Production

In this blog I am going to talk about how I will produce my images. In my brief I said that I will focus on the mystery of they image-what is happening and why?

Depending on the shooting conditions, I will most likely use shutter priority, so I can adjust the shutter speed to get varied photos. Some people might be walking quite fast, so I will need a high shutter speed to capture them without the image blurring. However because my theme is mystery, I could also use a slow shutter speed to make the person look blurry. Using shutter priority automatically sets the aperture and ISO. If I wanted to set them myself to make the image look how I want it to, then I will use manual mode-allowing me to use a range of different settings to get different effects. 

How I will present my pictures will depend on how many I choose for my final project. However, I think I will present them in a Gallery form in another Blog post so you can clearly see all the images and can compare them to each other.

My Brief

What is Photojournalism? - Brief

My aim is to take a series of images based around mystery and what the story behind the image could be. I chose to do mystery as it allows me to be creative with what I can find on the streets because everywhere you look someone will be doing something, but what exactly? The majority of street photography style images will include people in them and it’s not always clear who they are or what they’re doing, so this then leads to a mystery behind the image. The majority of photo-journalistic photos will show a story or meaning behind them, even if they weren't intended when the image was first taken. When different people see an image, they will all have their own ideas of what is happening and who that person is. This is one of my main outcomes for my brief - for people to have different ideas about the mystery behind image.

Mystery gives me a wide opportunity of photographs to take and I can express my opinions of everyday life. When taking the images I will try and use compositional and framing techniques such as leading lines, rule of thirds and reflection to make the images look more interesting and appealing to look at. I will then turn the images into monochrome (black and white) in later production to make them stand out better and give them a simple mood as the images will be described in different shades of one colour. Also the majority of photojournalists take their photos in monochrome.

An artist who has influenced me in this theme is American photographer Diane Arbus because when she was out taking photos, she focused mainly on what people were doing in their everyday life. Like most photojournalists she wouldn't ask people to pose, she just walked the streets and took images of people she thought looked interesting. Another artist who has influenced me is Australian photographer Trent Parke. His images tend to include just one person, whether they're just stood on the street corner or crossing the road, this shows mystery because we ask why they are alone, what they're doing or where they're going.  

Concept - ideas

My Ideas-Street Photography

1.  Mystery- Most photo journalistic photos will have a story or meaning behind them, even if they weren't intended when the photo was first taken. However, different people will have their own opinion on a photo and will have different ideas about the story behind the image. When you see a photo you immediately ask yourself, 'What is it? What's happening? Who are they?' etc. I've decided to choose mystery as one of my possible themes as it gives me a wide opportunity of photographs to be taken and I can express my opinions of a story. An artist that can influence me in this theme is Diane Arbus as she focused mainly o people and what they were doing, she didn't ask them to pose, she just took images of them doing their everyday thing.

2. Themes- Some photojournalists give themselves a theme when photographing so that they're not just taking pictures of anything random. For example themes could be; Nature, old people/young people, adventure or loneliness.  Once they have a theme, they can then expand upon it (think out of the box) and take images that they think show that theme. Also, when using a theme you can also think about compositions and framing techniques to make the image look more interesting. For example; rule of thirds, reflections and symmetry. An artist that can influence me in this idea is Sebastiao Salgado as he always gave himself a theme when taking pictures including; hard manual labour, other Americans and Genesis.

3. Places- I could give myself a certain place to take my photographs or take photo's related to a certain place. I could then expand upon this and take photos all around this place instead of just one area of it. For example, around a park or beach. Again, I would need to incorporate  different compositional and framing techniques to make the images look more interesting. To take it to the next step, I could also include a subject within that place, such as people or animals. An artist that can influence me in this idea would be Henri Cartier-Bresson as we focused of showing people in different places (such as the children playing at the Berlin Wall and Children spiraling up some staircases). He also used the geometry of the buildings to make the images look more interesting.         


I have decided to choose mystery as my final idea because it allows me to be creative with what I can find on the streets. Everywhere you look someone will be doing something, but what exactly?  And if I take a creative image that has a clear mystery story behind it, then people will start to give their opinions on what they think is happening in the image. Another Artist who has influenced me is Trent Parke because most of his images tend to include one person, whether they're just stood on the corner or crossing the road, this shows mystery because we ask why they are alone, what they're doing or where they're going.                                             

What is Photojournalism?

We've been set a task to create our own brief to take a selection of images which could be used in the College's prospectus to show people what photojournalism is. 

To help me create ideas, I made a montage of different photo-journalistic photos to give me a overview of what my images should look like. From this and the previous tasks we have done I could see hat he majority of the photos are taken on he streets and aren't planned - they're just taken and people aren't asked to pose.  
Here is my Montage:

Then I had to start thinking about what images I could take to show photojournalism. To do his, I created some mind maps to help me plan out my ideas where I could talk about the different themes within photojournalism. Here is my first mind map: 

As you can see there can be many different themes within photojournalism, but most of the time, they are unplanned photos on real life events. If there are people in the photo, they haven't been asked to pose, therefore, this can go under street photography because you are taking unexpected photos of people. I then did a mind map on street photography:

As you can see, when doing street photography you can give yourself a certain theme/subject to photograph so you're not just taking photos of something someone random on the street. 

Photojournalism is also about them mystery and story of the photo, what's happening and why? Who is in the image and why are they there? etc.