Areas of Photography

Shannon Small

Documentary

Documentary is a branch of photography field, this branch focuses on ‘document’. The photographer takes a picture of a person, a place or an event which is happening as they take it, it is real unlike most photography which is staged. Documentary photograph depicts humanity and some certain situation of humanity. These situations can be war scenes, poverty problem, child labor or anything.

Documentary photography is mostly used in the newspaper, television (the news) and in magazines and also text books, it’s used to document real life events and was used more in the past some of which photographs we still see today in history books.

Documentary photography has changed over time as it is a lot easier to catch a spontaneous news event now days, for example when documentary photography was first coming about, it would be a lot harder to hide a bulky camera with a slow film, it would be much more noticeable when a camera had come into the equation. People would often see the camera and look right into the camera lens when they realized a picture is being taken of them, it is a lot harder to find a historical photography that isn’t somewhat staged. Luckily for documentary photographers cameras have become more advanced and smaller with a lot faster film making it easier for photographers to take sneaky spontaneous photo’s without the subject even noticing.

DocumentaryStarving Cuban Family- Walker Evans1933

Jim GoldbergUSA. Hollywood, California. 1988

Advertising

Advertising photography is a type of photography used to promote and raise awareness to a certain object, subject or service.

Advertising photography is mostly used on posters, in magazines and on television to promote subjects and objects and companies

Advertising photography has changed over time for example an advertisement photograph from the sixties would never have seen a woman wearing very little clothes whereas now days it is very normal and natural to see a big photograph of woman showing a lot of skin. Also during, for example, the sixties woman and men had very different job roles, men where supposed to work and woman where supposed to stay at home looking after children and cooking a lovely dinner for her husband. Therefore there would be different things advertised for each gender. Now, though, subjects are advertised to whoever see’s it, man or woman.

It has changed over time to suit the ever changing generations. For example people care more about name brands now, having the latest of everything: phones, cars, clothing, make up.

Advertising

Weetabix Explosion-Jonathon Knowles

Full Throttle-Tim Tadder

Fashion

Fashion photography is an area of photography devoted to displaying clothes and other fashion items.

It is mainly used in magazines, newspapers, the internet and is also used to advertise shops.

Fashion photography has greatly changed over time, for example fashion as a whole has changed a great deal from when woman where made to wear dresses a great deal of the time we now see pictures of women in short shorts and showing a lot more skin than was previously allowed. Also photography equipment has advanced, we can now edit blemishes on our fashion models, and make them look generally better looking. Also we have better quality cameras and lighting equipment which can make for a better photograph.

Fashion photography has changed over time along with the generation, previous fashion photography would have seen a woman almost completely covered in a dress whereas today we have photographs showing a lot of skin perhaps wearing short shorts and a crop top.

Fashion

Portrait

Portrait photography is photography of a person or people which displays expression, personality and mood of the subject.

It is mostly used in family photographs, sometimes advertising and art.

Portrait photography has changed over as the equipment has become better. We now have much better lighting equipment, editing tools (photoshop)and cameras.

It has changed to become a better form of photography, a more expanded and used area.

Portrait

Maria-Magda Berny

Tea Break-Murad Halimoglu

Photojournalism

Photojournalism is a form of journalism and photography which collects images in order to tell a story.

It is mostly used in magazines, newspapers, television and internet.

Photojournalism has changed over time due to the changes in generation. For example during the 1930’s to the 1950’s or ‘the golden age of photojournalism’ there was a lot to photograph such as homeless family and starving families due to the great depression. Now for example, in most parts, life isn’t as bad as it was then and there isn’t as many interesting stories to tell through photojournalism.

Photojournalism

D-Day landings, Dead Soldiers-Robert Capa

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Macro

Macro photography is taking an extreme close up of a small very subject. Usually animals, insects and nature. It captures the subject and makes everything in the background blurred so the audiences main focus would be only the subject.

It is mostly used in magazines, for example nature magazines, although it can sometimes be used in advertising also alongside a vast range of other media.

Macro has changed greatly over the years for example when it was just being discovered it would have the been very hard for the photographer to blur out the background so as the main focus would be the subject. As it is mostly used on insects, animals and nature it would have been very difficult to get the subject to keep still long enough to take a macro picture given the slow film of the camera also.

Macro

Graham Owen – Happy Bee

Vadmin Tunov -Meeting Under the Rain