Photojournalism
Photojournalism is the art of using photographs to communicate news stories.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was born 22nd August 1908 in Chanteloup-en-Brie in France and was the unofficial 'founder' of photojournalism. He was able to do this due to both the technology of the time and his own technique and skill, the technology in question was the 'Leica' Camera. The 'Leica' Camera was the first 'instant camera', a camera which could take pictures immediately without having to prepare the films and mechanism. Cartier-Bresson used something that he called the 'decisive moment'. It has been described as composing everything within the frame of the viewfinder and waiting for one solitary action to come into frame. Cartier-Bresson thought that if he waited for long enough in one spot, something would inevitably happen, be it a cyclist, a car, someone walking, running etc. Something would happen. One of, if not the most famous photograph done by Cartier-Bresson is 'Behind Saint-Lazare Station' (Below Left) which is a perfect example of the aforementioned 'decisive moment' as we assume that Cartier-Bresson did not know that some random man was going to jump over the puddle, it just happened.
Cartier-Bresson photo sourceRobert Capa
Robert Capa was a freelance war photojournalist, working for Life Magazine and photographed various happenings throughout World War II, and a multitude of other wars also.
Photojournalism and Truth
Many people believe that what they seee in a photograph is true (within reason). Who could blame them? A photograph is mostly perceived as a moment in time encapsulated within frame as it was shown there and then. However, most photographs that people see in photojournalism have been tampered with in some way, be it newspapers, magazines, online sources etc. Also, most photos that are displayed are shown out of context, with a brief caption trying to give context but generally, the viewer doesn't have the whole picture when it comes to the context of a photograph.
This is good Ben, you are getting your point across well. Don't forget to add pictures and you need to now add a couple of chapters. One that talks about photojournalism (what makes this type of picture). the 2nd chapter will be about the idea of documenting real events, does the photograph achieve this?
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