PRESS PHOTOGRAPHY

Press photographers take photographs to record news, current events and lifestyle stories. Their aim is to capture the best images in order to document an event, tell a story or convey a message. The pictures are then reproduced in newspapers, magazines and, increasingly, niche-market, web-based publications.
Press photographers sometimes specialise in a particular field, such as sport, current events or entertainment. The market is very competitive and many work on a freelance basis, using good business skills to sell their photographs to news agencies or publications. This work is also known as editorial photography.
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/press_photographer_job_description.htm

Typical work activities

 

Press photography requires a combination of intuition, creativity and technical skills. Typical activities include:

• working closely with other people concerned with the story, such as journalists and picture editors and agreeing the photographic requirements for a story;
• explaining technical photographic terminology to non-photographers;
• handling relevant administrative arrangements, such as timing, press passes, transport and access;
• photographing events or personalities, noting details for photographic captions;
• ensuring that all pictures are appropriate, processed, catalogued and ready in time to meet deadlines;
• preparing and sending digital photographs for newspaper publication to deadline;
• maintaining up-to-date knowledge about current news stories and any specialist areas;
• sourcing freelance photographers for a job or sourcing existing photographs if pushed to meet a deadline;
• arranging lighting and other requirements for magazine studio shots;
• maintaining photographic and electronic communications equipment.

For freelance work, additional activities include:

• researching and anticipating relevant events;
• negotiating the sale of specific shots;
• handling all business activities and establishing and maintaining maintaining contacts.

    

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/nov/10/100-years-press-photography#/?picture=355491719&index=27

http://totallycoolpix.com/2011/02/world-press-photo-of-the-year-2010/

 

 

 http://www.bigpicture.in/collection-of-best-press-photographs-2010/

   

PR PHOTOGRAPHY

Top five tips for PR photography

We all know a picture is worth a thousand words, but it’s easy to forget the golden rules when under pressure to create an attention grabbing image. Here are some top tips for successful PR photography:

• Make sure there are only three main subjects or props in the picture. Over-complicating the image will put viewers off and if picture desks don’t have time to work out exactly what’s going on in the image, they’ll move on to the next.
• On the flip side, the picture needs to tell a story– one person standing alone is not going to capture anyone’s attention. The aim is to give enough away in the image to encourage viewers to read the caption.
• Make sure you have a range of images which work well in a number of different shapes and sizes. You never know what size space a publication may have allocated for the image so it’s best to be able to offer a number of different options. At the very least make sure publications have the choice of landscape or portrait.
• Be subtle – there’s nothing wrong with trying to get some branding into the picture but anything too obvious will be rejected immediately– no publication wants to give away free advertorial dressed up as news. Try to make any sign of branding as subtle as possible and consider pictures are sometimes cropped to remove unnecessary features. The goal is to ensure the branding is small but integral to the image to avoid editing.   
• Pay attention to the background – make sure there are no unwanted people or distracting items lurking behind the main props. Be careful when working in a public space as passers by have a habit of cropping up at inconvenient moments.

Following these tips won’t guarantee front page coverage, but running through the checklist before a photo shoot will ensure the images don’t instantly end up in the desk top rubbish bin.

 http://www.flagshipconsulting.co.uk/pressure-chamber/hints-tips/top-five-tips-for-pr-photography/

 Powerful PR photography will not only enhance the chances of exposure but also increase the amount of coverage you receive – editors and journalists are crying out for professional and imaginative photos to complement news articles and press releases.
 http://www.lcm.co.uk/index.php/services/public-relations/pr-photography/

 

  http://www.edwardmoss.co.uk/corporate_and_pr/

 http://www.fraserband.co.uk/portfolio/pr-photography

Social documentary photography

Social documentary photography is the recording of humans in their natural condition with a camera. Often it also refers to a socially critical genre of photography dedicated to showing the life of underprivileged or disadvantaged people.

 Child laborer, Lewis Hine, USA, 1908

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_documentary_photography

Documentary Photography refers to the area of photography in which pictures are used as historical documents. Rather than serving as a source of art or aesthetic pleasure, documentary photography is often used to incite political and social change due to its ability to capture the “true” nature of an image or location. In simple terms, this school of photography uses pictures as documented evidence of a particular situation.
 
http://urdu-mag.com/blog/2012/09/beautiful-documentary-photography-25-photo/

Social Documentary Photography: Bringing Awareness and Change

Social documentary photography seeks to bring attention to social issues around the world. Unlike news photography, sites for social documentary photographers have a point of view and believe they can advance a cause, such as human and civil rights, and bring awareness and change through the power of photography.

 http://theactivistwriter.com/2010/08/10/social-documentary-photography-bringing-awareness-and-change/

      'Most of the documentary styled photography we see, is a part of our daily routine, when we read news articles. It usually is a part of a story and it either makes us want to read an article or skip it.

It is a quick message, which grabs our attention. It makes the content of the story more real and emotional. 

      Throughout the history, there were a lot of talented photographers, who used to chronicle different major events, including riots,wars, revolutions and depressions.Some images were so influential that they changed the way people think.'

  Philip Jones Griffiths - one of the best war photographers

 http://pregnantwhalescanboogie.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/documentary-photography.html

  A heroin addict is being injected by his friend on a roadside in Pakistan in the early morning. Photo by Yusuke Harada from “Behind the War on Terror” on SocialDocumentary.net.
 
Often a photographer will spend years on the ground immersed in the culture, geography and politics of a situation. The photographer’s work might be purchased by a newspaper, magazine or Web site to illustrate an article, but almost invariably the photo is used to illustrate a point conceived by the buyer of the image and the photographer has little or no control over the writing and editing. 

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102090/Documentary-Photographers-Have-Their-Say-in-Words-and-Pictures.aspx

Simon Robert

Motherland

Apartment blocks reflected in water. Sakhalin Island. Far East Russia, October 2004

Camping with Sasha and Paval. Kamchatka Peninsula. Far East Russia, October 2004

Alexandrovsk Port. Sakhalin Island. Far East Russia, October 2004

Taxis cross the frozen Lena River. Yakutsk. Far East Russia, November 2004

Luba sits in her kitchen. Port Baikal. Eastern Siberia, November 2004

A man eats lunch in a roadside café. Altai Mountains. Western Siberia, June 2005

 

                            Galina and Sasha. Sakhalin Island. Far East Russia, October 2004

http://www.lensculture.com/simon_roberts.html#

Motherland is a bold visual statement about contemporary Russia, fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Between July 2004 and August 2005, British photographer Simon Roberts travelled throughout Russia making pictures in over 200 locations and creating one of the most extensive, comprehensive photographic accounts of this vast country by a Westerner.
The resulting images are not clichéd representations of a Russia ground down by poverty and despair; rather, he presents a beautiful and awe-inspiring land, its diverse people empowered by a growing optimism and connected by a shared love of the ‘motherland’. Intimate and revealing portraits of contemporary Russians show us a diverse people, united by a sense of common identity, while breathtaking landscapes reveal the complexity and uniqueness of the country.

 http://www.photofusion.org/gallery/photography/exhibitions/past/archive/roberts/simonroberts.htm

 Blackpool Beach, Lancashire, 25th July 2008

Maidstone Young Bird National Pigeon Race, Maidstone, Kent, 13th September 2008

 The Haxey Hood, Haxey, North Lincolnshire, 5th January 2008

 Keynes Country Park Beach, Shornecote, Gloucestershire, 11th May 2008

'I think one of my favourite pictures is the Keynes Country Park Beach where you’ve got the guy with the Mohican on the left, the tents and the deckchairs, and the couple who’ve got these bargain 20-bag packets of crisps (though there’s just two of them), and the guy wearing his socks with his shorts on. For me, the richest of the pictures are those where you get a lot of detail and you have to study them for a while. So the formal composition is very simple but it’s a way of looking at scenes where there’s a lot of information. The pictures are almost like maps to be read; and the details extend the interest in them. I think a picture like that will have historical interest - it’s almost anthropological in some ways' [Simon Roberts]

http://www.foto8.com/new/online/blog/985-simon-roberts-on-we-english

Derby Day, Epsom Downs Racecourse, Sunday 7th June 2008