A picture, an image, a photo, a print and a shot, they have all developed. They have moved presidents, started wars and riots, and created peace and Love.
An image stops the present and carries it into the future. An image taken in the past can be present and even future.
Photography is to let one single eye share what it sees with thousands of other eyes.
This is a Manifest of the future of photo journalism.
Photojournalism has for too long been a “pop-word” that has had it stars, but lost more and more of its meaning. Photojournalism is take describe a story, to tell a story, to share the world through as many means as possible. Photojournalism is the art of throwing many balls in the air and let them float in a perfect pattern.
I have written eight points that all together marks out the Future of Photojournalism:
1) The World Wide Web is created only few years ago and long after the invention of the photography. The television changed the way that photographer looked at themselves, especially in the area of photojournalism, now they have to do it again. The world is moving so fast and if you are not on the train now, you will fall far behind. Podcast, webcams, blogs is just some of the ways. A photo is always combined with a story, the story has to be told before the photo makes the perfect pattern and that is where the internet is a big help. The long personal and subjective stories can be told there, stories there cannot be told in magazines and newspapers. With the World Wide Web, the photojournalist can reach around the whole world with the images he finds the best, and not the images that the photo editor finds the best.
2) Unfortunately black and white photos has been seen as the greatest way to make a picture more “deep”, “sophisticated” or “artistic”. The trend is especially clear from war zones and catastrophic areas, where the blood and tears are floating.
The world is seen and lived in colours, therefore a photo should also be in colours. It is often too easy for a photographer to think in black & white, because it moves one layer away from the story. If one wants a black & white picture, then find the scenario where the colours are black & white. Piccasso, Matisse, Van Gogh were all great artist because they knew how to combine colours perfectly so they became a candy for the eye. Likewise must the photojournalist do, combine the colours to make it look perfect. It is not an easy task and it shouldn’t be.
3) Robert Capa lost many of his pictures from the D-Day because of human failure. The mistake could not have happened in a modern world today. He would have been shooting with digital and there would have been plenty of ways to make a “back-up” of the pictures. The digital world makes it “safer” to take the good picture. You can take plenty of them, see them at the same time and edit them on the battlefield. Still we have to remember one thing. The reason why Capa’s pictures from the D-Day are so amazing is because they are authentic. They are slightly out of focus.
Photoshop has done too much damage to the Good Photographer, now one can be a semi-good, maybe just daring, photographer and spend 2 hours taking the pictures and 3 hours making them look good. The dangerous aspect of editing the pictures is: Where do we stop. When does the photojournalism become a way of “propaganda” and not reality anymore?
The times they are changing and we have to follow the change, still we don’t have to destroy the art. Da Vinci didn’t spend 10 hours painting Mona Lisa and afterwards 10 hours editing her on a computer. Photojournalism is reality without a cover.
4) Everyone has easy access to cameras today. In the cell phone or in the pocket, everyone can take a picture at any time today. So, what makes photojournalists special? Why should they have license to “shoot”? Skills and talent is one thing, another thing is knowledge. You cannot be a journalist in three years; it takes knowledge about one area. In today’s globalize world a photojournalist should know what he is taking pictures of. A photojournalist tells a story with the images he takes, hence he should know the story he is describing. Reading a book about the Middleeast, China or Central America doesn’t make you into an expert. Living in the country, speaking the languages, knowing the religion and cultures makes a photojournalist knowledgeable enough to describe the stories.
A photojournalist has a lot of power and the power should be used with thought. A photojournalist is not only responsible for a lot of newspapers should be sold; furthermore he is responsible for the people which story he is describing.
5) A photojournalist is not only taking one picture for the newspaper. He or she is describing a story. An image needs a story, small or big, that doesn’t matter, as long as it is a story. There is always more than one layer to a story; therefore the stories in the story should be taken as well.
6) It is no secret that opposite attracts. If a person or a place looks exotic or different from our own college, then it is interesting and fascinating. The challenge for the photojournalist is not to go to “The heart of Darkness” and take a good picture, the challenge is to go to next door and take the good and interesting picture. To show the differences in our neighbour, however also to show the similarities in the people living far away.
7) Neutral in action but not in expression. This line should be the only rule for a photojournalist. The photographer should not try to prevent what he sees; he should just be the fly on the world. However, a objective journalist doesn’t have a story to tell. Photojournalist must be subjective, because as I wrote earlier, they are knowledgeable about the subject and they don’t edit too much in the pictures. They must be subject because they have seen the things happen, they know the past and they show the pictures of what happened in the moment. The media, and especially the photojournalists, should be the reminder to all politicians and criminals that someone is watching them.
8) A photojournalist should be able to challenge him/herself all the time. A photojournalist tries to understand the society and is not afraid of taking great risks. A photojournalist should be able to take pictures from a war zone one week and the next week he or she should be able to take pictures from a modelling show in Rome or from a kindergarten in Bergen. It is a challenge not always to take the same pictures; a photojournalist must take this challenge and in that way develop him or herself.
This maybe sound like an impossible manifest to live up to, no one is so good. Still, the world needs the few and the best for such a job as photojournalism. The fast and short news are a lot more popular today and the photojournalist has to show the alternative, has to show the long and complicated story. And he or she has to be the best in doing there. A photojournalist is a lone person.
