Picturing a free press
By David Rees Posted Oct 1 2004
DAMON WINTER, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS – ISSUE REPORTING PICTURE STORY/NEWSPAPER, AWARD OF EXCELLENCE.
Women waiting in line outside the operating room watch in shock as a patient is wheeled out after having double puncture laparoscoopic tubectomy surgery at a government-sponsored, one-day sterelization camp for poor village women at Shatnagar Hospital in India.
Photo Gallery
Tighter Security and Warnings in Wake of Deadly Blast. Typhoon Leaves 4 Dead. War Casualties Decline Globally. Growth in Asia ‘Cutting Poverty.’
These are the headlines we live with, the stories that resonate from newspapers, television and radio. Yet, their issues might remain an anonymous part of history’s litany of distresses unless we readers, viewers and listeners connect with the story. Visual communication – the pictures – provides a reason to care.
Photographs bring us to the stories of people. We enter their lives through the details, the sense of environment, the interaction and emotions portrayed in the photographs. We are introduced to individual lives. We experience the conflict, the struggle, the joy through the eyes of the people. By showing individual fears or hopes or joy, we, for a moment at least, enter into that life ourselves. Through photographs we are moved to understand stories on an emotional and personal level, framed by the numerical and conceptual analysis of the written story. Through photographs we learn that but for the winds of fate, the misfortune could be ours. A photograph can form a connection between people, enabling a sense of community, of understanding. This is true of international stories as well as national and local ones.
Research conducted more than 10 years ago at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies showed that readers “process” the visual elements on a page at a rate three to four times that of words. Since photographs are read at such a high rate, since they are the initial way in which people will interact with the newspaper, it is imperative that photographs be not only aesthetically pleasing but that they also have something to say.
Photojournalism records events, people’s participation in them, relationship to each other, without interference of manipulation by the photographer.
“Tell truth with a camera,” advised pioneering photojournalism educator Cliff Edom. No credible publication would allow writers to make up facts or contrive quotes for sources; nor should we ask people to do something for the camera or recreate an event. We do not merge photographs to create a different reality; we do not remove or add elements simply to make the photograph more interesting.
Many times, what is difficult if not impossible to convey in the written word, can be shown in a picture. Although censorship and attempts to control information are persistent problems throughout the world, the borderless language of photography offers an immediacy of communication and response. Filtered by governmental bureaucrats or self-censored by editors fearing the consequences, stories are muted or withheld, and photographs may be suppressed.
Sometimes a photograph is “evidence” – of genocide or the existence of conflict or the essential personality of a leader. Other times, it might be the representation of a community’s consciousness – a picture that sums up feelings and events, and which may become an icon – like the flag raising at Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal or Eddie Adams’ photograph of a street execution of a Viet Cong prisoner or an airplane flying into the World Trade Center.
We see thousands of images a day. Often we feel bombarded by television, advertising and online and printed publications. But the image in a news publication is not window-dressing. It is persistent and powerful.
A photograph contributes to a free press because it shows the truth. Toward that end, it is important to bolster our understanding of how visual communication works and to devote resources to photographers who create the daily visual report. It is increasingly important to recognize that photographers and photo editors must be educated professionals. We must recognize that newspaper and magazine design should factor in the importance of photography for its journalistic visual content and to have increasingly high expectations for the content and integrity of the photograph.
We must not discount the power of the photograph and its tremendous influence on a free press. The image that we see first stays with us the longest.
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Pictures of the Year International seeks to recognize outstanding photojournalism. Now in its 62nd year, nearly 2,000 photographers from all over the world will enter a total of more than 25,000 pictures, newspaper pages, magazine spreads, books and websites to be judged by a dozen jurors over 15 days of judging. The 45 categories of POYi represent the incredible diversity and importance of documentary photojournalism.
POYi is conducted annually to recognize excellence in photojournalism by honoring press photographers, editors and the institutions where they are employed. Publications noted for their outstanding use of photographs have inspired rethinking and redesign at other media outlets. POYi has supported the profession by providing leadership in establishing a standard of excellence. Winning images from POYi have challenged photographers across the globe to push themselves to see more critically.
Winning images from the past five years, as well as this year’s call for entries for POYi, are found online at www.poyi.org.