This photo caught my eye because if this is going on in a large corporation like Walmart imagine how many other companies are doing the same thing.

Timeline

My Timeline

         Without the technological advancements in photojournalism we would not be we are today. It is crazy to see how far technology has come over the years. Every advancement no matter how small lead to the unbelievable technology we have today. Lots of time we take for granted the technology that we have today. Because of all the technological breakthroughs through the they years we can now take high quality photos on our phones. We can even edit, share  and print our photos directly from our phones.  My timeline does not have every technological breakthrough but I chose some of the ones that I thought were important.