PHOTOGRAPHY: 13 Half Or Completely Baked Ideas & Thoughts For Aspiring Photojournalists

Know every button on your camera!

Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved - Follow Me On Twitter

13 Half or Completely Baked Ideas & Thoughts For Aspiring Photojournalists

1. "If you’re afraid of rejection, find another line of work." - Michael Kamber, Photojournalist, Baghdad Bureau, New York Times.

2. "Learn every aspect of your camera, every button, every light, everything!" - Jason Pagan, former Special Projects Director at Black Star, New York, NY.

3. "A basic guideline with wide lenses is to mind your tilt. Instead of looking up or down at a subject, which massively increases distortion and the “ugly” effect, keep the camera level and change your elevation" - Alan Chin, Photographer/Bon Vivant, New York, NY.

4. “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you are not close enough.” - Robert Capa, (1910-1954) Photographer, Magnum Photos.

5. "KEEP YOUR COPYRIGHT, DO NOT SIGN WORK FOR HIRE CONTRACTS" - Every Freelance Photojournalist, Planet Earth.

6. "Have money in the bank. Next month's income is not always certain." - Morten Svenningsen, Photojournalist, Director of GAIA PHOTOS, Kathmandu, Nepal.

7. "When you get an assignment, never assume anything […] Discuss everything, assume nothing. Listen and ask questions." - Andy Levin, Photojournalist, Contact Press Images; Curator, 100Eyes E-Magazine, New Orleans, LA.

8. "As photojournalists, our life blood is the story and not the source." - John Robinson, Photojournalist, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.

9. "Reporting is, in reality, a meticulous and accurate reconstruction of facts. In other words, it is the news in its entirety, as events actually occurred, presented in a way to make the reader feel as though he actually witnessed them." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Journalist & Writer, Cartagena, Columbia.

10. "If you do decide to work on a traditional theme — prostitution, drugs, crime, war, gangs — then be sure to reinvigorate the theme and breathe life into the clichés, because they have all been done to death." - Jon Anderson, Photographer & Writer, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

11. "Don’t rely on others to do what you think should be done. Just forget about the overall printed press. QUALITY printed press has become a luxury product." - John Vink, Photojournalist, Magnum Photos, Phnom Penh, Center of the Universe, Cambodia.

12. "To live happy, live hidden." - Antonin Kratochvil, Photographer, VII Photo Agency, New York, NY.

13. "Read your camera's instruction book and be sure to remove the lens cap" - John Brown, Photojournalist & Writer, Cambodia.

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN DOCUMENTARY PHOTOJOURNALISM ?

Are you a person who is interested in documentary photojournalism and photography? If so, perhaps you'll be interested in viewing it through the eyes of nearly 60 photojournalists whose photography and text stories appear on Gaia Photos.

Based in 37 countries across the globe, the Gaia Photographers were brought together by Nepal based photojournalist Morten Svenningsen to promote quality and diversity in documentary photography.

The photographers' imagery has been featured in publications spanning the likes of Newsweek and Vanity Fair to Berliner Journalisten and Business Week.

If you'd enjoy intensifying your appreciation concerning the testing conditions we are facing together on this planet please visit us and subscribe to our new features page to keep track of new stories.

NEW FACEBOOK FAN PAGE

Gaia Photos has a new Facebook Fan Page. If you are using Facebook, sign up to get new features served on your Facebook wall automatically.

We all look forward to seeing you there….And Over On Twitter!

John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
My Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage
GAIA Photography and Photojournalism
Follow Me On Twitter

Young Pro Photographer Nick Loomis Poses Questions About His Photography Career On The New York Times Photoblog Lens

Should you become a documentary film maker instead of a still photographer?

Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved

In case you missed it, young pro photographer Nicholas Loomis blogged for Lens, the photojournalism blog of The New York Times on June 5th, 2009.

He wrote an essay, Finding Different Paths that's a good read for anyone interested in photojournalism as a career.

START

Name: Nick Loomis
Sex: Male
Age: 26
Occupation: Photographer

Or at least I was until August, when I quit my first photojournalism job at a newspaper in Illinois before I came to New York. I gave up the title and now I don’t really know what I am or what I’ll become, but I’m pretty sure I’ll never be a “photographer” again. I’ll probably have some vague euphemism like “multimedia journalist” or “interactive correspondent” stamped on my business cards, that is, if I’m lucky enough to have business cards.

Will it be enough to be a good photographer anymore? Is it more important to become what online advocates call “versatile” and what detractors call “a mile wide and an inch deep”, to get a job?

What happened to the path I was going to follow?

I used to want to be James Nachtwey or Eugene Richards, photographers who made names for themselves by documenting the human condition across the world. But print publications are shrinking in size and there are fewer of them.

That leaves the new path blazed by all-in-one multimedia journalists (a path that’s visible because of the deeper footprints they’ve left from carrying so much extra equipment). I abandoned the old path and chose this one. Now I think I want to be Michael Kamber or Travis Fox.

Please continue reading here

Andy Levin was a contributing photographer at Life Magazine and is the founder and editorial director of 100 Eyes, an online photography magazine.

He offered Loomis the following photographic nugget:

"The trick is to know yourself, and not try and “be” anyone else….if you don’t know who you are then how can you possibly create work that really means anything to anyone else? All of the photographers that you mention operate out of a personal space, if they admit so or not, that goes back to their own identities. If you look at the photographers who jump out they never define themselves by what someone else has already done or is doing: Koudelka, Robert Frank, William Klein, Richard Avedon, Gilles Peress, these people are creating their own space in a very unique way. What do you understand better than everyone else? If you can answer that then you are on your way…"

John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
My Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage