While reading the Campany article, the section on the 'late photograph' stuck with me. In this section, photography is spoken of as if it has passed its prime and is on the downfall. In some sense, I do agree with this notion. As mentioned, breaking news stories once relied on photojournalists. They needed to be in the middle of the action in order to catch the perfect photograph, and the journalists thought of as good were the ones who followed that action around. Now, in modern day, breaking news stories rarely have just photographs, the typically have videos as well. A good reporter has been redefined slightly, replacing the photograph with a video of the event taking place. We've become so desensitized to journalistic photographs that we now essentially demand a video.
At the same time, photographs are still needed to go with news stories, though many times to capture the aftermath. The aftermath of an event doesn't really require video footage, as it's generally much quieter than the actual event. Also, depending on what kind of camera was used, photographs can be much clearer and easier to read than a video. Photographs give us the opportunity to stop and think about what was going on during this event in our own time. Videos of events don't give the viewer that luxury of time, it's one thing happening after another until it's over.
1 comment:
Mandy, I was just sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office this morning watching a story about the Tsarnaev trial. The story showed video from the day of the bombing in Boston, but there wasn't anything in the way of showing people recovering or rebuilding. As you bring up the interesting point about breaking news versus the aftermath, I thought you might be interested to also think about the ways that the media might use the breaking news footage later on. It seems to me that they often use the breaking news footage when talking about the criminal to get more drama or to further sway the public to have negatives thought about the suspect.
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