Photo By: David Steinberg
Image Source: http://monroegallery.blogspot.com/2012/12/photographer-craig-varjabedian.html

What is Photojournalism?

 



            Photojournalism is a study that combines two different work fields into one creating a very interesting and exciting job. Photojournalism can be broken down into two words, “photo” or photography and “journalism”. The basic idea of Photojournalism is to find and create pictures that can be published in journals, newspapers, internet articles and any other form of information sources. A job of a photojournalist is to capture the correct picture that will grab the reader’s attention and will make them read the article. People say that a picture tells thousand words, so it is up to a Photojournalist to make sure that a photograph that he or she takes tells the world the right words and portrays the correct information that was generated by the photographer.

Why study History of Photojournalism?

 

             Photojournalism is a fairly new discipline as it evolved and became popular after the camera was invented. Historians say that the first pictures that were taken were in 1860’s during the worst times of United States history, during the civil war. Photographs in the newspapers allowed people to see exactly how the battlefields looked like and what were the living conditions there. So why study the history of Photojournalism? It is an important question that requires an answer. There is a saying that “the person who does not know the past has no future.” I think that becoming a successful Photojournalist requires the person to know a lot about the history and how the process of photography and journalism evolved and how they merged together to create a discipline that can provide information to the whole world.

 

             Another reason to study the history of Photojournalism is to be able to know what kind of pictures and information does the pubic likes to see. Learning the history of Photojournalism one finds out why did some photojournalists became very successful, popular and famous, while others could not go far. When learning history of Photojournalism and analyzing the work done by many photojournalists, one can take on their skills and tricks and improve on them to create unique and breathtaking photographs. Also while learning the history, it can be understood that people who are courageous and fearless are the ones who seem to get the best photos of all the action that is happening at a place of their interest. Summing everything up, a person who plans on becoming a successful photojournalist needs to know how the discipline evolved and what he or she can do to improve photojournalism and make is attractive to readers of their publications.

 

 

 

Image by: Nicephore Niepce
Source: http://sugarquotes.weebly.com/iconic-photos-from-history.html

First Photograph taken!