Medical Photojournalism: September 2010

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Photojournalism is not dead

Photojournalism is not dead at all, it is an Art, a Craft, and a Profession.

I agree completely with what was written in the article that is defending photojournalism.

(I don’t think that the photograph is threatened — it’s the economic model to sell it that is changed,” Mr. Slaby said.)

Reflection about photography

Being photographer gives me the feeling of weakness and power.

Photography is an art and it is a nice thing to do.

I used to take pictures with different cameras that I had. This time is different; I felt that there must be a kind of responsibility towards the quality of the picture that I should take. This class “introduction into photojournalism” makes feel how deficient I am with regard to photography. The most difficult idea the professor of this class said is that what is related to the idea or the story behind the picture. The photographer should put in his mind the targeted audience of the photograph, the effects that the picture might produce and the content of the picture itself. At the same time, being a photographer gives me the feeling of power.

Practice makes perfect. With hard work and continuous practice in taking photographs, the feeling of power may develop. Pictures lead to documenting events, people lives and places. The choice is the photographer’s choice. In this way the photographer is the shaper of the world. The photographer would document the history with the subjects and the topics that are his/her personal choice.

Photography is nice as it is and art. Photographer can reveal the beauty even in the ugly scenes in nature.

Being photographed gives the feeling of fear. With traditional photographs, anyone can feel safe as there would be ample time for careful preparation to appear in the picture in the best outlook. Now, with the new sophisticated small cameras “sometimes hidden cameras”, anyone has the fear of being photographed in undesirable way with a miserable outlook.

For my classmate, it is well known why he/she is taking the picture. However; I would like to know what does he/she expect from photography as a profession, is my photograph would be of interest to his/her audience, would there be any publishing for my portrait, and what is the best thing that he/she likes about my story?

Dealing with a digital camera made a lot of obstacles for me in taking the pictures. The most difficult is the use of manual settings. In all the previous cameras that I used before, I didn’t need to change the aperture or the shutter speed. All the cameras that I used before, they were automatic. The other difficult point is the meter reading issue with regard to 18% gray areas. I haven’t understood it very well. The story for the portrait the I did was not well planned, I need to plan for the story in the future. I need to read the manual of the camera, check the story sources that have been suggested by the professor and read some other library sources about photography.

Pictures of Photography Forum

Pictures of the Photography Forum

Photography Forum at Zenclay

Photography Forum

2-4 PM on Monday, Sept. 27^th 2010

Morgantown is really a city of scientific activities. The photography forum held in Zenclay on University avenue to discuss the issues of what makes art photography, photojournalism, documentary photography, etc. a distinct genre. There were about 16 attendants. Nancy L Abrams was major speaker. She is a writer/photographer/editor and wit.

Abrams said that she has arranged this forum in this small cafeteria “Zenclay” as she has had long term relation with the owner. There were about 25 black and white pictures in the first floor of this cafeteria. These photographs have different dates starting from the seventies up to the past ten years. All of them were taken by Abrams along her long career in media.

The forum was held in the second floor of the cafeteria. The cafeteria has only two floors. Talking about her profession, Abram said “Words and Pictures are my life”. She added “camera is power, people follow the orders of the photographer”.

Judith Gold Stitzel was one of the attendants. She is an ex-professor at WVU. She had many comments. The most prominent comment is that she said “Objectivity is a big lie”.

Stitzel said that documentary photography was mainly politically oriented

The majority of the attendants were students from Art 333 class which is called Alternative Photography. The students talked about their documentary projects that must be submitted to their teacher. One of the students said that the topic of her project is ‘The Decline of Industrial World in West Virginia’. The teacher of these students is Michael Sherwin who attended this forum and was one of the major speakers in it. He discussed the issue of subjectivity in the captions that were written under each photograph taken. He said that he asked his students to write for their projects using economic, environmental or societal topics with minimal editing by Photoshop as documentary photography should have minimal manipulation.

As a response to a question about the possibility of the death of photojournalism, Abrams said that this is not possible as there should be someone always that must go out and take pictures for any media outlet. As a proof for this, one of the attendants was the photographer of Dominion Post ‘the city newspaper’.

I asked her about the possibility of having photography as an independent major and may be an independent school at universities, she answered ‘yes’, it is a valid possibility.