Lucas presentation about photojournalism

1. PHOTOJOURNALISM
Chisinow – 28 of November, 2010

2. PARTICULARITY
 Photo + Journalism : Take a picture in order to
report an event or to tell a story
 Differences with other photography (artistic and
documentary ones) :
 Timeliness/well-timed : The image makes sense in the
context of an event, in our time
 Narrative : It shows facts relatable to a particular event
and subject
 Obejectivity : As a journalist, the photojournalist shows a
fair representation of reality. To moderate ?

3. DIFFERENT KIND OF
PHOTOJOURNALISM
 War photography
 Illustration photography For agencies (AFP,
Reuters…). Often only one at the end
 "Investigative reports"
 "Geo","Nature" reports. Often landscapes, nice
pictures to let you escape
Photojournalisme is often linked to war photography, but that’s not all

4. CAPTION
 Goal: Report what may be ambigious in the
photography
 Tell another thing than the only picture
 A good caption should include « the 5W’s rule »
(Who, where, when, what, why). Exceptions

5. Bad caption : A curly hair guy,
shooting a wall.
Better caption : Peo Gaumin,
participant of Chisinow photo
workshop, shooting an abandonned
building of Chisinau. On 7th
November, the theme of the workshop
was « Architecture ».

6. RULES
 Artistic/compositions rules
 Tell the truth, don’t modify your pictures
 Don’t invente informations in your caption
 If there is an ambiguity in your picture, undo it in the caption
 Talk to the person you shoot, quote him in the caption
 Do not put two times the same subject/picure in the same report
 Prepare your work : at least, think about some of the pictures you
need for your report. If you have time, start going at the place you’ll
do your report without camera, to speak with people in a more
confortable way
 But after all, rules are sometimes here to be forget, originality can
make a report good

7. WHICH SUBJECT DO I CHOOSE ?
 If you want your photoreport to be published,
choose someting actual
 An event
 Find an "excuse" to make it actual
 Without this obligation, everyting is a subject
 A place
 A person
 A working occupation
 …

8. INTERNET POSSIBILITIES
 Photographers are not limited to magazines no
more
 Huge reports with 50 pictures or more
 Big pictures on the all screen
 Easy to edit yourself, making a blog/flickr/picasa
album
 Web documentary
 Pictures with sounds, videos, texts… New
possibilities

9. LET’S WATCH SOME REPORTS
Elections in Burma :
http://www.panos.co.uk/stories/2-13-1178-1684/Adam-Dean/Election-Week-in-Bu
Women at War : http://www.viiphoto.com/showstory.php?nID=1196
Bangkok : la vie sous l’autoroute :
http://www.collectifargos.com/Bangkok---la-vie-sous-l-autoroute,1,279,1

10. BIBLIOGRAPHIE
 A Brief History of Photography and Photojournalism :
http://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~rcollins/242photojournalism/historyofphotography.html
 Reports about Moldova and Transnistria:
http://tomasvanhoutryve.com/reportage/moldova/moldova_slide01.html
http://tomasvanhoutryve.com/reportage/moldova/transnistria_slide01.html
 A photojournalist approach to writing your caption : http://news.deviantart.com/article/24929/
 Some webdocumentaries:
http://www.honkytonk.fr/index.php/webdoc/
http://prisonvalley.arte.tv/?lang=en
http://www.thanatorama.com/
 Interesting websites:
http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/
http://picturetank.com/
http://www.panos.co.uk/
http://www.viiphoto.com/
http://www.collectifargos.com/
Short film “One hundred of a second”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7467000047467727357#
(in Russian : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhH5iD1TzoI&feature=related )
War Photographer, a film by Christian Frei et James Nachtwey, 2001, 96‘.

11. SUMMARY FOR TODAY REPORT
 Think about the global report
 Choose different kind of pictures
 Some billboards/campaing posters
 A portrait of a voter
 A portrait of a non-voter
 A polling station (post office)
 People entering a polling station
 Buildings of political parties
 Events organised by political parties
 … (there are hundreds of subjects  )
 Take some notes, if you need, to make better
captions