An Introduction

Photo By: Gordon Parks
Image Source: http://96hourssf.tumblr.com/image/44795400987

Photojournalism: (noun)- the art or practicing of communicating news by photographs especially in magazines.

            Essentially, this is a proper definition. But there is much more to photojournalism than just conveying the news through a picture. Photojournalism should not only get the news across, but it should take you on a journey with the image. The image should draw thoughts from your brain about what is actually happening or being portrayed in the picture. It should highlight an underlying meaning to the picture, and tell a story without even a word being explained about it. Even furthermore, you should maybe even feel the struggle it took to capture such a moment. Feel what it was like to actually be there, that is effective photojournalism.

            The history aspect of photojournalism is also important. To understand what photojournalism is now, you need to understand its past. How it has changed through the years with the development of society as well as technology. How photojournalists would present their photographs to the world through newspaper and magazine back then, to the now digital world of news online and at our fingertips.

            Because of the resources available to us now, everything has changed. But for the better, in my opinion. We are exposed to so much more when we look into photojournalism. We can do a little bit of research and come up with so many options to choose from, its quite interesting if you take the time to actually look into it and see the progression from when newspapers and magazines first started printing photojournalism to the present time where a photojournalist could be half way around the world, take a picture, email it to an editor, and it would be online within a few hours.

Photo By: Malcolm Browne  

Image Source: http://www.annedarlingphotography.com/history-of-photojournalism.html