Skip to main content

History of Photojournalism

 Photojournalism had its birth in conflicts and war.

Study the PDF below (for academic use only)

History of Photojournalism PDF

The first photograph to be used in illustration of a newspaper story was a depiction of barricades in Paris during the June Days uprising, on 25 June 1848. The photo was published as an engraving in L'Illustration, 1–8 July 1848.

During the Crimean War in 1855, the British Government hired the photographer Roger Fenton to document the war. People like him were called as Campaign Photographers. The First Photojournalism Series was by Roger Fenton during Crimean war, 1855.

Roger Fenton can be described as the first war photographer. Roger Fenton didn’t show the cruelties of war but everything around it. It was not just because of the technical limitations of his equipment. The British Government didn’t hire Roger Fenton to simply document the war, but to portray it in a positive and romantic way. The first complete series in the history of photojournalism was for propaganda. With the positive photographs of Roger Fenton, Govt wanted to distract from mismanagement and paint a positive image of the Crimean War.

The American Civil War, attracted a lot more photographers making it the most photographed historic event of the 19th century. Mathew Brady was the most prominent photojournalist of the American Civil War. Thanks to the many photojournalists, the general population witnessed the reality and cruelty of warfare for the first time. Newspapers had no choice but to show, that war is not the romantic fight, but suffering on every front.

Up till now photojournalism was only war/conflict/tragedy photographs. The printing of images in newspapers was rare. John Thomson, in the 1870s, in collaboration with the radical journalist Adolphe Smith, began publishing a monthly magazine, Street Life in London, from 1876 to 1877. The project documented the lives of the street people of London and established social documentary photography as a form of photojournalism. Instead of the images acting as a supplement to the text, he pioneered the use of printed photographs as the predominant medium for the imparting of information.

Influenced by technological advances, photography became more dynamic and versatile. Thanks to the introduction of flashes, Jacob Riis had the option to photograph inside of buildings and wasn’t forced to photograph outside anymore. Jacob Riis photographing the poor of New York made a very powerful social documentary, and had a direct impact on the living conditions of the citizens in New York. Photojournalism can become very influential.

Arrival of the 35mm film compact Camera, 1925. This camera allowed the photographer to be more flexible and be more in the middle of the action. They could move quickly to action-packed scenes. The new Leica gave them a lot more freedom and opened up the modern approach to photojournalism. For the first time it was possible to create truly candid photographs and display the life on the street or on battle field as it really is, instead of having people to stand steady for a posed photograph.

The GOLDEN AGE of Photojournalism, 1930s to 1950s 

Many factors made it the golden age: compact commercial 35mm Leica camera in 1925; introduction of the flash bulb 1927-30; quality illustrated magazines; founding of agencies like the Magnum (1947), and emergence of famous photographers such as Henri-Cartier Bresson, Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene-Smith, Dorothea Lange.

history of photojournalism in detail
Photojournalism

Magnum Photos was founded: in 1947, the most influential photojournalism agency of the 20th century has been founded. The photographers Robert Capa, David Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, and William Vandivert founded Magnum in Paris. Magnum Photos has visually documented most of the world's major events and personalities since the 1930s covering society, politics, events and conflict.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Visual Analysis: SEMIOTICS

 Visual analysis is a systematic and scientific approach to examining visual materials that goes far beyond casual observation.  In our visually saturated world, images have become a inescapable universal language that shapes our perceptions, attitudes, and experiences. From the artworks adorning gallery walls to the advertisements lining city streets, visuals communicate narratives, evoke emotions, and reflect sociocultural ideologies. However, the process of seeing and interpreting visuals is not as spontaneous or natural as we often assume. As John Berger notably stated, "seeing is an active decision," suggesting that the process of interpreting visuals is neither spontaneous nor natural, but rather requires conscious effort and critical thinking. The way we perceive and interpret visual content is heavily influenced by habits, conventions, and our individual perspectives.  Serious visual analyses requires conscious effort and critical analysis to unravel the laye...

Sigmund Freud on Creative Writing and Day-Dreaming

 Freud in his essay, Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming, explores the psychological origins of artistic creativity and the impact of literature on readers. He draws parallels between the imaginative activity of creative writers and the day-dreaming of ordinary people. It is a discussion about the relationship between creative art and unconscious phantasy. In it, Freud talks about the role of daydreaming and fantasy in human behaviour, and how creative writers are able to express their daydreams without shame or self-reproach. Read the essay below (for academic use only) Creative Writers and Day Dreaming PDF Freud argues that the child's play and the adult's phantasies/daydreams share a common element—the desire to alter an unsatisfactory reality and fulfil unfulfilled wishes. The creative writer is like a successful daydreamer who is able to transform their private fantasies into works that provide pleasure to the audience. Freud suggests that the writer's choice of subject...

Visual Analysis: INTRODUCTION

 Visual analysis is a systematic and scientific examination of visual materials that explores their communicative meaning, aesthetic qualities, and functional impact. As Susan Sontag noted, humans tend to linger in "mere images of the truth," making it crucial to develop a deeper understanding of visual interpretation. Study the PDF below (for academic use only) Introduction to Visual Analysis PDF The Nature of Seeing: The process of seeing is not as spontaneous or natural as commonly believed. According to John Berger, our way of seeing art has historically been influenced by privileged minorities to maintain social and economic dominance. Visual perception requires conscious effort and is heavily influenced by habits and conventions. The visual faculty consumes approximately two-third of a person’s used energy, highlighting its significance in human experience. The Framework of Visual Analysis: Visual analysis could be traced back to communication models, for example, Har...

Early History of Cinema

 The late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed the birth and rapid evolution of cinema as a new artistic and technological medium. Lets us examine the key innovations, pioneers, and early milestones that shaped the beginnings of cinema, from its precursors in motion photography to the establishment of narrative filmmaking techniques. Study the PDF below (for academic use only) History of Cinema PDF The foundations of cinema can be traced to experiments in capturing and displaying motion through photography. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge's groundbreaking "The Horse in Motion" used multiple cameras to decompose the movement of a galloping horse into a sequence of still images. This technique presaged the fundamental principle of cinema - the illusion of motion created by rapidly displaying a series of static images. A pivotal moment came in 1888 with Louis Le Prince's "Roundhay Garden Scene." At just 2.11 seconds long, it is recognised by the Guinness Book of...

2025 Must Create Its Own Art

 Tonight’s art becomes inadequate
and useless when the sun rises in
the morning. The mistake lies not in creating art for tonight, but in assuming tonight’s answers will serve tomorrow’s questions. Louise Bourgeois, a French American artist, reflected, “art is a guaranty of sanity;” but that guarantee must be renewed with each dawn, each cultural shift, and
each evolution of human consciousness. If some art endures through generations, it
is only because of its capacity to speak, its ability to demand fresh interpretations that test and challenge the new. To guarantee sanity in the coming year, 2025 must create
its own art. Why create art? Why watch art? Why read literature? True art, in the words of Sunil P Ilayidam, shakes that which is rigid and unchangeable. Art serves as humanity’s persistent earthquake, destabilising comfortable certainties and creating space
for new ways of seeing, thinking, and being
in the world. An artist’s duty is to reflect the times, and we see this in...

Sound Recording for Films: A Crucial Element of Cinematic Storytelling

 Sound recording is a fundamental aspect of filmmaking that significantly contributes to the overall cinematic experience. It is the process of capturing and recording audio elements that complement the on-screen visuals. These audio elements form the foundation for creating an immersive auditory experience that enhances the film's storytelling and emotional impact. Study the PDF below (for academic use only) Sound Recording for Films PDF The components of a film's soundscape are diverse and multifaceted. They include dialogues , which are the actors' spoken lines recorded on set or dubbed later; Foley sounds, which represent the actors' interactions with their surroundings and add authenticity to scenes; ambient sound, which creates a subtle background soundscape to transport the audience to the film's environment; music or score, which evokes emotion and enhances the narrative; and sound effects , which augment the film's realism and atmosphere. To capture ...

The Brown Sisters: A Four-Decade Portrait of Time and Sisterhood

 Nicholas Nixon's "The Brown Sisters" stands as one of photography's most compelling longitudinal portrait studies, documenting four decades of sisterhood through annual black-and-white photographs taken from 1975 to 2014. Using an 8×10 inch view camera, Nixon captured his wife Bebe and her three sisters—Heather, Mimi, and Laurie Brown—in the same order each year, creating a remarkable visual meditation on time, aging, and familial bonds. For the full set of images see the PDF below (for academic use only) Forty Portraits in Forty Years PDF What began as a spontaneous family photograph in 1975 evolved into a profound artistic documentation of human transformation. The project's strength lies in its methodological consistency: the sisters maintain their positions, with the sequence remaining unchanged throughout the series. This rigid framework paradoxically highlights the subtle changes that occur year by year, creating a powerful commentary on the passage of time...