Photojournalism

Photojournalism is a particular type of journalism that uses photographs to tell a story. By photographing, editing, and presenting images, they tell a story in a way that no other media can. By doing so photojournalism distinguishing itself from other forms or reportage in the journalism field. Photojournalists make a living by selling their photos to many organizations around the world. Their clients are basically the readers of that particular organization. One professional organization that represents photojournalism is Advertising Photographers of America. I would join such an organization because it represents photojournalism. One photo agency that represents photojournalism is Magnum Photos. They have offices in New York, Tokyo, and London. The purpose for a photo agency is for the supply of photos licensed for a specific use. Used for creative assignments instead of hiring a photographer.

Photojournalism began since the camera was first invented. It started to become popular as American began to grow in the 1920’s. As people were landing on the moon and wars began people wanted to know what those scenes looked like so photojournalism helped them depicted those situations. The Golden Age of photojournalism was between the years 1935 to 1975. Three top photographers from this time were Arthur Fellig, Eugene Smith and Robert Capa. They had very powerful war images and conveyed a story to the people back home in America. A contemporary source of photojournalism would be National Geographic. They have a lot of images that sometimes don’t even need explaining.

One contemporary photojournalist that stood out to me was Stephanie Sinclair. Stephanie Sinclair recently did a project on child marriage in the Middle East and took amazing photographs of many young girls and their very much older husbands out in Syria, Afghanistan and Ethiopia. I admire her not only because she is a female photojournalist but because what her cause of taking pictures is for. Her photos are so powerful and I would like to emulate her style of photojournalism.