Why I just love Photojournalism!

At university, I study journalism (amongst some other things) - and more than ever before, I'm realising that I am truly passionate about journalism and communication, and the power it possesses. 

There are so many things I could talk about relating to this - and I feel that over time, I will - but today's post relates to my yesterday! 

Yesterday, I ended up randomly (or fatefully) watching a documentary about a magazine and journalism.  One part of it talked about photojournalism, communicating news through photographs, and it reminded me just how much I love photojournalism. I only (naively) properly became aware of Photojournalism as a practice at the beginning of last year - when I learnt about it and completed a piece of work on it.

After discovering it, I decided it was probably one of my absolute favourite news forms. I could write more and explain more about what Photojournalism is, but in the spirit of it - I'll just show you :)

Because of an assessment, I found this website:

The Big Picture

 I mean it when I say, this is legitimately one of my absolute favourite websites. I look at it ALL. THE. TIME. And you'll see why.

As you can probably tell, I really had to restrain myself from showing you every story's cover photo :P.  I so strongly encourage you to check out this website every now and then!

The thing about Photojournalism is it shows you the good, the bad, and the ugly, in its truest form possible. It's SO easy to understand the news story from it.

The other website I love is:

TIME Lightbox

"Each week, TIME LightBox presents one news photograph selected from among the thousands shared on the news wires. Published in the magazine, these images, now featured in this gallery, offer a close look at the world’s most impactful events..."

They select the most striking photograph of the week...and I just love this one!

Do you guys get what I mean when I say I love Photojournalism? 

Photographs are powerful. 

They can instigate emotions, change behaviour and impact the way society operates. 

As for the story I did my assessment on that cemented my love for it?

My piece of writing on it follows below:

This photojournalism series composed by Lloyd Young captures the day Boston marked a year since the attack at the Marathon with tragic and uplifting photographs.

The news values evident in this story are entertainment, surprise, bad news, good news, magnitude, relevance and follow-up. As a human interest story it has elements of entertainment. It is simultaneously bad news through the tragedy it documents, and good news through the healing it depicts. The photographs reiterate a sense of surprise by highlighting the calamity that had occurred, and contrasting that with the present anniversary. Much of its significance rests in its relation with the bigger news story of the Bombings, demonstrating its follow-up value. It also has values of magnitude and relevance, as terrorism affects everyone who hears about it and is relevant on an international scale.

The story angle is set on the symbolic events associated with the flag-raising ceremony and moment of silence, suggesting a focus on triumph over adversity. Although melancholy is an overall theme reinforced by images of grief, the story also represents the anniversary positively in the context of unity. Unity is signified by the masses of people at the commemorative ceremony and the ‘Boston Strong’ blue and yellow banners. Moreover, courage and hope is represented in the images of bombing survivors standing at the finish line – creating an uplifting sentiment. Capturing the movements of the masses – their sorrow and healing – evokes compassion and empathy from the audience. The story suggests we should think about the event in terms of strength and resiliency now, exemplifying the ‘Boston Strong’ slogan.

The medium is significant because visuals affect how people perceive a story, correspondingly photographs capture the subtlety of situations whilst creating immediate emotional impact. Moreover, a series of photographs can encompass several themes. For example, one image accentuates the distress experienced, by positioning a crying individual in the centre of the image. In another example, a low, close up shot of shoes reading ‘Boston Strong’ and a prosthetic limb represents the situation in its entirety of despair, heroism, recovery and unity. The visuals provide the experience of the event for the viewer to see for themselves.

Hope you guys enjoyed this post, even though it turned into a essay...I tend to do that a lot, whoops :P

New blog post will be up next Tuesday!

Until then, you can follow me on - 

Instagram 

Tumblr

Pinterest

They're all linked so you should just be able to click on them! :)

Have a great rest of the week!

❤️, Raashi

Follow my blog with Bloglovin