Objectivity in war news photography

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文 -- Objectivity in war news photography，文章讲述我们以图片为例，这是路透社的新闻摄影报道，内容是美国空军在靠近土耳其边境的叙利亚袭击ISIS武装分子。图片是典型的新闻摄影的模型，可以满足唐娜·施瓦茨（Donna Schwartz）的“讲真话：新闻摄影中的客观性代码”中讨论的功能需求。这是一张实际报道新闻并吸引观众眼球以影响观众的图片；它也保留了对新闻摄影的基本要求：以事实为准。

Objectivity in war news photography

The picture we take as an example is a Reuters photojournalism about US Air Force striking ISIS militants in Syria, near the Turkish border. The picture is a model of a typical photojournalism, which meets the needs of the features discussed in Donna Schwartz’s “To Tell the Truth: Codes of Objectivity in Photojournalism”. It is a picture that actually reports news and grabs the eyes of the viewers, so as to impact them; it also retains the basic demand for photojournalism: be objective of the truth happened.

According to Schwartz, an authentic photojournalism should be a communication photograph, which aims to communicate a clear message to its viewers. It is a mixture of the incidents of the subject in the picture, as well as the personal feelings and opinions offered by the journalist. We can see clearly that the incident is about an attack which destroys nearby constructions, and several children are wandering or watching the remnants of the buildings. This sends a very clear and strong message to the viewers, that the picture is about destruction and its effects to the people live there. It also parallels the written news story, and an important impact has set up through the communication of both written news and photojournalism. People will get to believe this set of story immediately, and pour their own emotions in to finish the rest part of the job.

Contents play a major role in defining photojournalism (Schwartz: 225), and the contents we see in this picture is one of the most influential incidents on our planet—a war. According to Schwartz and Kobre, a news picture “accrues value when…the outcome is tragic.” Apparently, the war is a serious incident which causes very tragic consequences, and the themes connecting to wars will attract attentions from people; also, if we take a look at this picture, we may see that on the left side there are wreckages of the wall, and on the right side stand a few kids, wandering alone in the street of debris. People will act like they always do in the environment they are familiar with, and this photojournalism is a great sample of the theory. All these look very natural for the viewers, for they have demonstrated people a true scene during the war—at least, it is the scene that people believe to be true in the war. So naturally, it triggers the emotional reactions of the viewers, making them feel sorrow, angry, or sympathetic, and gain benefits from them. This is what Kobre called “domain of narrative fiction” of the news pictures. Though it is not that “true”, people have perceived it as truth.

If we take a more careful look at this picture, we can see more things that determine it to be a good sample of journalism: clearly, the photographer has already designed a scene that would be shot in his mind; all he need is just to catch that key moment and record it. But when it is shown to the viewers, they will not take it as a “designed” or “made-up” scene, but rather a real moment of what happened in that part of the world. They think so because they know that it is impossible for a photographer to arrange surroundings in the picture artificially, he or she will not purposefully create a pile of wreckages, and find some kids to walk around it, which is definitely not an option for a responsible journalist. Thus, the objectivity of this photojournalism also presented through narrative descriptions of the news. There is actually design in it, but when people look at it, they will forget all about “design”.

A very outstanding element of this piece of work is its framing, or more precisely, its manipulation of “people and posing.” As we have mentioned above, the photo consists of two parts: the left is a ruin of broken walls; the right is a few kids wandering on the street with wreckages and cars that cannot be seen very clearly. In the center of the picture, when the two parts join together, is a kid facing the remnants of the destroyed walls and seems to be looking for something. A strong contrast can be seen from these two parts immediately, which are the “destroyed homelands” and “lost kids”. Obviously, we do not really know anything about the relationship between the kids and the debris, maybe they are just passers-by looking for things that are useful or can be played. But with the frame technology, the photographer put the scene right in the middle of the picture, attracting people’s focus easily, and direct them to think that these kids are the very victims of this very attack. Also, the blue sky in the far side of the picture suggests that the scene is tragic compared to a symbol that often make people think of happiness. But notice one thing—the frame is not a complicated one, but rather simple and brief. It does not blur or sharpen particular elements in the picture, but simply gives out a comparative scene. Simplicity always attracts more attention because the sense of reality they provide to the viewers.

To sum up, a good photojournalism should have visual appeals to the people looking at it, and keep the viewers interested when they see them. In addition, it offers the impression of the scene as “a slice of life” in the part of the world where war and fights happen nearly every day. It applies well to the codes of objectivity discussed in Schwartz’s work, a demonstration of a single, but emotional news scene that grabs people’s heart tightly.

Work Cited

1. “Islamic State crisis: New air strikes in Syria and Iraq”, [Online]Available: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29341111 (Sep 24, 2014)

2. Schwartz, Dona. "To tell the truth: Codes of objectivity in photojournalism."Communication 13.2 (1992): 95-109.

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