Introduction to the history of Photojournalism

            Photojournalism is a word to define how a photo can describe whets happening in society. Each photo that a person comes across has a different meaning to it, a person can think something about a photo and someone else can think something different of it. When thinking of photojournalism you can also break it into two parts photos and journalism. To make photojournalism into one word also is having journalists that has a passion for photos. These photojournalists know when to take the pictures, the idea of this also is to engage their viewers into their work. When taking these photos you want to make sure the photo has a saying to it and that it’s a beautiful picture where someone else may not be able to capture. Also as professor Nordell stated in his video photojournalism are not nouns, “photojournaliststhey photograph verbs people doing things.”

            Knowing the history of photojournalism is very important. A video created by Holli history containsthe word story. “No boundaries” is history. History tells the past of certain things and without photos you wouldn’t know the history of life. When I think of history for photojournalism it can come down to plenty of things. One thing is it challenges peoples mind to think outside, you can solve mystery with photos, and appreciate different things of life. There is a huge range ofstyles and approaches that photojournalists take.

            A photo that captures my mind is a photo by Horst Faas called the Katangese Youth movement in 1961 in Elisabethville, Congo.  It captured my attention because one it is African American kids that are standing up for their rights. What also captured my eye is their clothing back in the day African Americans did not live the greatest. They were poor and had to fend for themselves. They had to do everything by hand. Now in the picture the children have homemade wooden riffles , which I thought was cool because to me it shows how creative African Americans could be and how they were hard workers.

Photo by: Horst Faas

Image source: http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2012/05/legendary-photojournalist-hors.html

One last photo that shows history is a photo by W. Eugene smith of a wounded soldier. The photo took place in Okinawa in 1945. When I looked at this photo I thought of wars that I learned about in my recent school years. How soldiers fought for their lives and some did not make it home. 

Photo by: W, Eugene Smith

Image Source: http://spartacus-educational.com/USAPsmithE.htm