Picture This!

(Week Four "Factual Stories with Pictures")
"A picture has no meaning at all if it can't tell a story," to borrow the words of a famous photojournalist. This week, our lecturer held our hands as we dipped our toes into the vast world of photojournalism, rich with subtleties, subtext and intuition. 

(Eetu Sillanpaa, 2008)

We were introduced to a few great examples of photojournalism today, though none had as great an impact on me as the photograph above. The composition of the figures in a pyramid formation, combined with the skewed stance in accordance with the rule of thirds lead the viewers eyes to see and linger upon each the faces and see the mixture of emotions these children are expressing. Ominous clouds in the background juxtaposed with the image of innocence that come through with the vivid colours of the subjects clothes give the image a hyper-real feel, as if it was too much to have actually happened, reflecting the confusion on the children's faces; grounded however by the presence of the serious looking adults in the background. Every element to this image just adds to the power of of the message it conveys. It draws you in and makes you feel. Trust me, I could go on and on about hat makes this image absolutely fantastic to me but I shall rein my inner IB art student for the time being.  

What I'd like to make a special shout out to is the Rule of Thirds. 

I wanted to see exactly how pronounced an impact this technique has on an image and so at Max Brenna's I decided to put it into practice and capture the chocolately delight of the hug-mug hot chocolate. 

What do you think?

I love that journalism is a whole mixture of the arts, of writing, visual arts, sound that come together to create a practical something that can do a whole spectrum of things, from educating people, to entertaining people. 

Oscar Wilde once said, "All art is quite useless." As much as I love and respect this man, I strongly disagree with this statement and journalism is the living proof that art can be and is useful.