Photo Journalism part 1

What is photo journalism?
Photo journalism is the use of photo's to tell a story about a event that focus' on a certain aspect of it to tell a narrative of the event it's self , they can be used on their own or along side a story and can be used to support a news. It's used in newspapers, magazines and on the internet.


Henri Cartier Bresson

Bresson is known as the "god father" of photo journalism as he transformed the face of photography by being one of the first photographers to record everyday life events without anyone "posing" (although current photographers argue the fact). Bresson was known for he's perfect timing on he's images, he knew where and when they best photos could be captured and would wait until the time was right to take the photos. One of he's famous photographs is a man jumping over a puddle, this as a decisive moment that he captured, the photography was called "Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare" and shows a silhouette jumping of a scrap piece of wood into a deep puddle. I believe the photo demonstrates the use of reflections. 







Robert Capa

D Day landings 6th June 1944

Robert Capa was a photojournalist, he was hired by 'Life Magazine' he covered 5 different wars but his most famous photographs were taken in 1944 (D Day) when he assisted in the second wave on Omaha Beach, where there was a fault in the dark room, and he lost 3 and a half rolls of photographs and only 11 frames were recovered.  He was known for capturing the moment, and he had 2 rules for his photography, 1. Get close and 2. Get closer. Capa famously said that, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”. He risked his life to inform people of what was going on in the wars, He was considered one of the worlds 'greatest war photographers' as he's images captured reality. He unfortunately died at the age of 41 as a result of going into the war zones.




Tony Vaccaro


Tony Vaccaro was a soldier and recorded the war from a soliders point of view, he would carry a Gun and a camera with him, he used the Agra C3 to take the photographs. He always carried his camera with him whilst on the field, he took many shocking photographs of the war and was often taking images whilst being shot at, he risked his own life to take the images in the most dangerous situations. Some of his images were damaged in the harsh conditions of the war, he had to improvise when developing the images, he done them his self, which was a complicated and usually ended up damaging the photos with chemicals. He sent his images home to his sister but was confiscated by the military censor and were never recovered. He had a talent of capturing a moment if it's joyful or devastating, Vaccaro was able to capture them. He was more interested in capturing the image, rather than surviving.



Eddie Adams

Eddie Adams was an American photographer known for his work of portraits of Celebrities and politicians, but also for his war photography of 13 different wars. He is well known for his image he took in The Vietnam War, 'The Execution', which was one of the most iconic pictures of the war, it showed a man being shot by the Vietnamese general. The image was a shock to the entire world and Eddie Adams says to have 'regretted' taking the image since. It had a massive effect on Americans, people who were against war changed their minds and the photograph was not put in context and was used as propaganda to influence war, it was used to remind people who they are fighting and why they are.