Reminiscences ...(3)

Week 3 (08/08/10)
Entitled "I gotta have pictures!" this lecture  was about the visual side of journalism. Illustrative pictures give credibillity to a journalists recollection of an event. Such usage really helps to give a human emotive aspect to a story. Pictures as part of human anecdotes have been around as long as humanity could write, as cave drawings, or the mandarin pictographic language (not an exaustive list) attest. An interesting analogy was drawn to "Platos Cave" ( a philosophical arguement in which life is depicted as being imprisoned in a cave, shackled so that only one thing can be observed, that thing being shadow puppets on the wall which are presented by unseen authors. Without prior experience of the world, these shadows would be interpreted as reality by the imprisoned audience. The Journalistic variant of this concept is called the 'Journalism as a Mirror" concept. Does journalism depict what is "out there" or is it co-erced by publishing authorities that dictate what is considered "newsworthy" and propagates only subjective interests?). A good example of this would be Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph Des Willens" (Triumph of the Will), or the complete lack of awareness of prior Zombie infestations as Max Brooks notes in his book (see recomended readings)

Modern photography has changed irrevocably the nature of journalism as illustrative visual media can encapsulate meanings more efficiently than words. However the mantra "pictures never lie" is obviously false as the shown Dove advertisement (use of photoshop manipulation to warp perceptions of beauty, or Jessica Sarah-Parkers "hands of death") attests. This phenomenon was known as "faux-tography"

Other photographic methods were described such as "the rule of thirds" and using angles or light exposure to create certain emotional triggers within a photo. "catching the moment" was stressed as vital to the success of a photographer.