History and photojournalism

This photo of a baseball player popping some bubble gum reminded me of Tateh's silhouettes. Sanchez says that the silhouettes are full of empty space that can be interpreted however the viewer sees fit. Here, the editing gives the photo a crisp black and white look and draws your eye towards the bubble.  (Source: Michael Holahan)

One of the panel presentations given on Ragtime talked about  Jesús Sánchez's article "Doctorow's Ragtime: A Breach in the Frame of History." In this article, one of the many things that he discusses is the use of photography and images to define the past, and how those also are limited just like textual histories. 

"Texts, as well as pictures, construct an alternative world which will never reach the referential realm, since they are based on the absence of that which they seek to represent. [...] Besides their inherent failure as truthful representations, the history captured in the pictures, silhouettes and moving pictures is further confined by the unidirectionality of the artist's perspective."

I haven't quite figured out what Sánchez means by pictures being based on an absence of what they seek to represent, but I do see many comparisons between historical narrative and photojournalism--both share artistic qualities and limitations as a form of information. I've spent a while trying to think about how postmodernists would criticize photojournalism as a form of historical documentation, and basically what I've discovered is that photojournalism is just another form of narrative.

Sánchez points out that both textual narratives and photographic narratives are told with the artist's perspective or worldview. He says that this is what is so troubling to Theodor Dreiser in Ragtime is his search to find the perfect angle at which to view the world, and so he constantly turns in his chair longing for new perspective. Photojournalists and historians are also constantly turning like Dreiser--looking for new perspectives and ideas through which to view the past and the present. Narratives are limited by an artist's worldview, but this perspective is always changing. 

The photographer had to anticipate
this man's fire breathing so that they
could take the picture at just the right
moment (Source: Sanjeev Syal)

When you have a camera in your hand, you have to be constantly physically turning around. You have to see the action before it happens so that you can capture crucial moments on camera. It is these moments of action--from the brief flickers of emotion on someone's face, to the winning score in a sports event--that will tell the story. The entire point of photojournalism is to create a pictorial narrative of current events throughout the world. Whenever I was assigned on a photo project I would ask myself "what is the story I am trying to tell?" When you go into a project with a specific vision for what kind of story you want to tell, then you can focus on taking pictures that will support that narrative. You can anticipate what kind of shots you will need. Or, alternatively, you can take thousands of pictures, and then in editing fit several into a story and a coherent photo essay. Either way, successful photojournalists give meaning to their work by telling stories with sets of pictures, much like how historians give meaning to primary sources through narration and analyzation.

Here, the lines created by the praying
people draw your eye to the blocked 
traffic, giving a sense of how important
religion is to these people if they stop
in the middle of the road just to pray at
the right time (Source: Probal Rashid).

Similar to the historical fiction novel, photojournalism is an art that uses creativity to present a story, and sometimes it's this creativity that makes the message more powerful. Photographers use lines, patterns, colors, and the rule of thirds to frame images in such a way to draw your eye in a path on the photograph. The message of a certain picture can be changed or emphasized by a simple crop edit. The way that the photos are edited and framed help the viewer see what kind of story the photographer is trying to tell, much like metaphors and other writing techniques are used in historical novels.

In this picture your eye immediatly
goes to the face of Obama which is 
set in the rule of thirds, and then you 
see that the background is a picture of
a deindustrializing  American town.
The irony of this photo in that Obama
ran his campaign on the slogan
"Change," and yet this town is still
suffering. (Source: Jacob Ehrbahn)

 Finally, many times the photojournalist will create a photo essay to expose or comment on social conventions or political brokenness. There are many powerful photo essays that follow the journeys of people in the army, families trying to pay for health care, small town farmers struggling, and just about any other social problem you can think of. These photo narratives make others' struggles more real to us, and seeing a real face behind the story has more meaning than any editorial article written on the same subject. Yes, there can be many possible interpretations to a single photo, and yes, there will always be bias and certain perspective behind every photo essay, but that doesn't mean that we should disregard all photojournalism, just as we shouldn't disregard all historical narratives. Photojournalism, historical fiction, and historical narrative, all strive to give meaning to our lives by interpreting our past. Understanding that these are interpretations of the past, will then help us create our own individual meanings for our collective history. 

Here are some other photos I found that give powerful visual commentary on the struggling lower classes in America, much like how Ragtime's ironic narration inspired sympathy for the poorer classes. Instead of outright saying "Look at all these people and all these statistics that show how unjust this balance of wealth is," both Ragtime and photographs like these show the injustice through irony.

I'm sure this homeless man would be content with simply "enough." (Source: Humans of New York)

The irony of this poster during the Great Depression (Photographer: Dorothea Lange)

A homeless man prays over his food at a dining hall--note the framing of the photo with the American flag in the background. (Source: Jacob Ehrbahn)

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There are countless other examples that I could have included. If you are more interested in the subject here are a few links to get you started:
Examples of photo essays
More historical photography
More photojournalism

Woolf as a photojournalist

My friend took this photo when we were at a coffee shop one day. This couple was just sitting down together talking and laughing over the books they were reading. (Photo: Abbie Mills)

As soon as we began talking about how Virginia Woolf gives us small snapshots of her characters in her novel Mrs. Dalloway, there was only one thing that I could think of--photojournalism.

Perhaps it was only because of my slight obsession with photography that the buzzword "snapshot" caught my attention during class that day, but whatever the case I think that Virginia Woolf's writing style and photojournalism share several similarities.

As we learned in Woolf's essays, she thinks that a novel isn't a novel unless it is intensely focused on the characters in the novel. She expresses her annoyance at Edwardian writers by saying 

"They have looked very powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window; at factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery of the carriage; but never at her, never at life, never at human nature" 

This is a beautiful picture of street lamps
in Romania, but it doesn't tell much of
a story. (Photo: Nat'l Geographic)

A great deal of photography is having good-looking photos of objects or landscapes. Of course these photos are beautiful and amazing to look at, but these photos do not seek to ask or answer questions of human existence. They merely look nice, much like how Woolf is saying that Edwardians' writing looks nice but doesn't capture the depth of humanity. 

"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end," says Woolf in another essay on writing fiction. 

Photojournalism recognizes this too. Life isn't an artistically arranged bouquet of flowers, and it isn't edited to perfection either. Life is about the people on this planet, the decisions they make, the things they create, and the interactions they share.

I love this photo of a family dinner where
the relatives are laughing and joking
with each other around the table. Photos
like this capture the emotions involved
in everyday life and then you, as the viewer,
also share in those emotions.
(Photo: Julian Smith)

Photojournalism captures human activity in a way that can both tell a story and challenge the viewer. Photojournalism is all about capturing the action--emotions, expressions, and movements. The instructor for a  photojournalism class that I took during Agora Days once said, “Look out for and capture the moments--that’s what makes photojournalism interesting.”

And indeed, it is what makes photojournalism interesting. For those captured moments are moments that reveal our character and our humanity. Photos like these can create bonds of recognition between people who have never even seen each other because many times we share more similarities than we first assume. There's something about being able to understand where another person is coming from that allows us to respect each other so much more.

When I see this photo I get a feeling
of happy contentment. Perhaps it's
because seeing this embrace reminds
me of hugs that I have shared with
people that I care about. Remembering
those hugs establishes a connection
between my life and the actions of
those in this picture
(Photo: Nat'l Geographic). 

The camera can only pick up so much, it's up to the viewer to decide what they see in a picture. Often times, when looking at photos, you get bombarded with emotions that then turn into thoughts and memories. Memories and thoughts that can either challenge your values and change your character, or impart a happy nostalgia and sense of wonder. These emotions reveal your own character to you when you look at dramatic photos.

Photojournalism also gives us glimpses into the darker sides of human nature with pictures of war and suffering. These pictures make the struggles of people all around the world all the more real to us. 

This picture of a mother and
her son in the aftermath of
the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
is a solemn reminder of the
unrelenting pain of war.
(Photo: Life Magazine)

Through Woolf's characters in Mrs. Dalloway, we see not only the outwardly respectable appearances, but also the complicated and conflicting emotions that go on behind the scenes in the minds of the characters. We see several sides to Clarissa and Peter, and we are privy to most of the thoughts and resulting actions of the characters in the book. Nobody is perfect, and Woolf's characters are certainly no exception.

Woolf's obsession with uncovering human nature to make more realistic art (in her case the art of the novel) could have made her a great photojournalist, but I'm glad she stuck with writing.

Although two different mediums, one writing and the other photography, both Woolf and photojournalists have the responsibility to accurately portray human emotion and character through their art for their respective audiences. Through both photojournalism and Woolf's novels, we learn what it means to be a part of this vast world full of unique human beings.