Powerful of photographs

In this era, most people have forgotten the frame of war that happened in ancient times. But somehow, the War Photo Limited Gallery is held for the purpose to recall people’s memory on war (ABC Radion National 2007).


ABC Radio National (2007) stated that the photographers are the only person who can touch, feel, and smell the story of the war as they are the one who stay and witness the war of a country, whereby the media such as editors and publishers write the war story based on their own political and ideological view.


Furthermore, a picture takes by a photographer is more notable than the words produce by an editor or journalist. Lester, MP (2006) stated that people are moving towards a visually mediated community. The comprehension of the world is practiced through the reading of images rather than reading of words (Lester, MP 2006). Schriver, KA (1997) also proclaimed that a picture alone can stand for thousands of words.


Apart from that, pictures offer people with the knowledge about a specific situation that happened in a country. For instance, people can feel the misfortune of the war’s victims when they see the images of people in the war. They can also feel the terrifying life that experienced by the victims of war through pictures (ABC Radio National 2007).

The little girl inside the pictures looks afraid of the soldiers.

As photojournalists, there are some ethical issues related to them. According to Burkholder, C (2009), the leading issues of photojournalism are misused of digital images, interference into privacy and the used of graphic or shocking images.


Therefore, photojournalists have to obey the ethics of photojournalism and make sure themselves provide the original image for the audience.


References:

1. ABC Radio National 2007, The power of the Paragraph, viewed 12 June 2009, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.htm

2. Burkholder, C 2009, Online Journalism Ethics: Photojournalism, viewed 12 June 2009, http://www.journalismethics.ca/online_journalism_ethics/photojournalism.htm

3. Lester, MP 2006, Syntactic Theory of Visual Communication, viewed 12 June 2009, http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/viscomtheory.html

4. Schriver, KA 1997, The interplay of words and pictures, Wiley Computer Pub, New York.