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Photojournalism wedding fair and bridal show
It's pretty unusual to take  photojournalistic style photos at a wedding fair and bridal show....
First published 29th. April 2007
  Pretty confused wedding photo, analysis of a  wedding photo. that confuses several generalisations.
First published 15th. April 2007.

Great zoom lens, ideal for photographer with large and strong camera bag, large and strong assistant, mule  etc.
(click on the photo to enlarge it)
 
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The bizarre relationship between photojournalism and PR photography
first published 04/03/08

Democratic photo manipulation

Every time a wedding photographer asks someone at a wedding to smile, it's photo manipulation.
It's also photo manipulation by democratic consensus,  because most people consent to it. 

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Blue plastic bottle photography

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To most of us, a camp  fire should be  brown and black, the branches are usually brown and when they are burned they are black.
This perception might have been shaped  by  our childhood experiences, or  by our experiences as a parent. As children  we might have built a camp fire, as a parent we might have built a camp fire for our children. Either way,  it was coloured brown and black. 
But  the camp fire above isn't brown or black, there's a blue plastic bottle in it, and this might conflict with our perceptions.
Because of this, we might remove it, take it out of the photograph. But this could be a mistake. This camp fire  was built by the homeless people in the background. If we took the bottle out of the picture, we would be applying our perceptions to them, we would be effectively saying to them `you have the wrong perception about camp fires .'  This would be a pretty arrogant attitude.
To expand on this, our perception is probably that building a camp fire is a fun event. But to them it probably isn't a fun event, it's an unfortunate necesssity. Because of this, they aren't concerned whether their camp fire looks pretty, whether its a pleasant brown and black colour. They just want to burn their blue plastic bottles on it  so that no-one - the kind of people that resent homeless people - can complain they are untidy. 
Anyway, I think the  bottle does make the camp fire look pretty, the blue colour `picks up' the blue colour of the tents.

Irresistible photojournalistic wedding photography 

Photojournalism - at least photojournalistic wedding photography - can be irresistible as well as whatever else its supposed to be. 
I couldn't resist taking a photograph  of  this flowergirl and pageboy aka photojournalistic wedding photographers taking photos of each other.
I took the photograph when I was  the wedding photographer and photojournalistic wedding photographer (wow) at a Skegness Lincolnshire  wedding which was held on the 15th. September 2007 (click on the photograph to enlarge it).
If you're a student at a school of photography or photojournalism and if you have to write something about it (yeah I know) my advice is, try to incorporate the adjectives `natural' and `spontaneous' into your work, because in my view this is what photojournalism and photojournalistic wedding photography is or should be about.

Photojournalistic motives

This isn't the motive  for taking the photographs, the motive is to portray realism, to portray people as they really are.
This may be fine for some people, but maybe it isn't so fine if the people in the picture happen to be girls, like the girls in the parade above.

Photojournalistic failures

Sure, photojournalism captures the absorption on the face of the parade girl above . But it doesn't capture her at a moment when she is looking her best, when she is looking  most attractive.

Photojournalism  versus conventional photography 

Compare this with the photograph of the parade girls above her. This isn't a photojournalism style picture, they aren't absorbed in anything, they realize they are being photographed, they are looking their best, they are looking their most attractive.
But instead I just asked her to `look  natural'.
Interestingly, she naturally looked concerned and caring, even though I hadn't asked her to do.
 *The photo was one of a series of  portrait photographs of teenagers  which were commissioned by the Lincolnshire County Council

When photojournalism fails

Is photojournalism style photography  inherently unattractive, can it ever be aesthetically pleasing?
It mostly consists of taking photographs of people who are absorbed in doing something.
But when people are absorbed in doing something, they rarely look their best, ie. their most attractive. 
So the conclusion might be that photojournalism results in pictures of people who aren't looking  their best (click on a photo to enlarge it.).

Teenage dance girls photo non-experiment 

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A more conventional  pyramid shaped image.
In photo: teen dance girls appearing in Julie Stevens school of dance show at the Embassy centre, Skegness, in July 2007.
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Copyright © 2007 by Paul Gooch Images