Photojournalism

Photojournalism is a branch of the field of journalism that uses images to tell a story. The images in a photojournalism piece might be accompanied with explanatory text, or shown independently with only the photo to tell the story of what happened. There have been many famous photojournalists over the years. Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and Tony Vaccaro are just a few of the famous ones. The only problem with taking photos is that they can be faked, staged or even taken at a certain angle which might bend the truth in order to make it appear as-if something else is happening. Another problem is that photos taken in scenarios of war can be very one sided, for example you might only see photos taken by your countries photographers in a war and only see the effect the war is having on our soldiers and not the other countries or faction that is involved.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born in ‘Chanteloup-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne,’ in France and was the oldest of five children. Bresson was very famous due to his technique of setting up a shot and waiting for something to happen, this could be anything from a person jumping over a puddle to another cycling down a road. He would make sure he had his camera set up in a dynamic position, for example it could be as simple as a low angel or as interesting as a high angel from a set of stairs. This technique of Bresson’s came to be known as the ‘Decisive Moment’ as the timing of these photos had to be perfect.

Bresson first aspired to become a photographer after seeing a photo taken by a famous photojournalist by the name of ‘Martin Munkacsi.’ The photo showed three naked young African boys, caught in near-silhouette, running into the surf of Lake Tanganyika. Titled Three Boys at Lake Tanganyika, this captured the freedom, grace and spontaneity of their movement and their joy at being alive. Bresson said “The only thing which completely was an amazement to me and brought me to photography was the work of Munkacsi. When I saw the photograph … I couldn't believe such a thing could be caught with the camera. I took my camera and went out into the street."

Bresson’s camera was the ‘Lieca,’ this type of camera was unique as it allowed more visibility when using. The viewfinder was on the left side of the back of the camera rather than the conventional ‘centre’ viewfinder. This meant while your right eye was looking through the view finder, your left eye was free to look around your surroundings instead of being blocked by the back of the camera. This stopped the problem of ‘Tunnel vision’ which means that your vision was no longer restricted due to the viewfinder.

Robert Capa

Robert Capa was born as Endre Friedmann on October 22, 1913 in Budapest, Hungary. He coved many wars including the course of World War II in London, North Africa, Italy, the Battle of Normandy on Omaha Beach and even the liberation of Paris. Unlike Bresson, Capa had been given assignments to take photographs for ‘Life’ magazine. He was quite famous due to his action photographs that portray the violence of war with unique impact; one such example was the photos he took during the 1944 Normandy invasion.

Capa originally wanted to be a writer; however, he found work in photography in Berlin and grew to love the art. In 1933, he moved from Germany to France due to the rise of the Nazis but found it difficult to find work there as a freelance journalist. He then decided to go by the name "Robert Capa" around this time. Capa's first published photograph was that of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagen on "The Meaning of the Russian Revolution" in 1932 show below.

Capa was most famous for his photos of the Omaha beaches on D-day, 1944. Capa was amidst all of the chaos, on the Americans side, taking pictures of the shear carnage and devastation of the battlefield. It was only a few days later his photos made it to ‘Life’ magazine to be developed, unfortunately due to a mess up when developing most of the films containing the photographs were burned in the oven. Because of this only 11 out of the 106 pictures made it to be published.

Tony Vaccaro

Tony Vaccaro was born on the 20^th of December 1922. Also known as Michael A. Vaccaro, he is an American photographer who is best known for his photos taken in Europe during 1944 and 1945 and in Germany immediately after World War II.

Vaccaro fought in WWII as a solider between 1944 and 1945. His job as a scout left him with enough free time during the day to shoot photos of his war torn surroundings. During this time Vaccaro took many pictures of how the war affected both the enemy Germans and the Allied forces, however most of his pictures of the allied forces in pain or dead where destroyed as the American army believed that America wasn’t ready to see the pain and suffering that their troops had to go through. Because of this, we now can’t see many of the photos Vaccaro took. However, due to the determination he had, Vaccaro produced an astonishing collection of over 3000 combat images from Normandy through Berlin.

In the photograph above we can see Vaccaro sitting on the wing of a WWII allied B-17 bomber plane. In his hand is an Argus C-3 camera, though this camera was a rather amateur model it had one invaluable quality: it was almost indestructible. Taking photographs while entering potentially deadly combat situations would require a dexterous balancing act: with his rifle crooked prone on his arm, he would snap a frame, let the camera drop to the strap round his neck, and quickly move on. Some negatives were damaged as a result of the harsh conditions he found himself in, and many show water marks and stains suffered in the field. However, these imperfections only make the resulting photographs more intense.

The challenges he faced included a shortage of 35mm film and no darkrooms on the battlefield. So Vaccaro had to improvise. In Germany, whenever his regiment entered a town, he went to the nearest camera shop or pharmacy and took whatever photography equipment he required. Vaccaro also develop his images in a very improvised way, at night he would pour the developer into a borrowed helmet while his own was used for the fixing chemical that preserves the negatives – a fiddly, frustrating procedure, often resulting in spilled chemicals and compromised photos.

My information has been sourced from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Cartier-Bresson

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1318621

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/may/13/robert-capa-gerda-taro-relationship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Vaccaro

http://lostandfoundimages.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/tony-vaccaro.html

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/arts-entertainment/finding-hope-in-the-depths-of-war-58346.html