Final Multimedia Project

Associated Press Changing the News Through Photography

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The Wirephoto Network

Imagine a time when it took days to send a news picture around the state, nation, or even the world, preventing the public from receiving news quickly. Believe it or not, this was not a time too very long ago. According to the Associated Press website, on January 1, 1935 the AP was the first in the world to establish the Wirephoto network that allowed news photographs to be shared the same day they were taken.

How AP Has Advanced Daily Newspapers

Photojournalism has changed the news because a reader can be engaged by its photo. Technology has changed the process and reproduction of photography. The invention of the Internet has changed the way that people can view photographs, and the Associated Press (AP) has made it possible for people to get world news from the Internet, newspaper, television, or radio.

Abby Tabor, photojournalist for the Daily Comet, said that the AP “has opened up the world to the world.” He described the AP as being indispensable and is needed to produce good newspapers with information about the state, nation, or the world. Tabor explained that papers like the Daily Comet and papers around the world cannot send staff to cover everything and relies on the AP to get those images. “With events going on such as the Iraq war, or conflict around the world, newspapers that are a part of the AP are able to get photos as they are happening,” Tabor said.

Although Tabor is now a member of the AP through the Daily Comet, he did assignments for the AP when he was a freelance photographer. He said that he learned tips from AP photographers from around the world who had shot pictures of presidents and kings. This was very helpful to his career because he studied art photography, and the AP photographers gave him tips on how to take news photographs.

Not all photojournalists start their career out with the AP. Chris Heller, photojournalist for the Houma Courier, said that individual newspapers are members of the AP and by working for the paper, individuals are included in the membership.

Heller has not worked for the Houma Courier for very long, but he says it has yet to be seen how the AP has helped him in his career. Recently, he was contracted by AP to take still photography on a local girl in a movie that has gotten award nominations as well as Oscar buzz. The photographs that Heller took for the assignment were featured in the Washington Post and Ebony Magazine. Photographs not only advance news through AP but advance the careers of the photojournalists as well.

Twitter and Photojournalism

Twitter is a website I often find myself on daily. I look at twitter when I am doing my daily work out and it fascinates me how much is really on there. I am still learning about twitter and I’m getting used to tweeting and retweeting posts. One of my favorite options is the star at the bottom of ever post that you can click to save to your favorites.

Sometimes I don’t have time to read all of the posts on twitter but I save them to my favorites to look back on at a later date.

There are several photographers and photojournalists on there that I enjoy following. Here is a list of 3 of the people I enjoy following and reasons why:

1) https://twitter.com/photojournsg @photojournSG- I find the news coverage very interesting that they post. They post a variety of different links from photojournalism all over twitter along with photojournalism tips.

2) https://twitter.com/NYTimesVisual @NYTimesVisual- This twitter shows the best of the New York Times multimedia packages. I enjoy looking at the pictures, reading the articles, and watching the videos of news coverage that they show.

3) https://twitter.com/LIFE” @Life– This twitter shows pictures from Life Magazine. I have always been fascinated with Life Magazine and enjoy looking at its pictures. They have amazing photo essays about current people and people from historical decades. Often they show photos that photographers have taken but have never released.

Rainy Day Photos in a Flash

Lately the weather in the South has been rainy and foggy and often these aren’t great conditons to take photos. A photojournalist doesn’t get to pick the weather that they get to shoot thier assignments in. Sometimes they have to adapt to weather conditions.

When a photographer has to shoot an assignment and the weather conditions aren’t the best they are faced with 3 options:

1) If they don’t have to turn the assignment in right away they can reschedule the shoot.
2) Wait for the rain to stop or the weather to clear up
3) Shoot in the rain

If the photographer chooses option 3 there is a chance that the photographer could ruin his or her expensive camera. This is sometimes a risk that photographers aren’t prepared to take.

Below I posted a video of a way you can protect your camera in rain or other nasty day conditions. I hope this is helpful.

Military Description Like a Picture

Next semester I am taking a military history class. While at Books-A-Million the other day I was browsing through the military section and I decided to buy a book called The Good Soldiers written by David Finkel. Finkel is a staff writer at the Washington Post and he won a Pulitzer Prize for the book.

Right now in school I am studying print journalism but aspire to be a photojournalist. I haven’t gotten too far in the book yet, but from what I have read it’s in great detail. Finkel paints a vivid picture in your head of what is going on, on the battle field. His book is pretty graphic and blunt but it depicts what it was like on the battle field at this time.

The detail in his book reminds me of a picture. Except with the detail the way he describes it this would be a photo that might not be shown to the public. These would be the kind of photos that you would have to think about ethics before publishing them.

I have thought before about going into military photography or to become a photojournalist that shoots photography of the military. This seems like it would be a tough and sad job but very rewarding. It would probably take someone strong to shoot these types of pictures and they would definitely have to think of what to take on an ethical stand point. When it comes to war and taking pictures of the enemy or the ali they might have to have a bias view.

So far I like the book and will continue reading it. As I read the pages I can see the images in my head. The angle of ever shot that could be taken of this war. The graphic and brutal details that not everyone would want to see and the behind the scenes details that not everyone knows about, unfolds with every page I read.

10,000 Pictures in a Flash

While browsing my twitter yesterday I stumbled upon an awesome video by a photographer Gareth Carr titles Chasing the Light. As a photographer, this was one of the most amazing videos I think I have ever seen. It was not a documentary, a funny video, or news coverage. The video was composed of 10,000 photos taken in Australia. The photos all used the natural light of day and night. You can see boats passing, grass blowing in the wind and the rippling of water. I think the photos were nicely composed and put together beautifully. The video is provided for you below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Photojournalism Infinately in Style

      In my opinion photojournalism will never go out of style because there are infinite events that go on every day. There are events that will never be covered, events that won’t get enough exposure, and events that will get over exposure. It seems like it would be a hard decision to decide what to cover and what not to cover. There are often events that happen that overlap other events and the photojournalist often has to make the decision of what event to go to. Of course there is more than one photojournalist in the profession and there are also photo stringers that cover the events but there will still be events that will not be covered or unnoticed.

      What I like most about photojournalism is that one picture can tell the whole story without any words accompanying them. A photograph takes very little effort to look at and can tell a thousand words. Two of the most photographed events that are going on right now are Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast and the presidential election. These events are not just covered one day and published in a newspaper, it is an ongoing story and there hundreds, thousands and maybe even millions of pictures that are being circulated on the web right now. Another reason that photojournalism will never go out of style is because of the new media, forthcoming technology, and social media. News organizations as well as average Joes on the street are able to post pictures on the web and consumers are able to get access to the information as soon as it is happening.

Political Angles in a Flash

      With the upcoming election I am often seeing political pictures of the
candidates in every newspaper, magazines, twitter posts, and blogs I often frequent. Some may find it hard to take pictures of someone standing at a podium or addressing an audience in front of a crowd. Photojournalists tend to try to figure out the perfect angle to take the picture whether it is taking shots from the ground which makes the picture show power and importance or taking the reactions of the audience.

     While going through my twitter the other day I came across a post that directed me to a blog. The title of the post was US Election: Turning the camera on kids in the crowd and it showed an image taken by Justin Sullivan, photographer for Getty Images. The picture was of two little kids at one of Mitt Romney’s speeches. One of them seemed to be a little bored while the other little kid seemed to be interested in what Romney had to say. I think that this picture showed a different angle of the campaign that people don’t often see. Sometimes it is what is unnoticed that makes the most interesting pictures.

      Sullivan did a good job with this photo in covering a different angle because he took the picture at eye level with the kids. Photojournalists are always aware of what is going on around them and look for things that are often unseen. This is what makes great attention grabbing photos that bring people into the story. The angle of the picture is at the utmost importance and the photographer cannot be afraid to get up close to cover these angles.

Natural Lights of Halloween

  This past weekend I went to a birthday party for my best friend’s little cousin. She was turning 7 and wanted a Halloween themed bonfire party. There were about 10 kids dressed in costume there and I enjoyed photographing them. I enjoyed capturing the moment, the spirit of the kids that are so full of life, and capturing the decorations and the theme of the party. The house was decorated with jack-o-lanterns, pumpkins, skulls and bones, the grim reaper, spider webs hanging from the ceiling, different colored lights hanging in the hallway and pumpkin buckets with candles in them lining the hallway floor.

My favorite pictures that I took for the night were the pictures that I used natural light. Photojournalist’s best and most interesting pictures are taken with natural light. The greatest source of natural light is the sunlight. Sunlight can be good and also bad because it can cause lens flair or unwanted shadows. It all depends on the time of the day when the photographer is shooting. I have learned through course I have taken in school and my own personal photography experiences that the best lighting for pictures is in the morning when the sun is coming up and in the evening when the sun is going down.

For the pictures I used the lights that were provided. I used the LED lights from the artificial jack-o-lanterns, LED lights that lined the ceiling of the hallway combined with candle light from jack-o-lantern pumpkins, and my favorite was light from the bonfire that produced a nice silhouette photo. When it got dark I had to use my flash but it still produced pictures that were good quality but did not have the same effect as with natural light.

Jack-O-Lanterns with LED lights

Hallway lit with LED lights and pumpkin Jack-O-Lantern candles

Picture taken with lights from hallway lit with LED lights and natural light from the candle inside the pumpkin bucket.

For this picture I used the natural light from the fire.

To achieve the silhouette effect I used the natural light from the bonfire behind my subject.

To Be or NOT to Be Ethical

 

As my friends and family already know I have had a star crush on Jason Aldean for  some time now. Jason Aldean is a country singer for those of you who don’t know who I am talking about. To me he is the Brad Pitt of country music.

Recently photos by the paparazzi of Aldean showed up in TMZ of him with another woman who wasn’t his wife. This upset me that he would even do something like this. The article said that he was drunk and that things got out of hand. In an apology to his fans on his Facebook page on Sept. 30, he said, “I’m not perfect, and I’m sorry for disappointing you guys. I really appreciate being able to work through this privately with my family and for all your continued support.”

Stars today don’t have privacy and are constantly scrutinized by the media because they are always lurking around the corner to take pictures of every detail of their lives. Unlike news photojournalists, paparazzi often take pictures of people or events that are sometimes questioned based on ethics. This is where each photojournalist needs to decide their definition of ethics. In my opinion I would have thought about the consequences of the picture I was taking of any subject. Though Aldean’s public choices at the time were poorly chosen I would have been more sympathetic knowing that he has a wife and kids that would be affected by such a compromising photo. In the past this news would have traveled much more slowly but with today’s technology, one snap of a photo, one click of a button and in a FLASH the whole world knows.

TMZ’s Article on Jason Aldean

Aldean’s Facebook Page

Editing in a Flash

Simple to Edit
Click, click, click, poof, with the click of a magic wand known as your mouse a picture can be edited. In the digital age of photography, it is really that simple to edit a picture. Photoshop is a modern dark room where images are magically created and manipulated to make an armature look like a pro.

When there was film photography one had three problems:
1. Anticipating to see if the photograph is going to come out the way they planned
2. Worrying about running out of film
3. Waiting for the image to be developed/ having to develop the picture

All of these problems associated with film photography are time-consuming and not always effective. In the digital age you can delete a photo if it doesn’t come out the way you want it to, you don’t have to worry about running out of film, and you can upload a picture easily.

Editing and photojournalism
A good photojournalist doesn’t manipulate their photos or add special effects because they take the picture the way they want it to turn out. They are always aware of their surroundings, know what the light is like and know how to set their camera to the right settings. Although they know how much fun editing can be, they want their news to be raw to show how it was captured at that moment in time. The only editing done to the photograph is to adapt it for publication for print or the web.