“Photojournalism is a unique and powerful form of visual storytelling originally created for print magazines and newspapers but has now morphed into multimedia and even documentary filmmaking,” (Kashi, 2011). A simpler version found on Wikipedia defines photojournalism as the practice of communicating news by photographs through things such as magazines. Modern photojournalism began in 1925, in Germany, but the “Golden Age” was estimated to be the 1930s through the 1950s.

To an unknowing eye photojournalism, documentary photography and many other types of photography can seem to be the same. Documentary photographers work to photograph life. While photojournalism works to take photos of an event that can be seen by the public. Photojournalists don’t have the time or ability to take such complex shots as documentary photographers. Through documentary photography the photographer works to learn about the entire situation, what makes it work, who is significant in the situation, showing emotions and anything else that they can see in order to describethe subject completely. While this may seem similar to photojournalism because you see a lot of these same strategies in photojournalism, which is true, photojournalists are under a larger time crunch. When you are sent to a tragedy or major event to take photos that will be seen by the world you have to capture moments quickly. Photojournalists have to access situations pretty quickly in order to figure out the most important situations to capture first, because some important moments might be gone if they are too busy photographing something that could wait.

When it comes to making a living, if you are looking to become rich, photojournalism might not be the job for you, but if you truly love the job it will be worth it! “Television photojournalists made mean wages of $45,000 in 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Photojournalists working for newspapers, magazines or book publishers earned mean salaries of $41,000. That pay was higher than the annual mean wage of $34,000 for all U.S. jobs,” (Alyson, n.d.). But this pay is still less than another photographer earns, and it also differs by region. If you work for a media company your pay may be more stable, but some photojournalists work independently selling their photos to these companies which makes their pay less consistent.

The largest professional organization for photojournalists to join is the National Press Photographers Association. Joining an association like this will benefit you in many ways. A few of these are it will help to get you out there as a professional to employers, attend discounted workshops that will help you improve your photography and also enhances your resume. This association is $110 annually for photographers to join.

Photojournalism continues to grow and change as technology develops and the photographers continue to keep up. Photojournalism can now be seen in magazines, newspapers and all over the internet including on all social media sites.

Works Cited

(n.d.). Retrieved from Too Young to Wed: http://tooyoungtowed.org/

Alyson, J. (n.d.). Salary of Photojournalist. Retrieved from Work: http://work.chron.com/salary-photojournalist-5248.html

Kashi, E. (2011, November 10). What Is photojournalism. Retrieved August 27, 2016, from Ed Kashi Blog: http://edkashi.com/what-is-photojournalism/

Kratochvil, A., & Persson, M. (n.d.). Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. Retrieved August 30, 2016, from http://niemanreports.org/articles/photojournalism-and-documentary-photography/

About Author

Shelby Herrera

See author's posts