Photography Vocabulary

WARM UP
Before proceeding, please go to this site and for the next few minutes, look at the images. Really look. These photos all showed up in news services. Why? What makes them note worthy? Have they anything in common? Quick write/ quiz grade. Answer that question in approximately 100 words. 

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

Key concepts and terms•  Despite the ease of the technology, taking a good picture – one that is worthy of good journalism – is difficult; it takes both skill and planning.

• Three types of photos dominate photojournalism –1.establishing shots, 2.midrange shots and 3. close-ups.
See examples at right. Be prepared to identify.

• Pictures can be inaccurate in that they can place information in an inaccurate context; photojournalists must have the same commitment to truth and accuracy that other photojournalists have.

 • A pen and notebook are as important to the photojournalist as a camera.

 • Three of the most important elements in making a good photograph are drama, emotion and action.

 • Mug shot – journalistic slang for a picture of a person’s head and shoulders.

 • Cropping – in the photo editing process, eliminating unnecessary parts of a photograph.

 • Scaling – changing the size of a picture to fit into a publication or web site.

 • Proportionality – maintaining the relationship between the width and depth of a photograph when it is being changed in size; the opposite of proportionality is distortion.

 • Cutline – the words that explain what is in a photograph. Cutlines are sometimes hard to construct, but they are very important. Photographers do not always have to write the cutlines for their pictures (although they should do so whenever they get the chance). They should gather the information needed for a cutline, including the names (spelled correctly) of the people visible in their photos. This, of course, is not always possible.