Photojournalism 2014 Style: Getting the Word-Out & Getting the People Involved

Wilson Hicks

“Its elements used in combination do not produce a third and new medium.  Instead, they form a complex in which each of the components retains its fundamental character, since words are distinctly one kind of medium, pictures another.  Of various dissimilarities in the mediums the one most pertinent to understanding of the photojournalistic technique is to be found in the ways in which they activate certain subjective responses in the reader.”

Wilson Hicks

 Photographic Communication: Principles, Problems and Challenges of Photojournalism  p. 19

 Wilson Hicks was the photographic editor of Life Magazine  from 1937 to 1950.  It was Hicks who built the photography staff at Life Magazine  from 4 to 40. He was also a professor of photojournalism at the University of Miami from 1955 to 1970.  In many way Hicks can be considered one of the fathers / mothers of photojournalism.  He understood this delicate marriage between the still photograph and the power of the printed word.  The picture didn’t stand alone in the context of the story but rather the picture served as a key component of the story; the picture took center stage while being surrounded by a caption and written copy.  As Hicks says in the quote above these two mediums weren’t melted into a third medium but rather they were two distinct mediums that serve to “activate certain subjective responses in the reader.”  It is interesting that he calls the subject reacting “the reader.”  Isn’t the reader also a viewer?  The subject that engages these mediums are viewing and reading, reading and viewing, while being moved as the story is constructed in such a way to provoke movement.  The work of photojournalism is to achieve a “subject response” from the viewer / reader.  The goal of my work is to take this principle of “provoking a subjective response in my viewer / reader”  specifically in response to social stratification and gentrification in the Atlanta area.

Hicks and his team of photographers and editors were very intentional about their work.  They had a   They constructed their “picture stories” in such away to advance their cause.  I look back on this time with romantic rose-colored glasses. Once I clean my glasses off and situate myself in the present I ask myself, “How can I do what Hicks and his team did in the time of Life Magazine?”  I answer myself by saying:

point of view, they didn’t claim some unachievable objectivity.

       1. You must create / make images that are so moving and compelling that they demand that the viewer stop, look and ask questions.

       2. You must create a community conversation around the issues you feel passionate about and that need to be addressed.
    3. You must use the tools you have at your disposal in this age to get the word-out.  The magazine as we knew it no longer exist but in an age of social media / multi-media you can and must communicate in new and timely ways.  The community of concerned activists citizens can be developed and sustained via virtual mediums.

      4. You must become an activist in regards to the issue(s) you feel passionate about.

The model of Life Magazine and Wilson Hicks was founded on iconic  images arranged in the format of story that served to move the reader.  It is this story format that will work today.  We are wired for story and the power is in the story as told via the images and multi / mixed media that both informs and moves those who engage the work.  What is the historical foundation your work is built upon?  How are you updated that foundation to work in a changed world?   

BBC Documentary on Life Magazine

The photographers who did the work!
http://life.time.com/photographers/