Photo-Journalism is taking photos for publications. It begun in the 30's with the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, in particular his picture of the Decisive Moment.
The Decisive Moment has since become a very well known term in photography, that refers to the perfect moment to take a picture. A split second before or after will make the picture look very different and reduce the impact it has on viewers.
Photo-Journalism was made popular thanks to the invention of the Leica camera which was the world's first portable camera.
When Photo-Journalism first started it was revolutionary, as for the first time in history people were able to take a photo of an event at the time it happened. As fantastic as this was it is still fundamentally flawed, as a picture can only represent one moment in time from a single perspective. The validity of a picture can be questioned even further as the photographer is the gatekeeper of information and can choose which pictures are shown to the public.
As valuable as Photo-Journalism is, since the 20's people have been able to manipulate images and this has become easier as the years have gone by, as technology has become more sophisticated. A large range of photos have been found to be fraudulent. This is unethical, as some fake photos can be very convincing and give viewers a false impression of an event or person. People must always question what they are shown and remain objective in order to know the truth.
Context
Photo-Journalism is used to portray an event at the time that it is happening. The best known examples of this are Robert Capa and Tony Vaccaro. Both of these men took photos of World War II as it happened. Their photos were up close and personal and conveyed to the viewer the violence of war.
Photo-Journalism is still relevent in today's society and while the future of photo-journalism is debatable, it is very much a part of everyday life. It is still employed by many companies as a powerful marketing tool to promote a product or service. Everytime you see a particularly appetising meal on a poster that makes you want to eat it, or a very glamourous looking outfit in a magazine that you want to own, you are being influenced quite purposefully by photo-journalism. Some may say that photo-journalism has lost it's roots as business's use it for corporate purposes rather than to provide hard news but it is still used to convey events to people in the form of pictures in newspapers or online articles. News programmes may use a photo while a news reader informs you of the events that the image portrays and even those who are not particularly media savvy can be pseudo photo-journalists by sending in pictures to TV programmes or websites.
It may only be less that 100 years old but photo-journalism has come a long way. I hope that it continues to have an impact on society.
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