General Forums >> Photography Bistro >> PHOTOGRAPHY vs PHOTOJOURNALISM vs PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
PHOTOGRAPHY vs PHOTOJOURNALISM vs PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
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Posted 3 months ago Hello fellow photographers, I would love to start a dialog regarding a need to define your image. Should there be sub categories within the photography ARTBISTRO group? At the newspaper, and school, we were told that if anything was added or taken out of your original image, we captioned photo illustration. WHAT DO YOU THINK? Hope everyone has had a nice weekend......Kyra If someone listens, or stretches out a hand, or whispers a kind word of encouragement, or attempts to understand a lonely person, extraordinary things begin to happen. --Loretta Girzatlis |
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| Posted 3 months ago There are degrees of alteration. If you crop, strighten, lighten, darken, color correct, you're just enhanceing the image, bringing it'e nature to life. It's when you add or take out elements, signs, faces, or add clouds, shadows or whatever then you're image is becoming an illustration. Yes, I do think we should seperate these two catagories. Photojournalism is a little hard to screw down, newspapers have unwritten rules of esthetics, bland and boring mostly. God forbid a photographer presents an image with some real life attached, instead of sentimental drivel or worse, the @#& head shot, is anyone else feeling brain dead from this crap or am I'm just a @#&'ing lunatic. OK, so now you know why I left newspaper work. Photojournalism can inspire, the man in China facing down the tank is a good example, or it can create a sense of a place we have never been. The photograph can put us inside a world we will never know, or show us the pain or joy of individuals we'll never meet. Although, I am sad to think that it was the sucess of Avadon's stark style that brought on the headshot craze.Fine art and journalism often merge. I had the privliage to spend a few days with Richard Avadon when he was working on his now famous American Portraits, one thing he said rang true to me and that was that all photogrphers are journalist to some degree. Sally Mann's early and middle work could be viewed as journalism.
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| Posted 3 months ago we don't need sub catagories... just describe your image if necessary BTW... as for manipulation through the decades... check out this site... http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/
BTW... scroll down to Nov 2007 in regards to Tiananmen Square
217 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since March of 2003... more than World Wars 1 & 2, Korea & Vietnam combined. |
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| Posted 3 months ago
National Geographic after the cover was manipulated, stated that "We no longer use that technology to manipulate elements in a photo simply to achieve a more compelling graphic effect. We regarded that afterwards as a mistake, and we wouldn't repeat that mistake today". This is the most important reason I have asked this question. If we do not learn from history, you are a person with your head in the sand. I am NOT directly saying this to you! One of the main reasons I love to understand history (and thank you for all your examples! ) I would love to know that the photojournalist photos that are a visual represenation of any kind of history would be the actual image taken wthout manipulation. I am not talking about cropping and coloring that the digital age has made manipulatation so easy. In my opinion, I would want people to trust my images to be cationed correctly. Even in criminal, accidents and several other events that could alter the events of a non guilty party. I feel a resposibily that my images represent the truth. Even in my photography, I would like to know that basically my photo represents the moment. Photoshop allows up to create beautiful art from a simple photo. At that point it becomes artwork. This is all OK,(even wonderful!).... but I would appreciate I know what I am looking at. Maybe I was raised by a strict and strong minded photo editor that has made this an issue for me. I challenge that history is not an excuse to re evaluate how things are today. With so much spin almost everywhere I turn in society, I find it important to me to bring this up for discussion. I hope fellow ArtBistro artists will pasticipate in this discussion. Thank you, Kyra
If someone listens, or stretches out a hand, or whispers a kind word of encouragement, or attempts to understand a lonely person, extraordinary things begin to happen. --Loretta Girzatlis |
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| Posted 3 months ago I'm in agreement with Gio and jamessyme as regards the bulk of the opinion here ... Simply cropping, increasing contrast / brightness with curves, etc but NOT altering the essence of the image AS TAKEN ON THE SCENE is journalistic photography in my book. Remember, photography is the art of EXCLUSION, not the art of INCLUSION. Therefore, cropping, straightening, brightening, etc. are not altering the essential reality inherent in the image. You could have cropped it on-scene with the zoom, but perhaps chose to shoot more than you needed to crop later for compositional effectiveness. Nothing wrong with that, and completely legitimate. It's when the overt and outright FRAUDULENT MANIPULATION (e.g., Reuters' image with the clone-stamped [and clumsily, too] 'smoke' coming from the refugee camp) is presented as 'truth' in print. THAT crossed the line and is neither photojournalism nor photoillustration - it is a LIE. Stuff like that should be disowned and discredited for the fraud it is. As to National Geographic, I was surprised that they used available technology to lie about reality - okay, maybe that's harsh, but if they stated later they'd no longer use 'that technology' to 'manipulate elements in a photo simply to achieve a more compelling graphic effect', that's pretty much saying in nicer words that they published a fraudulent image. Too bad their 'ethics' didn't allow them to recognize BEFOREHAND that it was a 'mistake' - I think they refer to it now as a mistake simply because they got caught. If no one had spotted it and called 'em on it, who honestly thinks they wouldn't still be pursuing the same path now? They're no different from the kid who gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Captions should do two things well: (1) Explain the image / event, and (2) serve as a 'hook' to get the viewer to read the accompanying article. Photojournalism needs to remind itself that it is entrusted with the accurate depiction of events AS THEY WERE. If an image is to be 'enhanced' to show things as having been present when they were, in fact, NOT there, then it's no longer photojournalism but editorial comment (at best) or photoillustration (since it's an interpretation of what happened, not an accurate depiction). When that line is crossed, the image should NOT appear in print as an unbiased piece of photography. If it does, it needs to be accompanied by a statement that explains HOW the image has been altered from its original state. As for 'sub-categories', I don't think they'd add anything, and could possibly cause more consternation for some people. Just describe the image correctly and state whether or not it has been altered to achieve a specific effect. This is a fine line we dance along. I make no claim to having 'an' answer, the 'right' answer, or the 'best' answer to the question. I'm just adding my $0.02 to attempt to define the problem and provide a few possible 'solutions' to it. It's something that, in the end, we each have to decide for ourselves - unless some editorial 'style sheet' can magically solve this problem with its superior 'wisdom' ... I din't say you did it ... I said I was going to blame it on you. |
