Photography in the Industry
Photography is a big part of most industries it can be used to advertise upcoming events or products, express new future fashion trends and to also capture news story in the moment to visually show people what’s happening.
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either created chemically by light sensitive materials such as photographic film or electronically by an image sensor. Some people have compared art to being similar to photography as the camera is the artists paint brush and your creating art work through the images produced from a camera. Photography has many uses in the industry for example fashion, documentary, photojournalism and advertising.
Photojournalism is probably the most unique type of photography. The purpose of photojournalism is to create images in order to tell a news story. Photojournalism is usually meant to shock and scare people as the photos are used to capture the emotion and story. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (for example; documentary photography, street photography and celebrity photography) by complying with a rigid ethical framework, which demands that the work is both honest and impartial whilst telling the story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists create pictures that contribute to the news media. That is why photojournalism is so unique as the photographers do not set up a photo shoot and manipulate the meaning of the photograph; they just capture what is happening in real life. Photojournalism really started to become popular through 1930s to 1950s and was called the ‘Golden Age of Photojournalism’. The change started by a new style of magazines and newspapers that used photography more than text to tell their stories. Magazines like Life, The Daily Mirror and The New York Daily News built huge readerships and reputations largely on their use of photography and photographers like W. Eugene Smith, Robert Capa and Alfred Eisenstaedt all became well-known names through photojournalism. Photojournalism’s use in the industry is to create a big impact in newspapers and magazines. Henri Cartier-Bresson is a very successful photojournalist; Cartier-Bresson's photography took him too many places, including China, Mexico, Canada, the United States, India, Japan, and the Soviet Union. He became the first Western photographer to photograph "freely" in the post-war Soviet Union. One of Henri Cartier-Bresson most famous photographs was when he was the photographer for Mahatma Gandhi’s last days and funeral in 1948, these photographs really put photojournalism as a whole on the map as these photos today are now very iconic. Another successful photojournalist was Robert Doisneau, he and Henri Cartier-Bresson were pioneers of photojournalism. Some of Doisneau's most memorable photographs were taken after the war, his photographs never ridiculed the subjects, he once refused to photograph women whose heads had been shaved as a punishment for sleeping with Germans; ‘I don’t photograph life as it it, but life as I would like it to be’ – Robert Doisneau. He won several awards throughout his life, including: The Balzac Prize in 1986, The Grand Prix National de la Photographie in 1983 and The Kodak Prize in 1947. His most famous photograph was taken in 1950 and is known as The Kiss, Robert to the photograph of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris which became an internationally recognised symbol of young love in Paris. I got most of my photojournalist information from Wikipedia under the search ‘photojournalism’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photojournalism) and Portfolios under the search ‘Henri Carti-Bresson’ and ‘Robert Doisneau’ (http://www.robert-doisneau.com/fr/portfolio/).
Fashion photography has now become one of the most popular forms of photography in the 21st century. It’s devoted to displaying clothing and forthcoming fashion trends. Fashion photography is most often for advertisements or fashion magazines such as Elle, Vogue or Vanity Fair. Fashion Photography has been in existence since the early days of photography however it has changed through the years due to society being more open minded and peoples view on certain ideas altering. For example around the 19th century fashion photography was very different; females weren’t allowed to reveal skin as they had to be completely covered up as that showed class and sophistication. They also couldn’t act provocative or in a sexual manner as that wasn’t acceptable. However fashion photography has changed since then and has been the type of photography which is controversial and slightly outrageous. Photographers like Terry Richardson has been a big part of the change in fashion photography, Terry has shot campaigns for Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford and Supreme among others. He has also done magazine shots for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Vogue. Terry Richardson has even photographed the likes of Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus and Rihanna. Terry Richardson has sparked controversy recently after supermodel Rie Rasmussen accused him of being degrading to women as his high fashion style often portrayed women negatively. Another fashion photographer who has transformed the world of fashion is Mario Testino; his work has featured in magazines such as Vanity Fair and vogue. One of his career highlights was when he got chosen by Princess Diana to photograph her Vanity Fair photoshoot in 1997, since then Mario has been employed as the British royal family’s photographer. Fashion photography use in the industry is to promote magazines and future fashion trends. The websites I have found a lot of my information from is Wikipedia under the search ‘fashion photography’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/ Fashion, photography) and website models (http://models.com/people).
Portrait photography has always been very popular in the industry. Portrait photography is a photograph of a person or group that displays the expression, personality and mood of the subject. Like other types of portraiture, the focus of the photograph is usually the person's face, although the entire body and the background may be included. Portrait photography has been around since the beginning of photography and has developed from the start of drawing or painting people in the 14th century. One of the earliest examples is the portrait of Jean ll de France in the Louvre which was around 1350. Portrait photography has since developed and has become very popular. The low cost of the daguerreotype (the first practicable photographic process) in the middle of the 19th century and the reduced sitting time of the model led to an overall rise in the popularity of portrait photography over painted portraiture. The models were mostly always seated against plain backgrounds and lit with the soft light of an overhead window and anything else which could be reflected with mirrors. Advances in photographic equipment and techniques developed, and gave photographers the ability to capture images with shorter exposure times and the making of portraits outside the studio. There are many different techniques for portrait photography. Often it is desirable to capture the models eye and face in sharp focus while allowing other less important elements to be in a soft focus. Sometimes portraits of individual features might be the focus of a composition such as the hands, eyes, or port of the models torso. Portrait photography’s use in the industry is for art work in museums, magazines, advertisement and also product promotion. Richard Avedon was an American portrait photographer, The New York Times said ‘his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century.’ Richard Avedon has taken portraits of The Beatles in 1967, Marilyn Monroe in 1957 and Whitney Houston in 1987 to name a few. Annie Leibovitz is an American Portrait photographer. One of her most famous photo shoots was with John Lennon in December 8, 1980 for Rolling Stone. She photographed John Lennon with his wife Yoko Ono on the day of his death. Anne has photographed many controversial photographs; Lady gaga for Vogue and Vanity Fair, Whoopi Goldberg lying in a bathtub full of milk and Miley Cyrus’ semi-nude shoot when she was still a child star. The websites I have found most of my information from was Wikipedia under the search ‘portrait photography’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_photography) and Biography (http://www.biography.com/people/annie-leibovitz).
Documentary photography is very similar to photojournalism. Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, or real life reports, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit. The photographer attempts to produce truthful, objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subject, most often pictures of people. Documentary photography’s use in the industry is to capture historical or significant events. Documentary photography was a lot harder than it is nowadays, mostly down to the equipment that was available for use. Cameras used to be bulky and noticeable, with slow films, and because of this people used to stop and look at the camera, usually making for a very staged shot rather than the candid one a photo journalist may hope for. It was very rare that a spontaneous news event could be captured. Once cameras became faster and hand held, photographers were able to start capturing photographs that were previously not possible. In the days of Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis, documentary photography began to become more captivating, especially with Hine capturing child labour and suffering. It was around 1880, when the camera craze kicked off with the development of a Kodak which was smaller, handheld and contained 100 pictures, that retaliation started to become apparent. The small, hand held cameras that were now being produced made it easy for people to produce nicer images. Paul Wolff and Eric Salomon became prominent photographers around this photographic era. This led to the 'scoop' era, in which we saw photographers competing and fighting for the best shot to be released. Arthur Fellig was said to be one of the best news photographers of the era, capturing images of murder and accident victims that no one else had managed to capture. Martin Parr is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photo book collector. He was first recognised for his black-and-white photography in the north of England, Bad Weather (1982) and A Fair Day (1984), but switched to colour photography in 1984. The resulting work, The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton was published in 1986. Since 1994, Parr has been a member of Magnum Photos. He has had almost 50 books published, and featured in around 80 exhibitions worldwide. Berenice Abbott was part of the straight photography movement, which stressed the importance of photographs being unmanipulated in both subject matter and developing processes. Throughout her career, Abbott's photography was very much a display of the rise in development in technology and society. Her works documented and praised the New York landscape. I got most of my information from Wikipedia under the search ‘documentary photography’.
Macro photography is one of the most recent upcoming photography genres. Macro photography was created by Fritz Goro and is an extreme close up usually of very small subjects in which the size of the subject in the photograph is greater than life size. Macro photography use specific macro lenses designed for close-up capturing. The purpose of macro photography is to capture subjects in a defined and detailed manner. Ondrej Pakan is one of the most successful macro photographers of the 21st century he captures breath taking macro photos of bugs covered in tiny water droplets. Pakan actually sits in the rain waiting for downpour to end then snaps these stunning shots of his insect models only seconds after the rain stops. Robert Thompson is also an extremely talented macro photographer; he is an accomplished natural history photographer, author, entomologist and acclaimed specialist in close-up & macro photography and a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and the Irish Photographic Federation. He has been involved with a number of high profile natural history recording projects in Ireland and was the national recorder in Ireland for Dragonflies; co-ordinator for the highly successful ‘Dragon fly Ireland project’; regional recorder for moths on behalf of Butterfly Conservation Northern Ireland and has written numerous book on various natural history topics and nature photography. He has also been a major photographic contributor to many other high profiles, natural history publications in Britain and is one of Ireland’s leading nature photographers. The websites I found most of my information from was Wikipedia under the search ‘Macro Photography’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_photography) and Photo Venture (http://www.photoventure.com/2013/05/17/20-amazing-macro-photographers).
Landscape photography shows spaces within the world, sometimes vast and unending, but other times microscopic. Photographs mostly capture the presence of nature but can also focus on man-made features or disturbances of landscapes. Many landscape photographs show little or no human activity and are created in the pursuit of pure nature with no human influences, instead featuring subjects such as strongly defined landforms, weather, and ambient light. As with most forms of art, the definition of a landscape photograph is broad, and may include urban settings, industrial areas, and nature photography. Most famous photographers include Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell and Edward Weston. Landscape photography’s use in the industry is to create beautiful photographs capturing simple, pure nature. Ansel Adams is one of the most recognised landscape photographers; his most popular photograph was most likely of the American West Yosemite National Park as these photos have been widely reproduced on books, calendars and posters. Adam Burton is one of the UKs leading landscape photographers. Since 2008 he has been working as a full time professional landscape photographer, regularly supplying imagery and undertaking jobs for a wide range of clients. He has photographed five of the seven continents and now specialises in the landscapes of the UK, particularly Southwest England. Adam has achieved many awards through his photography career including The Wanderlust (Landscape) Photographer of the Year 2006 and has had 200 images published on the covers of magazines, books and calendars. Adam favours the rich colours of dawn and dusk when natural light is at its most special. He uses equipment to enable him to capture magical moments authentically at the picture taking stage, rather than relying on computer enhancements afterwards. Although he now shoots exclusively digitally, his beginnings in film photography engendered a strong desire to record the landscape at its natural best, and nothing more. As a result Adams photography captures authentic and natural moments in time, free from computer manipulation. Landscape photography has changed over the years as technology has changed leading to improvements of photograph quality and photographers style. The main improvement of technology for landscape photography is the cameras. The first practical reflect camera was the Franke and Heidecke Rolleiflex medium format TLR of 1928.Though both single- and twin-lens reflex cameras had been available for decades, they were too bulky to achieve much popularity. The Rolleiflex, however, was sufficiently compact to achieve widespread popularity which made it easier to take stunning landscape photography. The websites I found most of my information from was Wikipedia under the search ‘Landscape Photography’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_photography) and Ldh Images (http://www.ldhimages.co.uk/famous-landscape-photographers/).
