The Story Behind the Picture

This week our class is taking a focus on photojournalism. This is a very new concept to me as I’m not a journalism major and I never really took too much time to think about how much work goes into conveying a message through pictures and video. So far we have learned a lot about how to make a picture tell a great story and how some pictures don’t do so well. With this in mind I am giving my own evaluation of some pictures I have found that do a great (and not so great) job of conveying my focus which is Technology in Africa (Ghana).

The first picture below is one that I fell in love with immediately:

It doesn’t have the best focus and the lighting is not the best but the centering of the children follows the rule of thirds and it tells a real story to me. I can see the excitement and enthusiasm of the children with their laptops. Their eyes are so glued on the screen they don’t even realize someone is taking a picture of them. It made me remember what it was like to be a kid and so engrossed with a computer or a game that I couldn’t even hear someone calling my name. Kudos to the photographer here.

Next is this picture:

This picture is one I also like a lot. One can see the rule of thirds coming out in the shot as well as the main items in the scene telling the story. Apparently these gentlemen are working on a technology incorporating a small solar panel. They seem very excited to be where they are and seem to have been quite busy with their gadgeting.

Here is one that doesn’t do a good job at all.

It looks like this picture was taken from a cell phone so you can only expect a certain quality but I believe the photographer could have done a better job with what was available to him. First of all, the bright light in the room makes the laptop and even the children’s faces very hard to distinguish. A simple shift in his angle could have rectified that. Shifting his angle also could have enabled him to show a better perspective and tell more of the story in the picture. Perhaps raising the camera to get a fuller image of the kids and little of the background would have made a huge difference.

Here is another that could have been ten times better with just a shift in angle.

The picture is actually very focused (at least to me) but the lighting is so horrible its hard to tell exactly what the photographer wants to show. Shifting a little to the right and maybe upward would have given a better reflection of all three computer screens, given the lady a better spot in the picture as well as obeyed the rule of thirds quite well. This is poor photography from all angles.

Here again is one that I feel was just someone at the right place at the right time.

This photo shows just how valuable cars indeed can be to the livelihood of a people. Many westerners would have discarded this vehicle long ago but this photographer captures how one man’s trash can be another’s treasure. The load is heavy and impossible to transport. It doesn’t look like the car can hold it but that’s not stopping these merchants in Mauritania. They continue to load and strap even with the car’s flat tires. This photographer really captured that moment.

I will be looking at pictures totally different these days, and also taking them differently. Next I will post my own pictures taken with my digital camera and edited with Picasa. Then you can be the judge of the quality.