Photojournalism in a simple definition is where you communicate news with the public through pictures; but it’s so much more than that. Photojournalism is the reason people are able to have a deeper understanding about the world going on around them. Anyone can write the perfect sob story about how there’s no clean water in certain parts of Africa, but when readers are able to see a picture of the people suffering, they begin to gain a new perspective to take action and help those people. This is different from other types of photography, for example, art photography because art photography is more for the pleasure of the artist where as the  photojournalist uses pictures for the pleasure and the discomfort for the public. They have to capture the most important aspects of the event so the picture can tell enough of a story before the actual story is read. 

According to the Modern Met, photojournalism started off with war photography, and that’s simply what it was called, war photography. But the Golden age of photography was in the 1930’s to the 1950’s because this is when American citizens started getting back onto their feet after the Wall Street crash in 1929 and the dust bowls due to the agriculture disaster. Franklin Roosevelt made the “New Deal” which encouraged Americans to get jobs again after the crisis’; by doing this, the government also made the “Federal Arts Project” which employed artists like photographers. A photographic agency called Magnum was created in 1947 after the second world war. This was founded by Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymore. These were war photographers, but there were also photographers like Dorothea Lange and walker Evans who photographed the Journey of people getting their lives back on track after the Crisis’ (Phelan, 2018).

Today, for the average Photojournalist to make a living, their annual salary is around $40,00-$45,000 (Sartore, 2019). But according to the New York times, the average salary for photojournalists who work for that industry have a salary of $84,000-89,000 a year. This money comes from the revenue made from the clientele who have magazine subscriptions and the companies who buy ads in the newspapers and magazines.

The New York Times and National Geographic are considered contemporary sources of Journalism. But I feel like National Geographic does the best Job because the strive to bring awareness towards not only humanity but towards mother nature herself is super important to me because my passion for photography also seeps into my passion for the environment. One of my favorite contemporary photojournalist of all times from National geographic is Jim Brandenburg because I love the way he photographs animals in their natural state but also the way he can capture scenes in nature where the human eye can’t imagine those types of angels as magnificent as the ones in the photos he takes. Not only is he a photographer but he also does film based in Minnesota. It was in 1978 as a freelance photographer he got a contract to work with National Geographic Magazine and because of him, National Geographic has become one of the best sources of quality pictures (Barrow, 2015).

Works Cited

Barrow, T. (2015). Jim Brandenburg. Retrieved from Photographers of Minnesota: http://tarynbarrow.com/webi1711/barrow-midterm2015/jb-bio.html

Phelan, N. (2018). Artists Info Global Artist Guide. Retrieved from Artists Info: https://www.artistsinfo.co.uk/the-golden-age-of-photojournalism/

Sartore, J. (2019). Joel Sartore, National Geographic Photographer and Speaker. Retrieved from JoelSartore: https://www.joelsartore.com/about-joel/common-questions/whats-a-national-geographic-photographers-salary/

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Lucia Lewis

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