History of Photojournalism

  Photo by Madeline Jacyszn, 10/23/23   Photo by Madeline Jacyszn, 10/23/23 Photo by Madeline Jacyszn, 10/23/23 This is a pop-up collage displaying the effects of red-tagging on photojournalists. Red-tagging is when a journalist has been branded as a member or an associate of an enemy party of the government, leading to blacklisting and harassment of the journalist in the hopes of stifling their work. This topic is of interest to me because red-tagging is a problem in the Philippines, my mom’s country, where photojournalists will be branded as terrorists or communists so the government has a public excuse to kill them. It is also particularly insidious for photojournalists due to economic circumstances, since the job market is still recovering from the pandemic and Filipino photojournalists must contend with lacking compensation for their work. Specifically, my collage is depicting a photojournalist who is being hunted after being red-tagged, as shown by the red paper I used t...

 Innovation is inevitable, and the field of photojournalism is no exception. The advancements in general photography made in the pre-digital age were mainly characterized by making the camera sleeker, the process to develop pictures less cumbersome, and expanding the range of subjects a camera was able to capture. What this meant for the field of photojournalism specifically was that the ability to be at least a citizen photojournalist was increasingly accessible, and all photojournalists enjoyed the benefits of more streamlined equipment with expanded abilities that allowed them to cover more dynamic events. However, this is not to imply that innovation in this field stopped once it moved to the digital age. If anything, it merely shifted because there was another element to contend with: computers. Uploading photographs to a computer through various methods is a more modern focus for camera innovation compared to the advancements in the pre-digital age, but given the high degree ...

Photo by Charles Shepherd, 1865 Background compliments composition - The background as well as the magicians in the foreground are very symmetrical, while the dancer is asymmetrical. She is off-center and caught in an asymmetrical pose while surrounded by the very symmetrical elements of the two columns and the bits of wall behind them. It creates another level of contrast beyond just values, because the eye is also drawn to the contrast of the asymmetry of the dancer against such a symmetrical background. The elements of the columns and how the dancer is still caught within them also creates a framing effect that's better suited to be discussed in use of lines but is still relevant here. Use of lines - The lines the columns in the background make almost perfectly splits the photograph into vertical thirds. While the main subject, the dancer, is not quite on one of the vertical third lines created by the columns, her left arm is which helps guide the eye to the rest of her. The par...