Blog Exercise 3: Analyzing a Picture

We were given a choice to choose a genre out of this 3 categories and write a commentary on it.

The 3 categories are:

• Photojournalism
• Social Documentary
• Commercial Photography

I chose to do the commentary on photojournalism.



Caption: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto waves from the sun roof of her armored car just seconds before being being assassinated in a gun and suicide bomb attack December 27, 2007. She was departing a campaign rally in the army garrison city next to Islamabad.

This photograph was taken by John Moore who came in first as Photojournalist of the Year in the National Press Photographer Association's Best of Photojournalism 2008 contest.

The photograph is blurred and the colour are pretty dull and lighting is quite poor. But it is good in the sense that it conveyed how messy and dangerous it was to be in that situation. Although the subject of the photograph should be the Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, she was totally not in sharp focus and is infact totally blur. However, it is interesting to note that the motion blur caused by all the action leads the attention to the center of the picture, which brings the focus back on the Former Prime Minister, even if she is in fact not in focus.

The picture was taken from a lower perspective as the subject is a leader and she was on higher grounds. All the motion blur in the picture also conveyed a lot of action, a lot of pushing and shoving that must have happened at the scene.

In photojournalism, the main purpose for the photograph is to tell the story that the photographer wants to tell. The perpective and the action captured on this picture clearly shows the action and chaos and conveyed how terrible it must be to be in that situation. Blurs are often used in photojournalism to show chaos. Another example would be this other photograph by the same photographer of the suicide bombing after the former prime minister was assasinated.



This picture, as compared to the above one, is blur too. With the bight colours from the explosion and the total blur covering the people, it captured the desperation to escape and the chaotic running for safety.



This is another action shot of a fight by Jahi Chikwendiu from The Washington Post to show a fight on the streets. Similar to the previous two pictures, it used motion blur to show action, to let the picture come alive.

However, not all shots in photojournalism must be blur to be effective. Shots in sharp focus are very good when the picture wants to convey how solemn or how still the subject is.



This picture by Stephen M. Katz for The Virginian-Pilot has to be clear to show the soldier silently standing-by for his peers who are patrolling on the streets of Iraq. If this shot is off focus, it would not convey any effective message, but that the photographer is bad at taking photographs.

From this exercise, it made me realise that photographs must not always be clear to capture good moments. Blurring and shaky shots in photojournalism might be more effective than clear focused ones in telling the story to the viewer of the picture. Still and focused shots are still essential to capture solemnness and silence.