Photojournalism

PHOTOJOURNALISM’S CREATIVE INDUSTRIE

In this essay I shall be discussing Photojournalism, focusing mainly on its development in the UK.

The following are some important milestones in the history of photojournalism:
Mathew B. Brady (1822 -1896) was one of the pioneers in the field of photojournalism. Whilst at the peak of his successful career as a portrait photographer, he turned hisattention to the Civil War. His aim being to document the war on a grand scale, he organised a body of photographers to follow the troops in the battlefield. (The library of congress, 1997. www)
Mathew Brady did not actually take many of the Civil War photographs subsequently attributed to him. His role was akin to that of a project manager, and he spent most of his time supervising his body ofitinerant photographers, keeping their images and buying more from private photographers recently returned from the battlefield, so that his collection would be exhaustive. (The library of congress, 1997. www)
In 1862, Brady shocked America by displaying his images of corpses from the battlefield at Antietam, Maryland on 17 September 1862. The sign on the door of his New York gallery read, "The Deadof Antietam." Before this exhibition, most people had never had the opportunity to witness the carnage wreaked by war. The New York Times said that Brady had brought "home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war." (The library of congress, 1997. www)
Jimmy Hare (1856-1946) was an English photojournalist who throughout his career covered nearly every major world event, including thewreckage of the U.S. battle ship Maine in the harbor at Havana (17 October 1888), the Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905), the Mexican Revolution (20 November 1910), the first Balkan war (8 September 1912–30 May 1913) and much of World War I across Europe between 28 July 1914 and 11 November 1918. Another important success was covered by Hare, namely the first photograph of a planein flight in North Carolina on 30 May 1908. (Kenneth, 1991)
``Life´´, the first-ever large format picture magazine appeared in 1930, thereby establishing a revolutionary format which expanded the scope of photojournalism and redefined common perception and observation. During the years following its inception, Life gained something of a reputation forsensationalist images. The subsequent marked increase circulation – within the first two years Life had achieved a hitherto unprecedented circulation of 16 million per issue - convinced other publishers to found their own versions of picture magazines. This sudden proliferation of picture magazines which commenced in 1936 and continued throughout the 40s and 50s before the preponderance of television has ledsome historians to dub these years the “golden age of photojournalism”. (Kenneth, 1991)

The Present day:
Figures released by the International News Safety Institute (INSI) confirm that over the past year 97 reporters were killed in 30 different countries, 85 of them murdered. Surprisingly, the majority of these were not foreign correspondents but rather journalistsworking in their own countries investigating domestic issues such as corruption. In 2009, the previous year, the total - 133 - was significantly higher, but this included the slaughter of 32 journalists in the Philippines. To quote INSI director Rodney Pinder, "The sustained level of casualties remains unacceptably high. . .It is a terrible price to pay for our news. (The Guardian, 2011. www)
"According to the same report - “Killing the Messenger” - released by INSI, under twenty per cent of such killers are ever brought to Justice. Deaths of journalists in the years 1996-2007 have averaged 91 per year, peaking at 149 in 2005 and reaching their lowest in 2000 and 2006, in both of which years 66 such deaths were recorded. (Pinder, 2006. www)
Tim Hetherington (1970 –2011) was a British...