Photojournalism

The art of telling a story

“An image is worth a thousand words” reads the well known phrase, and in this essay, I intend
to explore how far this short statement goes in the world of photojournalism.
The idea of photojournalism has been around for
almost as long as photography itself has how-
ever in the very early days dating back to the mid
eighteenth century photojournalism was very
scarce. Up until 1850, photography was very
much a handcrafted medium: the only methods of
producing images where very slow, for example
the daguerreotype process invented by Jacques
Daguerre in 1829 took around half an hour to
develop, and even longer to process. This meth-
od proved virtually useless for photojournalistic
photography, as negatives could not be reprinted;
the original was always the only copy. However, in
1850, the arrival of Henry Fox-talbot’s ‘Callotype’ An early daguerreotype image
method meant that negatives could be reprinted
hundreds of times over, bringing the birth of photojournalism, and photography as a whole. Fox-
Talbots new method meant photos could be reproduced, and therefore used more often in jour-
nalism, and other texts. Many people tried to develop Talbots idea by using different methods,
like Stephen H. Horgan, who came up with the idea of ‘halftone’ - using small dots of black and
white to make up the illusion of tonal range in a photo. From here onwards, photographic tech-
nologies, enabling more and more locations and mass production were becoming available; On
March the 4th 1880, the first half tone picture was reproduced in a newspaper, by Horgan, and
in 1887, the invention of flash powder meant that pictures could now be taken indoors. although
one of photojournalism’s greatest set backs had been resolved, the issue of portability still had
not, it was now possible to print images in the news, but photographers could only shoot station-
ary objects. It was not until 1925 when the first Leica 35mm camera was developed that photo-
journalism really took off.
The 1930s to the 1950s is sometimes referred to as “The
Golden Age” of photojournalism photography, and produced
some groundbreaking photojournalism that is still recognised
in the photography world today. One of the most famous
photojournalists of all time is Henri Cartier-Bresson, often
called “The father of modern photojournalism”, Bresson took
up photojournalism photography soon after the first 35mm
Leica was invented, he previously he worked as a surrealist
painter, interested in modern art and particularly, the renais-
sance period. As a modern artist, Bresson instantly took to
photography, saying “I suddenly understood that a photo-
graph could fix eternity in an instant.” The small compact
nature of the Leicia Camera meant that photographers could
remain unseen in a crowd or street, unlike previous cameras
that prompted fake and unnatural behaviour. This is what
Bresson loved most about the instantaneous nature of the
Leicia recalling that he “prowled the streets all day, feeling
very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to ‘trap’ life,
to preserve life in the act of living.”.
Cartier-Bresson’s “Desicive Moment”
Bresson’s career as a photojournalist really started after the
war, in 1947, Bresson was one of four co-founders in Mag-
num Picture Agency, an agency that quickly became involved with events in photojournalism all
over the globe. Bresson spent most of his time in India and China when photographing for Mag-
num, and it was here he became infamous for his coverage of Ghandi’s funeral in 1948 and the
last of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Towards the end of Bresson’s career in 1952, he published a
book called Images à la sauvette or `‘The Decisive Moment’ - a collection of his greatest images
from East to West. One of Bresson’s final quotes which is published in this book read “There is
nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment”; which in my opinion is a great way
to sum up this great photographers photojournalistic career. The Golden age was very important
to photography’s evolution into what it is today, mostly because of the newfound portability, and
the ability to take multiple photos on a film roll. In my opinion, The film era of photography has
proven itself as one of the great movements in photog-
raphy and photojournalism, as it is still being used today.
Digital has replaced film as the norm for commercial
and amateur photographers, however film is still used in
experimental, and niche areas of photography because of
its unique qualities that don’t exist in digial photography.
In my project, I chose to experiment with medium format
film; the black and white image which the medium for-
mat film I used produced would add to the connotations
of loneliness, and the added detail gained from a larger
negative would help in the contrast between the in focus
subject, and the blurred people in the peripheral, which
was key to the shoot I used the MF camera for, as I want-
ed to emphasise loneliness in a crowd, and the feelings
of the individual in the street, much like Cartier-Bresson
throughout his career.
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photos of world events were published in the most famous galleries
around the globe, but is photojournalism art? There are two convincing sides to this debate, both
of which have valid points. In the world as we know it today there are millions of cameras, on
every phone, at every event; everywhere. Some people argue that this gets rid of the though and
planning that goes into a photograph, if people can simply ‘snap’ anything from any event without
any thought, than the idea of photojournalism as an art form is a not very convincing one. Others
argue that a good photo is one that has been thought about, even if only for a second, some of
the most famous galleries all over the globe are photojournalistic photographs, and if thousands
of people come to appreciate an image, weather its is painted or photographed, surely it be-
comes art? Furthermore, supporters of photojournalism as an art form say that working within the
unwritten rules of photojournalism can be compared to writing Haiku poetry or a Bauhaus paint-
ing; finding original ways to express a feeling or emotion within the boundaries of a medium, (like
a poetry type) could be considered an art form in itself. Finally, the last convincing argument for
the case of photojournalism as art is in the infinite possibilities of the final image a photojournal-
ist produces; just like an artist chooses the type of paint, brushes, and canvases he or she uses,
a photographer chooses, the film, shutter speed, or aperture. Endless techniques and hardware
mean that the possibilities are just as vast as in conventional art, and it’s not the camera that
does the real work, rather the eye of the person behind it.
All the above are convincing arguments for photojournalism as an art form, however there are
also convincing arguments against. Firstly, due to the huge increase in point and shoot photogra-
phy; cameras that will do all the work for you in a click of a button, more and more photographic
work has become the result of a computer chip, how can this be art? Along with the improved
technology of cameras, there is also the issue of desktop image manipulation. Like point and
shoot cameras, programs like lightroom and Adobe Photoshop have become readily available.
This means the temptation for people is ever increasing to retouch and edit their photographs
to make them more appealing, more interesting, and in some cases, to manipulate the image to
an extent where the message of the photograph is completely different. It is argued that editing
photojournalistic pictures, even to change lighting or exposure, is not photojournalism at all, as
it is no longer about the recording of an event, and is arguably as bad as the spin-doctors in the
newspapers today.
Although some could argue the impact of a digital revolution is a negative one, the breakthrough
of digital imaging has great advantages to photojournalism. One of the main advantages is in-
stant feedback: seconds after a photographer has taken the image, he or she can review it, make
changes in shutter speed, aperture, or composition and move on to the next image. I took full
advantage of this positive feature of
digital photography when I was shoot-
ing in Croatia: Much like a photojour-
nalist, I was shooting candid images in
the street to try to tell a story. Having
instant feedback of the lighting and
DOF of my images meant that I could
quickly change settings to make sure I
didn’t miss out of a spontaneous even
or ‘Decisive moment.
Being able to view images on the job also means it becomes easier for photojournalists to make
sure they have covered the whole event, getting all the pictures they need for their story. The sec-
ond major advantage is an unlimited film roll. before digital was invented, the maximum number
of pictures a photographer could take was 24, or 36 per roll of film, nowadays memory cards are
so big in capacity that thousands of images cam be stored with out having to stop shooting; large
memory capacity means that photographers can spend more time taking photos and have less
chance of being stuck loading a film or card when a ‘decisive moment’ occurs. Finally, and per-
haps one of the most important advantages of the digital revolution is the ability to share. In the
journalism business, the speed from shoot to edit is vital in a heavily competitive field, photog-
raphers need to send their shots to their editors whilst still on the job, and this is made so much
faster using digital technology. Before digital, I could take up to 30 minutes to scan one high res-
olution negative, and send it to an editor, now photographers like Vincent La Foret use workflows
to automatically download photos from the memory card, and upload them to a shared folder for
the editor to process with in minutes of them actually being taken, his editor can then give him
live feedback as to what he needs to be shooting, enabling a much more productive shoot.
Photography has come along way since the days of Henry Fox Talbot, instant images, with bet-
ter, smaller cameras which can instantly share content has enabled more people to be influenced
and inspired by more pictures, but is more and more pictures necessarily a good thing? If people
don’t take the time to put effort and meaning into one photo, instead reeling of 10 average ones,
this could mean the end of photojournalism as an art, however, this is balanced by the constant
increase in demand for more and more better quality photos that sell newspapers. Who knows
what the world of photojournalism will be like in 10, or 50 years time, I predict however, things
might very well be as different as it is now compared with photography’s past.

Max Crame
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