Photo: Getty Images
New Zealand Herald, Feb 28 2011
I chose this picture as one that represented the issues raised in the readings this week for a few reasons, but mainly because it is a picture of a current event (the Christchurch earthquake), meaning that it is firstly current, and secondly, not an image we have discussed before. The issues raised in the text are ones that should be applied to all photojournalistic images. The major concern of the text was truthful portrayal of events by the media. Noone is completely objective and as such all images of this style will have part of the photographer in them and in part this is important as it can drive the photographer to take particular images. However, the text argues that to the best of the photographers abilities, they must scrutinise their work to check that it accurately shows the event, without harmful bias. The author strongly believes that this truthfulness is essential for the survival of photojournalism, as it creates a trust in viewers that the images were not posed and are showing them what actually happened. In the picture above, the photographer could have posed the people walking through the frame, or photoshopped the image to make the damage appear worse or less extreme as they saw fit. However, this would make it an 'untrue' photo in many ways and as a journalistic image this would violate the trust of the viewers and make it in some ways irrelevant.
Good summary of the main points, especially the very thorny one about "truthfulness" because it is underpinned by the intention and the context. What is so amazing about your choice of example is that the people strolling across seem so casual, yet their lives have been instantly changes. They are key to the image because I think we suddenly see that wreckage from the point of view of the people experiencing it and not only the photographer (who we usually forget that is also experiencing it). Very interesting example.
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