Photography in Journalism

For many people in today’s busy society, the concept of a picture being worth a thousand words is often taken literally – most online news sites cater for audiences who are searching for ‘quick news’, placing emphasis on photographs to tell a full news story. Despite this, the introduction of photography to news is fairly recent, with the first ever news photograph being published in 1908, in New York (below). Shortly after in 1939, the Scottish Daily produced the first ever colour news photograph.  

So how come photojournalism has come so far, so fast? 

The answer for that lies in the convergence of media, with news going from a print-only source, to being on television, and then onto online news sites. A large majority of contemporary audiences consume news on the run, with news being displayed on their smartphones or tablets – this busyness has placed importance on the ability for an image to convey an entire story. 

With news going onto mobile devices, photojournalists have gone from using cameras to capture their images to using cellular telephones and tablets – while this allows for images to be captured quickly; it does not produce high-quality photographs, which are often sought after by news consumers. 

Another issue with photographs being taken with instruments other than cameras is that a disregard for photographic conventions is prevalent. A good quality photograph must follow several composition conventions, including:  

·         rule of thirds

·         framing

·         leading lines

·         negative/positive space

By following these conventions carefully, any novice photographer can transform their not-so-bad photographs into newspaper-worthy shots.