Marc Silber, of Advancing Your Photography, sits down with three renowned photojournalists to talk about the stories behind some of their incredible images and how they approach their craft.
With many traditionalists decrying new media's dilution of the art of photojournalism, it might be worth just sitting back and taking note that there's still room for and a need for talented documentary and reportage photographers. At the core of many photojournalists is the desire to tell the stories of those with no voices. many of whom often get lost in the bombardment of information from a larger narrative. It's no coincidence then that all the images shown in this video are from conflicts or situations that have arisen due to conflict.
While new media's coverage of such horrors has brought us unprecedented amounts of information and access — some of which is either very difficult or impossible to corroborate — much of it lacks proper context or visual narrative, as it is literally just documentation. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, the imagery can often be forgettable. Why can that be a problem? Powerful images have longevity — they are burned into our minds, forcing us to think more about a subject.
I think a phrase uttered by Vincent Laforet sums up perfectly the difference between how a photojournalist approaches a story versus an amateur or citizen journalist:
It's less about the pictures you take and more about the pictures you don't take.
Links to the photographers in the video:
