Photography and Photojournalism

Modern photojournalism:
1920-1990
Ross Collins, North Dakota
State University, Fargo

What is Photojournalism?

the art or practice of

communicating news
by photographs,
especially in
magazines.

Photography and Photojournalism

The beginning of
modern
photojournalism
took place in 1925,
in Germany.
The photojournalism
magazine was an
invention originally
from Germany.

Photography and Photojournalism

The event was due to
the invention of the
first 35 mm camera.
Before this, a photo of
professional quality
required bulky
equipment; afterwards,
photographers could go
just about anywhere
and take photos
unobtrusively.

Photography and Photojournalism

From the mid-1920s,
Germany, at first,
experimented with
the combination of
two old ideas.
First was the direct
publication of
photos; that was
available after about
1890.

By the early 20th

century, some
publications,
newspaper-style and
magazine, were
devoted primarily to
illustrations.
The difference of
photo magazines
beginning in the 1920s
was the collaboration.

Photography and Photojournalism

Instead of isolated
photos, laid out like in
your photo album,
editors and
photographers begin to
work together to
produce an actual
story told by pictures
and words, or cut lines.

Photography and Photojournalism

The combination of
photography and
journalism, or
photojournalism--a
term coined by Frank
Luther Mott, historian
and dean of the
University of Missouri
School of Journalism.

Photography and Photojournalism

In the U.S., Henry
Luce, already
successful with Time
and Fortune
magazines,
conceived of a new
general-interest
magazine relying on
modern
photojournalism. It
was called Life,
launched Nov. 23,

Photography and Photojournalism

The first photojournalism
cover story was kind of
unlikely, an article about
the building of the Fort
Peck Dam in Montana.
Margaret Bourke-White
photographed this, and
in particular chronicled
the life of the workers in
little shanty towns that
sprung up around the
building site.

Photography and Photojournalism

Photography and Photojournalism

The Life editor in
charge of
photography, John
Shaw Billings,
saw the potential
of these photos,
showing a kind of
frontier life of the
American West that
many Americans
thought had long
vanished.

Photography and Photojournalism

During the World War II era, Life was
probably the most influential
photojournalism magazine in the
world. During that war, the most
dramatic pictures of the conflict
came not so often from the
newspapers as from the weekly
photojournalism magazines, photos
that still are famous today.
The Magazine finally folded as a