What is news photography and what is its principle?

What is news photography? What's the photographic value? What is the form of photography? I have compiled the basic contents of news photography for you, hoping to help you!

What is news photography?

News photography is a kind of news report on what is happening in the form of photographic pictures. It is a form of news report that records news facts on the spot with a video camera. Photographic pictures are the main means of news photography to spread information, mainly relying on snapshots, and their purpose is to explain events, spread news and have an impact. In addition, news photography is usually accompanied by a short text description to introduce the background and process of the incident.

The explanation of news pictures in China Practical News Dictionary is "a form of news reporting that combines the visual image of pictures with short text descriptions to report news and spread information". This interpretation shows that "news" and "information" are the "core" of pictures, and pictures are just the "shell" carrying "news" and "information". If there is no "news content" in the picture, only the "shell" of the picture is left, and the picture will lose its meaning.

Photographic value

News photography has great value, small value and no value, but it is all news. News photography has appeared many times, some only once, and has different values and significance in different periods and places. Some things are news to big shots and celebrities, but not to ordinary people. On the contrary, the experience of the little people has become the number one news. Some news photos have no value after a period of time, and their vitality is very short, while some news photos have strong vitality and even become valuable history. The longer the photo, the higher the value.

News photography is rare in a hundred years. If you know it in advance, it will happen suddenly and be at the mercy of others. Breaking news is the most exciting. Breaking news is difficult to shoot because you are not prepared in advance, which depends on the quality and skills of journalists. Mainly ideology, whether there is that kind of psychological preparation.

News photos are good and bad. But it's all news photography. This kind of news photography is formulaic and task-oriented. There are many such photos in the newspaper. There's nothing we can do. It is polite not to post it. The publication of such photos has affected the image of photographers and the image of the press. Words are sometimes unreliable, because they can be written casually. Photos should be the most authentic. However, the photos made by computer are not credible. Can be spliced at will, and all parts of the head, body, arms, legs and human body can be assembled and replaced at will, which is seamless.

There must be means to engage in news photography. First of all, there are readily available cameras and certain equipment, such as transportation and even airplanes. But thoughts are the most important. Journalists engaged in news photography should be informative, flexible, hard-working and even have the spirit of sacrifice. In the west, dozens of people die every year. We must also have innovative spirit and awareness, and we must not stick to the rules. Photography should also be concise, indicating that it can only make the finishing point.

News photography mainly expresses people. All kinds of people, people who appear in various occasions. People are the most difficult to shoot, especially the close-ups of people, and it is even more difficult to show everyone's mentality. Scenery is better than living people. The scenery is dead. Just choose the right angle and use the light well. The living are constantly moving and changing. There are many expressions of joy, anger, sadness and joy on a person's face.

Photo form

There are many forms of photography, one is to make people understand what happened at a glance, and the other is to make people remember deeply and associate.

News photography should grasp the typical moment of the subject, reproduce the true feelings of news facts and the facial expressions of news figures, and increase people's perceptual knowledge of news.

The value of news photography

The value of news photography is that it is the unity of the authenticity of news facts and the documentary nature of news images. Excellent news photography works can combine news value, historical document value and image aesthetic value.

Principles of news photography

News photography adheres to the principle of news authenticity, while paying attention to skills and aesthetics.

Interview report

As one of the works of Pulitzer Prize for photojournalism, domestic photojournalism has really made great progress since it advocated "grasping the news" in the era of picture reading. Photographers should go deeper into the grassroots, conduct independent investigation and research, and implement "grasping news" to push it to a new stage. Because of the image characteristics of news photography, it is decided that it can only choose those concrete news facts that are happening and developing as direct shooting objects, but not those things that have changed or been abstract over time.

Practice also shows that from the domestic photo reports, this kind of concrete news fact that is happening and developing mainly occurs in the real life of the people who are building socialist material civilization and spiritual civilization. Practice has proved that it is not enough to know the news facts of photographic reports only from the leading organs; It is impossible to rely on others. We can only rely on our own strength, go deep into reality and the masses, and discover, pursue and even "touch" through serious visits and observations. Photographers always get to the scene. Only in this way can we have a comprehensive understanding and observation, report ideas clearly and continuously, and then solve the problems of image expression and photo shooting.

Photography award

Jose prize

The World Photojournalism Competition (WPP) is sponsored by the Netherlands-based World Photojournalism Foundation. The association was founded on 1955. Since 1957, the first world photojournalism competition was held, and it has been held for 50 times by 2007.

The "Lotus Award" is divided into breaking news, general news, news figures, sports actions, sports topics, contemporary hot spots, daily life, portraits, art and nature *** 10 categories, which basically covers all aspects of news photography. Each category is divided into individual photos and group photos (no more than 12).

This competition is one of the largest and most prestigious photojournalism competitions in the world. Its purpose is to "promote information freedom, unrestricted communication and encourage high-level professional news photography", which has played a significant role in promoting the development of news photography all over the world.

The Pulitzer Prizes

According to the will of Joseph Pulitzer (1born in Budapest, Hungary in April, 847), the Columbia Journalism Institute was established in 19 12, and the Pulitzer Prize was established in19/7. Pulitzer prizes include news prizes and art prizes. There are 0/4 news awards and 7 literary awards, among which news awards mainly include: public service award, reporting award, editing award, cartoon award, criticism award, communication award, feature award, photojournalism award, etc. Literary and artistic awards include novel awards, drama awards, poetry awards, American historical works awards, autobiography or biography awards and non-fiction awards; Music composition award 1. In addition, two special prizes were awarded. Public service awards are generally awarded to newspapers, and the prize is a gold medal. Winners of other awards can get bonuses and certificates of $654.38+00,000 yuan.

The first Pulitzer Prize for Photography was awarded by 1942. After that, it will be issued once a year except 1946. Since 1968, the photography category has added a special news photography award, and the winning works usually consist of a group of photos.

Respect the law

The planning of news photography reports must be able to give full play to the advantages of photography: visual impact. The principle of planning and considering the theme is to have a sense of lens. The so-called camera sense has three criteria: first, the news subject can be displayed by the picture, especially the inner world of the characters; Second, the news background and its environment can be displayed through pictures; Third, the news scene has a strong impact, that is, whether news and picture composition can form a climax that makes people echo each other.

There is a phenomenon of virtual "big" in existing newspapers. That is to say, newspaper pages are lifeless without pictures, but there must be a degree between the "big" and "small" news pictures. The ruler to grasp this fate can only be "big" and "small" of "news content". However, in the eyes of some editors and reporters (including a few editors-in-chief), they think that the bigger the picture, the better the visual effect and the stronger the impact.

As a result, the "big" wind of greed in picture editing seems to be getting worse. Long and empty words are often denounced by readers as smelly and long "lazy wife foot-binding" Similarly, a big and empty picture without "news content" is also a kind of "bubble". Although this kind of news picture looks "big", it has no influence because of its dull, pale and empty content, but it can only occupy, waste and even pollute the space.

Photographic characteristics

in time

News photography must embody the word "new" and reflect the news facts that are happening and attracting attention. Such as political events, economic news, social hotspots, international relations and documentary reports reflecting social life.

realness

Authenticity is the life of news photography, and false news reports can only be condemned.

typicality

The typicality of news photography reports includes three aspects: typical events, typical images and typical moments.

Presence

The scene capture of news photography should focus on correctly reflecting events and have a strong sense of the scene; It should not be over-carved, and the pursuit of artistic effects will be detrimental to the reporting of facts.

Skill discussion

transmissibility

News photography is playing an increasingly important role in the rapidly developing modern journalism. News photography integrates news, ideology, authenticity, timeliness and visualization, which can condense the emotions of news subjects in the picture, giving people a concise and shocking effect, and has the function of "a picture is worth a thousand words". News photography meets readers in the form of news pictures with short text descriptions. It is different from the moving images on movies and TV, but has a static image, that is, the image of the news itself is fixed on a picture instantly. Mr. Jiang Qisheng once suggested that news photography should have "five essentials", namely novelty, truthfulness, life, pleading and meaning. This requires news photographers to go deep into their lives and strive to shoot news photos with both news value and artistry under the premise of strictly observing the rules of news photography, which has both strong news value and high artistic appreciation value. News photography requires the unity of truth, goodness and beauty in content and form, and it needs to use artistic techniques to grasp typical moments and let the image "speak". Only in this way can we have a strong ideological and infectious nature and have a more shocking effect.

visual impact

Visual impact refers to an intuitive image, which is directly presented to the audience without the imagination of the audience and can leave an impression on the audience's mind.

Physical shooting method to make news pictures have impact: emphasize a unique feature of the scene and make it have strong visual impact. You do this in order to get closer to the subject, and you can get better visual impact than long-distance shooting. In addition, the choice of shooting point should be unconventional and the photography language should be concise and clear.

information quantity

News photography mainly reveals news facts and disseminates news information with instant images. The more information concentrated in news photos, the greater the news value and the more innovative it will be. For example, in the Netherlands, when a car accident happened, two photographers from DPA and AP were present. A reporter from DPA photographed the moment when a car hit the wall and got out of the building. The Associated Press reporter filmed the moment when the car collided with the oncoming car after passing through the building. Therefore, most newspapers use the photos of the Associated Press. Because the photo of the Associated Press reporter not only reflects the plot of the car hitting the wall and going out of the building, but also explains the result of colliding with another car after going out of the building, which is more informative. Information content has two aspects: one is factual information content, and the other is emotional information content. In the practice of news photography, we often find such a phenomenon: some news photos seem to contain little information, but they are also favored by readers. What is the reason? This is because the information content of news pictures includes two aspects: factual information content and emotional information content. Although many news pictures contain little factual information, they contain a lot of emotional information, so they are equally popular.

A typical example is the photo of a girl with big eyes in the series of photos "I want to go to school", one of the Pulitzer Prize news photography works, which was shot by China Youth Daily reporter Jie Hailong. Compared with another photo in the group photo, the teachers and students of the whole school, this photo obviously contains much less factual information. In "All Teachers and Students", the images of rural background, big bowl of rice, rural teachers dressed in Hanfu, diligent children, etc. condense all kinds of specific information about children's learning in poor mountainous areas. However, the previous photos contain more emotional information. The beauty of the little girl is in sharp contrast with the sinister environment in the poor mountainous area. The little girl's big eyes reveal innocence, simplicity, persistence and hope, staring at the audience's conscience and soul like a searchlight, which strongly impacts the audience's mind and makes you unable to escape. Because of this, the author and readers have become accustomed to taking this photo as the masterpiece of the whole series of photos, and even the organizers of the National Hope Project have taken this photo as a symbol of activities and publicity.

symbolic

It is a moment famous for its generality and expressiveness, and its images often show some hidden meaning, indicating some connotation outside the painting, and more infiltrating the photographer's subjective understanding and thoughts and feelings. Therefore, the information capacity is larger, the news value is higher, the visual impact is stronger and more innovative. In addition, symbolic moments do not seek to reflect the whole picture of the event, but only highlight the most profound and symbolic corners and parts of the event, giving people a glimpse of the whole picture, thus providing a broad and free space for journalists to give full play to their subjective initiative to shoot innovative pictures.

The world-famous news photos "The Disaster in Bhopal" (photographed by Pablo bartholomew) and "The Consequence of Ugandan Drought" (photographed by Mike Wells) are good examples. These two photos reporting disaster news did not describe the disaster in detail, but only selected the most symbolic corner of the disaster to show the disaster, which was novel and original and achieved excellent communication effect. The former chose to bury the poisoned child at this moment, which highlighted the round eyes of the victim who was fatally injured and symbolized that he would die unsatisfied; Slightly moving lips seem to have his last groans and complaints. The latter picture is a close-up of a white and generous palm holding the palm of a black teenager similar to a chicken claw, symbolizing the evil consequences of drought in Uganda, and the palm is thin.

Humor moment

In the development of most news events, there are many humorous moments. On the surface, it seems to have nothing to do with the meaning or essence of the event, but in fact it reflects the meaning and essence of the event from another angle and side. It can enlighten people's minds and make people relaxed and happy. Capturing this moment requires the photographer to have humorous thinking, which can make people break the usual connection between things and observe the world from another angle. Humorous moments often give images magical and novel meanings. Shooting this moment is the main way for news photos to gain new ideas and produce visual feelings.

1987 12.7. After seven years, the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce the medium-range strategic nuclear missiles finally made a breakthrough and signed the Sino-Russian Agreement. Tim Clary, an American photojournalist, captured a humorous moment in this very stylized and serious news event-Gorbachev and Reagan were about to shake hands to congratulate each other after signing the agreement to exchange texts, but their hands were not together. In the photo Trade, Reagan and Gorbachev are like businessmen. After some bargaining, they finally reached a deal, which is very innovative. Although it is not too strong visually, it has impacted people's minds.

Xinqi moment

That is, at the scene of news events, because of the special shooting position and angle of reporters, the news events filmed are refreshing and unique. This moment is famous for its novelty and uniqueness.

A large part of the subjects faced by news photography are stylized and rarely change, such as winning prizes in sports competitions, annual people's congresses and so on. Capturing novel moments is the main way to make your photos innovative and ahead of many competitors. For example, the annual People's Congress, the rostrum is also arranged in this way. In this case, it seems difficult for photographers to take refreshing photos. However, when the First Session of the Seventh National People's Congress was held in 1988, a photographer tied his camera to his hand and stretched out his arm, which moved the shooting point forward by several tens of centimeters and changed the shooting angle. Therefore, his meeting photos make readers feel fresh.

Yue Hu's The Birth of a New Record is also a good example. Zhu Jianhua, a high jumper from China, broke the world record of men's high jump with a score of 2.38m at the 5th National Games. Amid the warm cheers of the audience, Zhu Jianhua walked around the field to pay tribute to the audience. At this time, many photographers rushed to the front and followed. Hu Yue stood calmly in the stands and took a unique news photo of "the birth of a new record"-enthusiastic audience and sports reporter behind, Zhu Jianhua cheering for the audience in front-novel and refreshing.

Exclusive photo

Innovative news photos are often exclusive photos of the news scene, so we must be fully prepared for taking photos. In addition to the necessary interview preparation and technical preparation, it is more important to carefully observe the situation at the news site and be aware of it.

The exclusive news photo "Sleepless Night in Beijing on September 23rd" taken by China Youth Daily reporter Liu Zhankun is a typical example. When Samaranch announced that the host city of the 2000 Olympic Games was Sydney, when "Night in Beijing on September 23rd" was broadcast live on Beijing TV, people's expressions ranged from surprise, hope to confusion. This is an exclusive photo, and its success is undoubtedly due to the reporter's on-site observation in advance. At the shooting scene at that time, only Beijing TV reporters could take pictures in front of the venue. All the reporters were arranged on the second floor, and only the people in the live broadcast room could be seen. Liu Zhankun quietly surveyed the terrain and even knew the shortest distance from which door to the front of the venue. When the moment touched millions of people came, he rushed down the stairs quietly and quickly, jumped to the front of the venue flexibly, and photographed this fleeting moment very calmly.

Role action

Expressions and actions are the external expressions of characters' inner feelings, and they are the key to reveal people's spirit, temperament and personality characteristics. News photography can only express people's inner spirit, thoughts and feelings through their actions. Action is the most basic feature of the image used by news photography to "speak", that is, the image of an activity or the image of a plot in a group activity. In news photography, the action expression of characters' personality characteristics must be related to the expression of characters' thoughts and feelings, that is, the emotions expressed by characters' characteristic expressions and action gestures can be expressed.

Swing application

Regarding the posing phenomenon, Wang Wenlan, director of the photography department of China Daily, vice chairman of China Photographers Association and academic member of China Photojournalism Society, once said: "In China's photojournalism circle, the debate on capturing and posing ended in the Cultural Revolution, because the different shooting methods at that time came from the falsification of many photos during the Cultural Revolution, which constantly caused a long-term debate. Judging from Jose's photos, many of them have been posed, designed and planned, such as masks that won the second prize in science and technology, but they have not affected the authenticity of photos and the reliability and readability of news events at all. On the contrary, they improved their influence through the design of pictures. No matter how you shoot, capture and pose, you must achieve the effect of the picture, which should be the only criterion for your success or failure. "