Photojournalism Writing - Mitchell Phun

Page One: A Conversation with Philip Gefter, Picture Editor of the New York Times' Front Page
This essay is an interview between Veronique Vienne and Philip Gefter (the editor of the front page - New York Times). In the interview Gefter often feels that he is choosing the "photo of the day" but for the whole world to see, its such an incredible job and a fine position to have. He talks about the importance of words that go along with the picture, its not all about the picture, the words convey their own meaning and have a weight on them that carry through to the picture. Gefter has a long history of photography in his years before becoming the editor, he has a BFA, and has a history of teaching photography to people in colleges across america.

History's First Draft Looks Much Better With Pictures
The essay highlights the importance of photographs to accompany text and words in journalism. Before photography, it was all words, man could only imagine what the other side of the world looked like, because all they saw was their backyard, their car and their surroundings, there wasn't any photographic evidence of the other side of the world. In journalism, getting the facts right is an important factor, getting information close to the truth, similarly with photojournalism, even with the photo editing software and technology, the goals of the photographer tend to be to get the image as close to reality as possible.

Reflections of New York's Luckiest: Look Magazine 
This essay explores the idea of 'life as we know it' the focus being 'candid'. The magazine "Look Magazine" started out as a tabloids magazine focusing on the celebrities but eventually they changed their focus onto a picture based magazine that was suitable for the whole family.

Reading Newspaper Pictures: A Thousand Words and Then Some
Gefter discusses in this essay about the importance of the caption in photojournalism. "Some people need to know what they're looking at before they can appreciate it" This means that people appreciate the photo better when they know the background story behind the image, they have room to use their imagination but not too much that they totally miss the point and purpose of the photo.

Cornel Capa, Photojournalist and Museum Founder Dies at Ninety. 
A huge part of Life Magazine and had a long running career in photojournalism. His biggest influence was his older brother (Robert Capa), he was big into photography with politics and social justice. He lived by the quote: "I wanted to show things that needed to be corrected. I wanted to show the things that needed to be appreciated."

Response: 
The essays that were apart of this chapter was really relevant to me personally and I loved reading about other photographers and their experience with photos in relation to words (captions). Captions are so important to photographs, as stated in the essays they give you a background story, it gives a story, a connection that brings the viewers attention to the photographs and what the photographer is trying to convey to the viewer. I loved reading this.