Photojournalism : Introduction
Journalism is a broad field with various specializations like sports, film
and television, photo, print etc. Of these, one of the leading streams today is
photojournalism. It is an integral part of journalism as photographs play a
vital role in depicting events. Initially, the term 'photojournalism' was
restricted to still photography, but its scope has now widened and photo
journalists even shoot videos to come up with a good news item/ feature.
Photojournalism involves application of photography skills and aesthetics to
the area of news reporting and journalism. In other words, it is the practice of
creating images in order to tell a news story. It includes collecting, editing
and presenting of news material (pictures) for publication or broadcast to the
news media like newspapers, magazines, television channels, websites and other
journals. At times, a single photograph can convey a news story of thousand
words. It is the skill of the photojournalist to take photos with such impact.
Photojournalists are visual reporters who click photographs at events that
makes news. He is a photographer who is able to tell a story with pictures, or
contribute pictures to compliment a news story. Photo journalists may work side
by side with a reporter to decide which photographs will accompany an article.
A journalist can write about an event or news, as elaborately or in a highly
emotional manner as possible, but if it is accompanied by a photograph the
subject matter is much communicable to the readers or viewers than a news
without images. That explains the worth of photographs in news reporting.
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