Thursday 1 May 2008

So what's the difference?


Today we've have had some wonderful weather in London, rain, sunshine, thunder, proper April showers even though technically we are in May. In between jobs I managed to catch some good shots of the contrast we've had today, such as this one above - goalposts in Charlton Park - slight sunshine and ominous skies in one go.

But what's the difference between photography and photojournalism? Is there one? Where do you draw the line? By using the greatest talking point of all time - the weather - it will all be made clear here. First up is photojournalism:


And next we have have photography.


The difference is neglible but very important. In the first example we see tiny specks of grey in the image. This is actually minute pieces of dust caught by static electricity on the imaging sensor of my digital camera. Now you might think this is too small a detail to bring up, but if you are documenting something rather than creating an image, this is where journalistic integrity comes in. If you alter an image beyond adjusting contrast, colour correction and to some degree sharpening, it is considered to be false in photojournalistic circles. Especially if you clone out 'undesirable' elements, as is the case of pic #3. You only need to see this to understand how damaging it can be when reporting in the field (as opposed to a 10 minute lunch break in Blackheath).

I'll leave you with this piece of photojournalism, where I've adjusted contrast a bit and added some sharpening, but left the dust in there, for all y'all to see.

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