ALT-1 How to become a Photojournalist
Before you even attempt to become a photojournalist, you've got to take inventory of your personality and character traits. Are you alert. can you trust your instincts and react on them without hesitation, can you see both the larger picture and the details that tell a story, can you handle risk and flat out danger? If you can honestly answer "yes" to all of these questions, then you need to move on to what type of lifestyle you want to live. If you want predictability, slippers and your favorite TV shows at the end of a hard day's work, immediately write photojournalism off your list of things to do. Living the life of a photojournalist means being able to take off at a moment's notice, sometimes in the middle of the night from a dead sleep, and being able to travel and stay focused under a wide variety of situations, having tremendous compassion for your subjects, and sometimes walking straight into the eye of the storm. The most important question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you're willing to do what other's aren't to get that shot, and get it from an angle that tells the story better than the next guy.
Photojournalism is the documentation of events as they unfold. Nobody poses for a photojournalist, and nobody pauses to smile for the camera or emote. You've got to be quick, and you have to be physically fit. Your instincts about what might happen have to be keen, and you've got to be quick in your thinking to figure out how to get higher, lower, more to the left or right to capture the unexpected. You've got to be moving, thinking, and reacting while everybody else around you is still trying to figure out what's happening.
The path to earning the title of photojournalist can be a long and difficult journey. Because of the nature of photojournalism, you have to hone both your camera and artistic instincts. Digital cameras can often take care of a lot of the technical aspects of photography, but for photojournalism you'll need to know how those cameras work, which are best for your trade, and memorize the controls of your camera with your fingers so you won't waste time hunting for the right buttons and wheels to turn as you adjust to changing situations. Your artistic skills also need to be trained. No matter how fast you act, how high you climb, or how deep you run into dangerous situations, it means nothing if you can't instantly frame your shot based on the rules of good composition that make the image visually pleasing and give it the most emotional impact. Henri Cartier-Bresson, the photographer who defined how the new 35mm camera could best be used in the mid-20th Century, called photography instant drawing. It is. Know how to draw with your camera at 1/400 of a second, and do it with skill, precision, and artistic merit.
To earn one's living as a photojournalist is also a long and difficult journey. In this digital age, everybody with a point and shoot camera thinks they're a photographer, and they are. Because digital images are so inexpensive to create, everybody with a camera has found a pony in their memory cards at one time or another. You have to produce excellent photographs that appeal to publishers with greater regularity and quantity than the flood of images coming to them from amateurs. A career in photojournalism can be started through the phenomenon of the Internet and blogging, but the same rules of consistency, quantity, and quality still apply. Although the Internet has thrown open the doors to a lot of professions that were once locked, you still have to attract, and keep, the attention of the public. There is no easy path to this career, despite all the advancements in technology.
Last, but certainly not least, you need a camera. While developing your physical, mental, and artistic skills, an inexpensive point and shoot camera can be a good learning tool. Hopefully, if you're committed to your craft, you'll quickly outgrow that camera and move on to a dSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera. When moving up to a dSLR, there are several things to take into consideration. You need a camera that is going to hold up under a lot of abuse without cracking or splitting, and you need a camera with a good sensor. It's more important to have a good used camera with fewer mega-pixels, made of a metal alloy than it is to go for the newer cameras with more mega-pixels with a plastic body. Many photographers I know still believe that the Canon 10D is one of the best cameras ever made by Canon, or perhaps any other manufacturer. You can currently find this camera used on eBay or other sites for about $300. If you can find it, buy it. You'll save a lot of money, get superior image quality, and have money left over for the second most important thing you'll need-good glass.
"Good glass" means a lens that has just that, good glass inside the lens cylinder. You're better off with a less expensive, smaller MP camera and good glass than you are with the newest toy on the market. No matter how many bells and whistles you have on your camera body, you won't be able to capture the sharp details required in photojournalism if you don't have good glass. Fixed focal distance lenses, often called "primes," deliver the best quality for the price, but for photojournalism you need a good telephoto lens so you can zoom in and out on the scene for the best framing of the shot.
When choosing glass for photojournalism, avoid the most common error made by virtually all aspiring photographers. Don't go for a lens that will zoom out the furthest. Look for a lens that will go as wide as possible. Study the work of other photojournalists and you'll see that there is distortion of people and objects at the edges of the images. The more distortion, the wider angle lens the photographer has used. I can guarantee that if you study the best of photojournalism, you'll find the most distortion at the edges the images. There will also be distortion throughout most of the image, but it's not as noticeable as at the edges. That distortion is what often tells the story, and you need to know how to use it to your best advantage.
I work mainly as a wedding photographer, but the most popular trend right now for weddings is the photojournalist style. I can tell you from experience that it is four to ten hours of pure panic and incredible physical demands. My eye is constantly seeking angles, locking on details that tell a story, and climbing up on furniture and balconies to get a shot that tells the unguarded story of the moment. I love it, because it fits my personality, my skills, and keeps me constantly challenged in an environment where the food is pretty good, and I know I'll sleep in my own bed that night. If I could take off at a moment's notice and didn't mind eating food I can't recognize or name, I'd take a run at the world of real photojournalism. I do what I do because I'm honest about my strengths and weaknesses, and I've spent years studying both art and photography, and I know how to make the impossible look easy.
Of all the different types of photography, photojournalism is the most difficult to do well, get paid for, and weave a lifestyle around. It can also be the most rewarding, and done right, your work can help to change the world. It doesn't get much better, or more difficult, than that.
