Photojournalism & Bias
Bias and truth can be looked at and seen in photojournalism but are two completely different terms. When audiences take a look at an image, they tend to have different interpretations due to what they have experienced in life and what they deem to be true. Everyone's life is different due to family, education, birthplace, ethnicity and work which makes it a unique and personalized experience.
In Ed Clark's "Going Home" photograph it represents the importance of emotions especially in a time when the country was mourning. In the image, I see a black man playing the accordion while crying and looking up while other people, specifically women that are white are around him too looking sad. I interpreted this image as grief someone can feel after the passing of someone, but more specifically for this photo it represented the grief as a country that people were feeling after Roosevelt's death. In the article "Bettye Lane: A Feminist Photojournalist's Arresting Images" states, "Lane's dramatic photos... were dramatic proof of feminisms rising influence and potential to change society". To me this means that the way she portrayed her images made a change just like this photo above.
When looking at this image, different principles can be used such as "what feelings does the image create?", "does the image remind you of any work or art or photograph you have seen?", and "is the image black & white or color?". The feelings this image creates can be something related to the civil rights movement due to the emotion behind the scenes. This image captured my attention from the start but does keep growing on me because you can see him playing an instrument and crying at the same time. Since this image was taken when Roosevelt passed away, I think it was important to recognize the backstory since he did a lot for the civil rights movement and then the image portrays a black man crying after his passing. This image does remind me of previous work I've seen before such as with the civil rights movement. The different elements of the past I see in this picture and the present would be still that strong emotion coming from the Black side. The lightening then evokes and lets you know the image is from the past due to the nature of the image from the women to it being in black and white. This image is portrayed in black and white due to the timing of this event happening in the past as well as it drawing comparisons to past events. Even though most images back in this time were in black & white the photographer still had a preference for what he wanted to choose. I think still picking black and white overall still shows the past and history and how it was such a tragic event with him passing.
When looking at this image it represents truth to me in multiple ways. This image represents truth to me by showing off protests that make a change to do something right for women's right. This in turn evokes the different "ways of knowing" through emotion/intuition. I chose to focus on that way of knowing because images such as these with protests especially for causes like right should be acknowledged more. Overall, this picture holds a lot of weight in women's eyes, but it should for men too since it is basic human rights.
I chose this image to represent something I think is not of truth because of the sign he is holding up. I say this because I feel as if he is mocking women who get abortions and say "my body, my choice" that is often seen in other protests. I also said this was an image of not truth because of him possibly being an anti-vaxxer. I think people should be able to choose what they want for themselves, but going around in protests and spreading false information about vaccines is not right. Overall, each of these images makes me think harder about photojournalism and bias and what should or shouldn't be photographed sometimes.
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