Red Bus Productions

Photojournalists; reviewed.

Photojournalists played a particularly important part in documenting history, as the photos they took often became the basis of many people's realisation. This was because they could believe what they were seeing in photographic form, essentially providing truth and meaning. But just how truthful were the photographs themselves?

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) "Oop! The moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever"

Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer who believed in taking photos as naturally as possible. To do this, he usually concealed the camera. This would prevent the subjects within the photo from changing the way they acted, either intentionally or subconsciously, and therefore show an honest image. He also believed in taking photographs with no agenda, therefore they would not be influenced by an institution, government, or other bias, but would be taken purely to show an event as it happens.

Pictured left is a photograph taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson. As most of the images he took were in 'the decisive moment' they were usually taken using a fast shutter speed, in order to capture the moment instantaneously. This is true for this particular photograph, as everything within the photo is clear and still. There is however a slight blur on the box in the eldest child's hand, signifying movement. I would therefore be lead to believe that the shutter speed used for this image would be around 1/60 in order to create such an effect, one which is mainly comprised of stillness, with an element of movement.

When looking at this image you can also see that the three children are beautifully in focus, yet almost everything around them is not. This is done to make the children the primary focal point within the image, thus drawing the viewer's eye to them first. To create this effect Cartier-Bresson would have used an aperture setting of around F/4.5 Any smaller and only one child would be in focus, yet any higher and much more of the surrounding elements would have been clearly in focus.

The liklihood of this image being taken inside is high, and therefore the ISO setting would probably be around 800 in order to capture detail in poor visibility. This theory is also supported by the use of fast shutter speed, in addition to a relatively small aperture, as fast shutter speeds tend to need a higher ISO setting to enable a clear image and prevent underexposure.

In terms of point locations, point one would be the tallest boy.

Helen Levitt (1913-2009) "Photography could be an art - and that made me ambitious"

Helen Levitt was an American photographer who was most well known for her street photography in the city of New York. Her works often depict ordinary people going about their day to day lives, thus inspiring generations of future photographers. She has been described as being able to "find magic on the grimy streets of New York." The photos she captured show a huge amount of skill, in addition to split-second reflexes. A moment's hesitation would result in missing the image, yet she somehow managed to capture them at precisely the right instance.

Diane Arbus (1923-1971) "A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know"

Diane Arbus was an American photographer. She was fascinated by people who were usually seen as ugly or surreal, and therefore she depicted them in her photographs. Frequent subject matter included prostitutes, siamese twins, dwarves and transvestites. Of course, depicting such minority groups in her work did not go unnoticed, and as a result created much controversy, making society question normality and the notion of 'what is normal?'.

With such controvertial subject matter, the majority of Arbus' photographs are a form of surreal photo-essay documents, photos which capture the surreal world, individuals and events that the general audience rarely have contact with. This therefore gives an insight into a normally unviewed realm.