Dr Joe
Email: drjoe@josephobe.com
Twitter:@josephobe
Website: www.josephobe.com
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Course Overview
This course kick- starts the career of those who want to venture into photojournalism. This course is intended for potential editors, designers, and other communicators who need to appreciate photographs in order to use them intelligently in their work. The class also should interest students who want to improve their "visual literacy" while learning some of the history and principles of photojournalism.
It will not include the comprehensive task of taking picture but it will prepare you to start using camera as a professional journalist.
However, you will be required to carry out simple photo shooting exercise around the campus.

At the end of this course, students should be able to:
•produce images that tell stories for newspapers, magazines, books and the
Internet.
•appreciate the content, aesthetic beauty and usefulness of photographs in relation to news making.
•Write and produce intelligent captions for their photos.
•Identify a “good” photo and the elements that make a good photo

At the end of this course, students should be able to:
•produce images that tell stories for newspapers, magazines, books and the
Internet.
•appreciate the content, aesthetic beauty and usefulness of photographs in relation to news making.
•Write and produce intelligent captions for their photos.
•Identify a “good” photo and the elements that make a good photo.

Module 1
Fundamentals of Photojournalism
The development of photography in the 1830s was one of the most profound changes that has affected the way we view the world. Photography brings to life people, places, events and other things that we would otherwise have trouble understanding. It has given us a common set of images with which to understand the environment that we do not personally experience.

•Photography is an important part of journalism. It, along with the words that we use, is a vital part of telling the story we have to tell.
•Photography gives the audience for journalism another dimension of information that they cannot get with words.
•It often gives life and form to the words that journalists use.
• It helps to entertain the audience as well as to deep their understanding of the information in a story.
•Photography is a way of impressing a story onto the brain of a reader.

Outstanding Photo
Journalists
One of the first great photojournalists was Matthew
Brady, a New York portrait photographer who traveled to many of the battlefields of the
American Civil War in the 1860s to record what had happened there. Brady’s images brought home to people who had stayed behind the starkness and horrors of way and helped change the way that people thought about war itself.

Portfolio Assignment 1: PR
Find an object that projects the image of the university. It could be its logo, website, branding, gate etc. Take a picture of the object and find out everything you can about the item. Why do you consider it as a public relations tool for the University?
Submission Deadline: 23 rd April 2013
@11am. 5 marks

Difference between photojournalism and photography
1.
Photography focuses on the aesthetic beauty of an image while photojournalism focuses on how the news angle of an image.
2.
Photojournalist is concerned about the compositional focus, or emphasis of a picture while photography is concerned with clarity, colour and quality of a picture.
3.
Photo journalists must integrate photography into their thinking about every story they cover.
But that isn't the business of a photographer.

What a photojournalists must look out for in Pictures
1.
Drama : Pix that will hold viewer’s attention.
2.
Action : Pix that depicts movement, keeping viewers in suspense of what happened before and after the pix was taken.
3.
Expression : The photo that captures expression tells a good story.
4.
Unusualness : capture the unique or bizarre moments of people’s lives

Ethics and legal issues in photojournalism
1.
Take the pictures first and decide whether it will be published or not later.
2.
It is a crime to manipulate the pix. Take pix as it appears. Do not move or photoshop pix for publication as people believe pix don’t lie

Code of ethics of the National Press
Photographers Association .
1. Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.
2. Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.
3. Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work to avoid presenting one's own biases in the work.
4. Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.
5. While photographing subjects do not intentionally contribute to, alter, or seek to alter or influence events.

Code of ethics of the National Press
Photographers Association (Contd)
6. Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.
7. Do not pay sources or subjects or reward them materially for information or participation.
8. Do not accept gifts, favours, or compensation from those who might seek to influence coverage.
9. Do not intentionally sabotage the efforts of other journalists.

Portfolio Assignment 2: News Events
Choose a newsworthy event to cover: a speech, a press conference, a meeting, a protest, a concert, bad weather, an accident, etc. Shoot at least ten pictures, trying to emphasize unusual angles , getting in close , interesting lighting , etc. Photos must contain people. Fifteen to twenty pictures.
5 marks
Submission deadline: Tuesday 30 th April, 2013
@11am

Long range/ establishing shots . These are pictures taken in a scene in its entirety. They give the viewer a good idea of the environment of the subject of the photograph, but they do not offer much information about the subject itself.

Midrange: These shots bring the photographer closer to the subject and give more specific information about the subject. But they still show the subject within a setting so that the viewer has some idea about the environment in which the subject if placed .

Good midrange photography requires the photographer to move, to change positions, and to shoot from a variety of angles. One of the marks of the rank beginner is that all of the photos are taken from the same spot and the same angle. Good photojournalists move around their subjects and try to find interesting angles and perspectives from which to shoot. They don’t mind getting on their knees or lying on their backs or getting on top of tables, chairs or ladders to take interesting and informative pictures.

Close-up : The best and most interesting pictures generally are close-up shots. These pictures bring the viewers face to face with the subject and allow them to get detail information about the subject. Good close-up pictures cut out all of the environmental information about the subject.

Close-up photography is what proves the worth of the photojournalist for the viewer.
Photojournalists get near a subject when viewers cannot or are unwilling to go that close.
These shots give viewers something of value, something they would not get otherwise.
Getting good close-up shots requires both skill and courage .

The Rule of thirds
This is a way in which photographers think about the composition of their photographs so that they are more interesting and informative. The rule of thirds helps direct the eye of the viewer in a natural way toward the important parts of the photo. The concept and the application of the rule of thirds are both fairly simple

What a photojournalists must look out for in Pictures
1.
Drama : Pix that will hold viewer’s attention.
2.
Action : Pix that depicts movement, keeping viewers in suspense of what happened before and after the pix was taken.
3.
Expression : The photo that captures expression tells a good story.
4.
Unusualness : capture the unique or bizarre moments of people’s lives

Assignment 3
Architecture and history.
Shoot pictures of buildings with unique architecture, or of historical significance.
In your written description, give information about the architecture’s origin and its community impact, or give a brief historical account (about two paragraphs) of the building. Make sure you quote architectural experts and historians.

Caption Writing
According to the American Press Institute, photo captions should accomplish four things:
Explain the action: Tell where and when.
Name the principles: Don’t leave out anyone who’s in the picture. If their not important, crop them out.
Tell why you’re running the photo: Go beyond the obvious. Try to pull the reader into the story.
Note important detail: Explain all mysterious objects or circumstances. Allow for a longer photo caption if it will help the reader understand the story .

General Tips in Caption Writing
 Use conversational language . Make it easy to read.
Avoid cliches .
 Use present tense when describing action
( Runs , running instead of ran or will run ).
 Active voice reads stronger ( Max is riding the bike ” instead of The bike is being ran by Max ).
 Take out needless adjectives and and adverbs ( Ran fast , strong , skillfully , is running , or looks on ).
 Don’t repeat information that appears in the headline or body.
 Remember to name the source of the photo and the date it was taken.
 Triple check the correct spelling of names.

Examples of Good & Bad Captions
Example of Bad Photo Caption: Young Ms. Riding
Hood walking briskly to her grandmother’s cottage during a dreary fall morning .
["Yes, I can see that, but how young is she? Why is she walking briskly? Where is her grandmother's cottage? It doesn't look all that dreary to me."]
Example of Good Photo Caption: Red Riding Hood, age 9, carries a basket of flowers in Fable Forest to attend to her sick grandmother in Yorkshire

Examples of Good & Bad Captions
Example: (bad) OUCH! Oxford High School bicyclist crashes.
Example: (good) DOWN AND OUT. Senior cycling team captain Bob Everitt takes it on the chin after cutting the final corner too close in a duel with
Mosby High’s Steve Sherrill at the season’s first race. After a trip to the hospital and 10 stitches, Bob went on to win five races for the year and led the team to an overall second place finish in the region

Examples of Good & Bad Captions
Example: (bad) HE’S OUT. Chuck jumps and throws toward first.
Example: (good) UP AND OVER.
Shortstop Chuck Davidson avoids Dan
Gladden’s rolling slide and makes the throw to first to complete the ninth inning double play which sealed
Oakland’s 3-2 win over Birkdale Twins in the subdistrict playoffs.