In today’s world, photojournalism isn’t something that is heard or
spoken of much anymore. With the Internet providing us with places such
as YouTube, DeviantArt, and other online sources created just for
sharing amateur photography, it’s really no surprise that
photojournalism is slowly becoming a dying form of art as well as media.
However, those who haven’t had much interaction and experience with
photojournalism really don’t understand the true beauty behind it. It’s
amazing to be able to look at a set of pictures, if not just one single
picture, and be able to draw a story from it- and not only is the story
usually touching, but its message is usually important.
Below are 10 photojournalists who are very well known for their
stories. Many of them risked their lives and some even had to witness
things no one could ever imagine seeing in their lifetime. All of these
people have been able to pick up a camera and take some of the most
famous
pictures; ones that tell stories of wars, riots, and anything and everything in between.
10. Philip Jones Griffiths
Philip Jones Griffiths is best known for his portrayal of the Vietnam War through his pictures, though his
first picture
was of a friend and his family using a Brownie (a very popular and
relatively in expensive camera produced by Kodak). As the Vietnam War
was slowly coming to an end, Griffiths took photographs during the Yom
Kipper War and then traveled to Cambodia where he worked until 1975.
Because of his great success and popularity, Griffiths became Magnum’s
president until 1985. Though he died in 2008, Griffith’s legend still
lives on today. He is best known for
Vietnam Inc,
Dark Odyssey, and
Agent Orange: Collateral Damage in Vietnam.
9. Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson is known as the father of modern
photojournalism. Born in France in 1908, Cartier-Bresson was one of the
first to use the 35mm format. He was influenced by the randomness and
grace of a photograph taken by Martin Munkacsi of 3 young boys running
into a lake. He often spent hours on various streets, capturing life as
he saw it, which became known as street photography. He took pictures
all over Europe: from Madraid to Prague and from Budapest to Brussels.
In 1948 he became well known for covering Mahatma Gandhi’s funeral as
well as the ending of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. He also spent time
photographing the Imperial eunuchs.
8. Robert Doisneau
Robert Doisneau is a well-known French photographer, who along with
Cartier-Bresson, was able to lead the way towards a new path in
photojournalism. He is well known for snapping ironic images as well as
ones that depicted juxtapositions. At 13 he went to a craft school where
he was first introduced to the arts, participating in still life and
figure drawing, and earning diplomas in lithography and engraving, At
16 he discovered photography and, according to many, he was so shy that
he’d only photograph cobblestones. Eventually he moved to photographing
children and then
adults.
In the 1920s he became a lettering artist for Atelier Ullmann, an
advertising company tied to the pharmaceutical industry. He was also
able to work as a camera assistant in the studio and over time earned
the job of a staff photographer. In 1932 he sold his first photo-story
to
Excelsior newspaper. In 1939 he took up a job working with
postcard photography and freelance advertising services. Later that year
he was drafted as a photographer and a Resistance soldier. He used his
skills to forge identification papers and passports. During this time he
photographed the Battle of Paris. After the war he worked for
Life magazine and he also worked with Paris
Vogue doing
fashion and high-class photography. He won the Prix Kodak in 1947.
7. David Burnett
Burnett graduated in 1968 from Colorado College and immediately went
into amateur and eventually professional photography. He was a
freelancer for
Life and
Time magazines in both the
U.S. and later on Vietnam. Once he was in Vietnam for two years, Burnett
decided to join Gamma, a French photo agency that allowed him travel
all throughout Europe, where he worked as a news photographer. In 1975
Burnett decided to fly solo and co-founded his own photo agency in New
York City, known as Contact Press Images. Even though he opened his own
photo agency, Burnett was still heavily devoted to his job and passion
as a photographer. For the next 30 years he travelled all over to cover
various worldwide events, including the Olympics, political campaigns,
and various others. He even photographed some of the most famous people
of the time, including popular reggae singer Bob Marley. His photos have
been published in various magazines, including
The New York Times.
While he may be best known for his photos taken during the Iranian
revolution, all of his work has been praised and he has received various
awards, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal, World Press Photo, and
others.
6. Robert Capa (Endre Friedmann)
Robert Capa, born as Endre Friedmann, is well-known for his wartime
photos during WWII as well as his boldness and bravery and his
involvement in Magnum Photos. His life as a photographer started at the
age of 18 when he moved out of his native home in Hungary and left for
Berlin where he worked as a darkroom apprentice. He was also able to
dabble in photography and was able to take pictures of Leon Trotsky.
Once Hitler came to power, he went to Paris, but here he struggled to
live as a freelance journalist. He and
his fiancée
decided to take another approach, setting up a business under the
falsified persona of a rich and famous man called Robert Capa, who the
two claimed was an American photographer visiting France. Friedmann took
the pictures, his fiancée sold them for no less than 150 francs a
piece, and all credit was given to the made up Capa. Editor of
Vue,
Lucien Vogel found out the secret but sent the pair to Spain, where
Capa took one of his most famous photographs of a Spanish soldier dying.
His fiancée died during their quest to take notable pictures, and after
her death Capa went to China were he photographed the battle of
Taierchwang. After traveling to various countries to capture more of the
war, Capa died on May 25, 1954 after stepping on a landmine.
5. David Seymour (Chim)
Sometimes known as Chim, David Seymour was born in Warsaw but moved
to Paris where he became enthralled with photography during his studies.
He is well known for his perceptive eye and caustic personality. In
1933 he landed his first job as a freelance journalist and from there
his career took off. He was able to capture moments during the Spanish
Civil War as well as during unrest in Czechoslovakia. In 1939 he took
photographs of Loyalist Spanish refugees who journeyed to Mexico. When
WWII began, Seymour was in New York but enlisted in the army in 1940
where he worked as a photo interpreter in Europe. In 1942 his parents
were killed by
Nazis, which lead him to help UNICEF document the plight of refugees, especially children.
Even though he was well known for his war photographs of orphans, he
later got into photographing celebrities. While covering the 1956 Suez
War, Seymour and fellow photographer Jean Roy were killed by machine-gun
fire.
4. Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an American photojournalist who heavily covered
life during the Great Depression. She first learned about photography in
New York City and got the chance to apprentice at various New York
photography studios. In 1918 she moved to San Francisco where she opened
a portrait studio. Once the Great Depression began, Langue left her
studio and decided to use her camera outside where she captured images
of homeless and unemployed people. She later married an agricultural
economist in 1935 and the two worked together documenting migrant
laborers, sharecropping, and rural
poverty.
Her photographs caught the eye of many and she was given a job with the
Farm Security Administration. In 1941 she earned the Guggenheim
Fellowship and went on to cover life for Japanese-Americans after Pearl
Harbor. Today, her photographs are well known all across the world as
they show the true side of the Depression and put faces to the dire
circumstances and made their plight public. Lange’s photographs and
coverage of the era influenced the creation of documentary photography.
3. Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White was an American photographer who is well known
for her documentary photography of WWII and the India-Pakistan violence.
She earned the first of many titles, including being the first female
war correspondent, the first female to work in a combat zone, the first
foreign photographer to be granted the right to photograph the Soviet
Industry, and the first female to have her photograph grace the cover of
Life magazine.
She worked for Fortune magazine from 1929 to 1935 as a staff
photographer. In the early 1930s she became known for her photographs of
those suffering from the Dust Bowl and she also published a book with
the help of her novelist husband which portrayed Southern life during
the Depression. She also went to various countries in Europe to
photograph life under Nazi rule and Russia life under Communism. Here
she was able to capture a photo of a smiling
Joseph Stalin. In 1936 Henry Luce, the owner of
Life
magazine, hired her and put her Fort Peck Dam construction photo on the
front cover. She was the on and off staff photographer up until 1945.
In 1969 she retired due to her failing health and later died in 1971.
2. Eddie Adams
Like many on this list, Eddie Adams’ name is well-known and attached
to one specific photograph. Often referred to as “Saigon, 1968,” Adams
said the image haunted him for the rest of his life. Even though he
photographed 13 different wars, he is best known for his work that he
produced during the Vietnam War. And even though today these pictures
are widely known, praised, and analyzed, they were never published in a
book before his death in 2004. Many say this is because Adams was a
perfectionist, which often slowed down or halted the publishing process.
He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War and worked
as a combat photographer. He was sent there to take pictures of the
Demilitarized Zone from one end to the other and he was able to complete
the task in just over a month. Adams became widely known when he worked
for the Associated Press during the Vietnam War where he took various
photographs of Vietnamese refugees attempting to escape in a photo essay
that was entitled “The Boat of No Smiles.” Adams pictures greatly
changed the American view of the war and even persuaded
Jimmy Carter to grant asylum to 200,000 refugees.
1. Robert Frank
Robert Frank was born in Switzerland and ever since his work entitled
Les Americains
was published, he became a very prominent figure in American
photography as well as in film. He was born to a wealthy Jewish family
but when Hitler came to power, despite his family being safe in
Switzerland, Frank experienced the widespread oppression. To escape the
oppression as well as the fact that his family was so involved with
business, Frank got into photography and in 1946 he was able to create
his first book of photographs entitled
40 Fotos. A year later he moved to the U.S. and worked as a fashion photographer for
Harper’s Bazaar. In 1950 he published a book of photographs he had taken while in Peru and in the same year he participated in the
51 American Photographers
held at the Museum of Modern Art. While in the U.S., Frank never liked
the American way of life. He saw it as being too fast-paced and too
dependent on money, something he tried to escape at home. He referred to
the U.S. as being lonely and bleak, a theme that runs through
Les Americains. Later on in life he worked as a photojournalist for
Fortune,
Vogue, and
McCall’s.
After 14 years and 27 deaths while being constructed, the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is opened, connecting the great cities of New York
and Brooklyn for the first time in history. Thousands of residents of
Brooklyn and Manhattan Island turned out to witness the dedication
ceremony, which was presided over by President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Designed by the late John A. Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge was the largest suspension bridge ever built to that date.
John Roebling, born in Germany in 1806, was a great pioneer in the
design of steel suspension bridges. He studied industrial engineering in
Berlin and at the age of 25 immigrated to western Pennsylvania,
where he attempted, unsuccessfully, to make his living as a farmer. He
later moved to the state capital in Harrisburg, where he found work as a
civil engineer. He promoted the use of wire cable and established a
successful wire-cable factory.
Meanwhile, he earned a reputation as a designer of suspension
bridges, which at the time were widely used but known to fail under
strong winds or heavy loads. Roebling is credited with a major
breakthrough in suspension-bridge technology: a web truss added to
either side of the bridge roadway that greatly stabilized the structure.
Using this model, Roebling successfully bridged the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls, New York, and the Ohio
River at Cincinnati, Ohio. On the basis of these achievements, New York
State accepted Roebling's design for a bridge connecting Brooklyn and
Manhattan--with a span of 1,595 feet--and appointed him chief engineer.
It was to be the world's first steel suspension bridge.
Just before construction began in 1869, Roebling was fatally injured
while taking a few final compass readings across the East River. A boat
smashed the toes on one of his feet, and three weeks later he died of
tetanus. He was the first of more than two dozen people who would die
building his bridge. His 32-year-old son, Washington A. Roebling, took
over as chief engineer. Roebling had worked with his father on several
bridges and had helped design the Brooklyn Bridge.
The two granite foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge were built in
timber caissons, or watertight chambers, sunk to depths of 44 feet on
the Brooklyn side and 78 feet on the New York side. Compressed air
pressurized the caissons, allowing underwater construction. At that
time, little was known of the risks of working under such conditions,
and more than a hundred workers suffered from cases of compression
sickness. Compression sickness, or the "bends," is caused by the
appearance of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream that result from rapid
decompression. Several died, and Washington Roebling himself became
bedridden from the condition in 1872. Other workers died as a result of
more conventional construction accidents, such as collapses and a fire.
Roebling continued to direct construction operations from his home,
and his wife, Emily, carried his instructions to the workers. In 1877,
Washington and Emily moved into a home with a view of the bridge.
Roebling's health gradually improved, but he remained partially
paralyzed for the rest of his life. On May 24, 1883, Emily Roebling was
given the first ride over the completed bridge, with a rooster, a symbol
of victory, in her lap. Within 24 hours, an estimated 250,000 people
walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, using a broad promenade above the
roadway that John Roebling designed solely for the enjoyment of
pedestrians.
The Brooklyn Bridge, with its unprecedented length and two stately
towers, was dubbed the "eighth wonder of the world." The connection it
provided between the massive population centers of Brooklyn and
Manhattan changed the course of New York City
forever. In 1898, the city of Brooklyn formally merged with New York
City, Staten Island, and a few farm towns, forming Greater New York.
