Concluding Chapter

Images by Jaylan Ramos

The other week I had attended the Taste of Amherst. Twice. I wish I could say I tasted every random food I've never had but I'd be lying. My meals consisted of samosas, caramel icecream and beer. While I was enjoying my one healthy batch of strawberries to detox the rest of my meal, I looked up to see the Lord Jeffrey Inn. With a scoff I whipped out my cell phone to capture a picture of it for snapchat where with a half laugh, half grimace I reminded everyone of the history of said Lord Jeffrey. I just found it a strange moment, me a First Nations tribe member admiring a hotel with the namesake of a man that gifted small pox blankets to my ancestors. But I quickly went back to my strawberries and listened to the softening music as I walked to my car. Doesn't seem like much of a photojournalism piece by the pictures alone, but I can only imagine the events that could've been captured on that land I and that inn stood on. 

Do I have a different definition of photojournalism? No, I don’t have a revised definition of photojournalism. I think I had a pretty good idea of what it was from the beginning. I may have just expanded on the idea of what photojournalism looks like, not so much that I was wrong before. For some reason, I had thought before that it was bit more "dry" of an area. Previous notion was that the "photo" in photojournalism was only lead by the "journalism" part. As in, the photo could only fit within the confines of exactly what the words of the story being told. I didn't really know that there was an actual freedom in the art of it. Because it isn't basic photography and abstract art I thought that meant lack of creative freedom. But I was wrong. I had seen so many photographs in my lifetime that I thought were stand-alone pieces when they were in fact, part of a larger story.  

  
Is there importance to knowing the history of Photojournalism? I’ve always known it was important but I find that looking at the different photojournalists’ motivations and their own reasonings for their work relied on what was happening at that moment in time. The history of photojournalism does come a sense of “need to know” in the general sense of having a duty to the public to report about a war. But I see there has always been a curiosity about the world and inevitably this leads to sharing the findings. With this said, knowing the history of photojournalism outside of the purpose of respecting the history probably lies in each person's own feelings about photojournalism. For me, I like history so I did like seeing older pictures that were of iconic moments. But even I found the study of the multiple tools used in history to develop pictures and what not kind of dreadful after a while. I blame my attention span mostly, but I still don't want to read about the "wet collodion process" ever again. Those interested in the technicalities of photojournalism would love to reread the history of that. Outside of that, maybe others would just prefer to look at the images produced by those tools instead.

  

Yes my ah-ha moment was probably when thinking about the actual definition of photojournalism and how much the photo leads the story. In my mind, journalism is lead by the words and supplemented by the photos added in the end. The idea of photojournalism was always kind of secondary to me, until I realized how much photojournalism I had consumed over the years and how many images had affected me because they told the story themselves. These realizations are funny to me because I do like writing myself and appreciate writing. But I find the use of the images in photojournalism as something special.  When reading my classmates posts, there were plenty of images that were quite beautiful. From Lindsey's blog post about Daniel Berehulak, the image of the man and the child with the backlight is beautiful. But the light in the background makes me think of the use of lighting in the history of photojournalism. Photojournalist Ashley Gilbertson and his war photography is reminiscent of the work of war photojourmalists from decades and even ceenturies before. One of the images Sarah Pelletier posted was one that reminded me of the Alan Kurdi story I wrote about weeks ago. These pictures of refugees, boats, beaches and endless oceans are all different but with the same underlying message of hoping for a better life. Ethan's blog post  was another war photography post that was about Adam Ferguson. I had researched Adam Ferguson in a previous chapter on my blog. I think of Robert Capa's work and the danger of the work he did that would eventually take his life. Or even Tim Hetherington who also lost his life for his craft. This proves to be a deadly job no matter what the era.

image by Nifur Demir

image by Robert Capa

  

Do images change the world? Yes, Images absolutely change the world. I remember I had kind of debated both sides of this question the first time around after watching the Ted Talk of Jonathan Klein speaking about “photos that changed the world.” He argued that images don’t change the world, but essentially they cause us to question ourselves. But I feel that there are multiple truths. I feel like yes, images have an impact and can make us think about our beliefs but the change that can incite is essentially because of that image. So therefore, images do change the world. I feel like we’re all saying the same thing, but it’s a technical question. A bit of the chicken or the egg question. Both of the pictures I had posted in that original post had different conclusions. Obviously the events of 9/11 and The Falling Man had a profound effect on the nation and subsequently the world. Our national security stepped up and the war that followed is still seeing it’s effects today. The picture of the little Syrian boy Alan hasn’t had much effect it seems, considering children are still dying, going blind, losing limbs and family members across the world because of violence. All of this once again makes me question everything.