You’ll find yourself in important situations.
January 14, 2008
As a photojournalist, even if international work or spot news isn’t your thing, you’ll inevitably find yourself in situations where you are called on to make pictures as strong and as important as the moment that surrounds them. John Moore, a photographer with Getty Images, was covering a political rally in Pakistan, held by Benzair Bhutto the leader of Pakistan’s largest political party. It was at that rally that Bhutto was killed, throwing Pakistan’s politics into chaos less than two weeks before parliamentary elections. It was intended that this election would restore democracy in Pakistan after eight years of military dictatorship — a vote in which Ms. Bhutto would have been a front runner.
Within seconds Moore’s role changed from covering a standard political rally to one of making images that portrayed a pivotal moment in the political, social and democratic future of Pakistan. The New York Times ran a multimedia piece on Bhutto’s assassination narrated by Moore, which you can see by clicking HERE. (please watch this)
Again, it is SO important that as students you work hard, now, to perfect and hone your craft of photojournalism because it’s your eyes that are responsible for communicating these moments to the rest of the world, and you need to be able to do that very, very well.
i watched that multimedia piece the day after it happened, its incredible. We better be working hard, it sure would be a shame if were present during a spontaneous pivitol world event, and came home to the realization that all our photos are back focused, poorly composed, and overexposed.
This is also a good example as to why we should be willing to cover anything, even if it sounds lame and uneventful. You just can never know what will come of something.
[...] events are often boring visually, but as Jim pointed out in a recent blog on UKPJ about Bhutto’s sudden assasination, you never know what will happen at an event. My [...]