Conflict Photojournalism

[deep_creek]

An interesting look into conflict photojournalism:



original article here at PetaPixel: An Eye-Opening Look at How Many Conflict Photos Are Staged

[iCe]

That was interesting. Thanks!

[texkam]

Yep. ... Good stuff.

[lfmerrell]

Amazon

Amazon

Requiem: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina (Hardcover)
David Halberstam
A most somber of books. I have a copy. Seriously.
It was reviewed on BookTV. Ordered right then.

Horst Faas and Tim Page's Requiem is a portfolio of work by combat photographers who died in Vietnam and Indochina.

[deep_creek]

most welcome. i always wondered about some of the photos i've seen in the news and came across one some time ago with a fellow posing with a rocket launcher and 20+ photographers lined up beside him... this video answered all my suspicions. :) i also kinda thought of the 'green zone' in baghdad as more of a movie set for just this type of photojournalism.

[lscottpht]

I know when I was covering the conflicts in Haiti, if there were other photographers there, you went somewhere else. There was more than enough violence going on all over the place. You didn't have to be lined up covering it with everyone getting the same stuff. Now, if the President was talking or something like that, of course you were there along with other photogs.

[Tom]

Originally Posted by lscottpht

I know when I was covering the conflicts in Haiti, if there were other photographers there, you went somewhere else. There was more than enough violence going on all over the place. You didn't have to be lined up covering it with everyone getting the same stuff. Now, if the President was talking or something like that, of course you were there along with other photogs.

Exactly. The good photographers are going someplace that the other photographers aren't.

I would never want to be next to that many photographers.

[Coelus]

Makes me think of one of those model group shoots where ten people are crowding together to get the same shot of the same model after someone has already staged the lights set for them.

[JbVenable]

thats about how i figured it

[Kodachromedude70]

As a former PJ myself, this video is sadly very true. As others have said, the "good shooters" will go elsewhere a place where few photographers would dare tread, that is true photojournalism. Covering Somalia, South Africa, Bosnia and other hot spots, I learned that if I wanted to make my work stand out I had to break away from the 'pool', and take a big chance with my life to seek out that elusive non-staged shot. I became so disillusioned that I left the field of so called "Conflict Photography" around 2000, though my passion is still photojournalism/documentary work.

Marty