On the skills of news photography

News photography is playing an increasingly important role in the rapidly developing modern journalism. News photography integrates news, ideology, authenticity, timeliness and visualization, which can condense the emotions of news subjects in the picture, giving people a concise and shocking effect, and has the function of "a picture is worth a thousand words". News photography meets readers in the form of news pictures with short text descriptions. It is different from the moving images on movies and TV, but has a static image, that is, the image of the news itself is fixed on a picture instantly. Mr. Jiang Qisheng once suggested that news photography should have "five essentials", namely novelty, truthfulness, life, pleading and meaning. This requires news photographers to go deep into their lives and strive to shoot news photos with both news value and artistry under the premise of strictly observing the rules of news photography, which has both strong news value and high artistic appreciation value. News photography requires the unity of truth, goodness and beauty in content and form, and it needs to use artistic techniques to grasp typical moments and let the image "speak". Only in this way can we have a strong ideological and infectious nature and have a more shocking effect.

visual impact

Visual impact refers to an intuitive image, which is directly presented to the audience without the imagination of the audience and can leave an impression on the audience's mind.

Physical shooting method to make news pictures have impact: emphasize a unique feature of the scene and make it have strong visual impact. You do this in order to get closer to the subject, and you can get better visual impact than long-distance shooting. In addition, the choice of shooting point should be unconventional and the photography language should be concise and clear.

information quantity

News photography mainly reveals news facts and disseminates news information with instant images. The more information concentrated in news photos, the greater the news value and the more innovative it will be. For example, in the Netherlands, when a car accident happened, two photographers from DPA and AP were present. A reporter from DPA photographed the moment when a car hit the wall and got out of the building. The Associated Press reporter filmed the moment when the car collided with the oncoming car after passing through the building. Therefore, most newspapers use the photos of the Associated Press. Because the photo of the Associated Press reporter not only reflects the plot of the car hitting the wall and going out of the building, but also explains the result of colliding with another car after going out of the building, which is more informative. Information content has two aspects: one is factual information content, and the other is emotional information content. In the practice of news photography, we often find such a phenomenon: some news photos seem to contain little information, but they are also favored by readers. What is the reason? This is because the information content of news pictures includes two aspects: factual information content and emotional information content. Although many news pictures contain little factual information, they contain a lot of emotional information, so they are equally popular.

A typical example is the photo of a girl with big eyes taken by China Youth Daily reporter Jie Hailong in the series of photos "I want to go to school". Compared with another photo in the group photo, the teachers and students of the whole school, this photo obviously contains much less factual information. In "All Teachers and Students", the images of rural background, big bowl of rice, rural teachers dressed in Hanfu, diligent children, etc. condense all kinds of specific information about children's learning in poor mountainous areas. However, the previous photos contain more emotional information. The beauty of the little girl is in sharp contrast with the sinister environment in the poor mountainous area. The little girl's big eyes reveal innocence, simplicity, persistence and hope, staring at the audience's conscience and soul like a searchlight, which strongly impacts the audience's mind and makes you unable to escape. Because of this, the author and readers have become accustomed to taking this photo as the masterpiece of the whole series of photos, and even the organizers of the National Hope Project have taken this photo as a symbol of activities and publicity.

symbolic

It is a moment famous for its generality and expressiveness, and its images often show some hidden meaning, indicating some connotation outside the painting, and more infiltrating the photographer's subjective understanding and thoughts and feelings. Therefore, the information capacity is larger, the news value is higher, the visual impact is stronger and more innovative. In addition, symbolic moments do not seek to reflect the whole picture of the event, but only highlight the most profound and symbolic corners and parts of the event, so that people can know the whole leopard at a glance. Therefore, it provides a broad and free space for journalists to give full play to their subjective initiative to shoot innovative pictures.

The world-famous news photos "The Disaster in Bhopal" (photographed by Pablo bartholomew) and "The Consequence of Ugandan Drought" (photographed by Mike Wells) are good examples. These two photos reporting disaster news did not describe the disaster in detail, but only selected the most symbolic corner of the disaster to show the disaster, which was novel and original and achieved excellent communication effect. The former chose to bury the poisoned child at this moment, which highlighted the round eyes of the victim who was fatally injured and symbolized that he would die unsatisfied; Slightly moving lips seem to have his last groans and complaints. The latter picture is a close-up of a white and generous palm holding the palm of a black teenager similar to a chicken claw, symbolizing the evil consequences of drought in Uganda, and the palm is thin.

Humor moment

In the development of most news events, there are many humorous moments. On the surface, it seems to have nothing to do with the meaning or essence of the event, but in fact it reflects the meaning and essence of the event from another angle and side. It can enlighten people's minds and make people relaxed and happy. Capturing this moment requires the photographer to have humorous thinking, which can make people break the usual connection between things and observe the world from another angle. Humorous moments often give images magical and novel meanings. Shooting this moment is the main way for news photos to gain new ideas and produce visual feelings.

1987 12.7. After seven years, the negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce the medium-range strategic nuclear missiles finally made a breakthrough and signed the Sino-Russian Agreement. Tim Clary, an American photojournalist, captured a humorous moment in this very stylized and serious news event-Gorbachev and Reagan were about to shake hands to congratulate each other after signing the agreement to exchange texts, but their hands were not together. In the photo Trade, Reagan and Gorbachev are like businessmen. After some bargaining, they finally reached a deal, which is very innovative. Although it is not too strong visually, it has impacted people's minds.

Xinqi moment

That is, at the scene of news events, because of the special shooting position and angle of reporters, the news events filmed are refreshing and unique. This moment is famous for its novelty and uniqueness.

A large part of the subjects faced by news photography are stylized and rarely change, such as winning prizes in sports competitions, annual people's congresses and so on. Capturing novel moments is the main way to make your photos innovative and ahead of many competitors. For example, the annual People's Congress, the rostrum is also arranged in this way. In this case, it seems difficult for photographers to take refreshing photos. However, when the First Session of the Seventh National People's Congress was held in 1988, a photographer tied his camera to his hand and stretched out his arm, which moved the shooting point forward by several tens of centimeters and changed the shooting angle. Therefore, his meeting photos make readers feel fresh.

Yue Hu's The Birth of a New Record is also a good example. Zhu Jianhua, a high jumper from China, broke the world record of men's high jump with a score of 2.38m at the 5th National Games. Amid the warm cheers of the audience, Zhu Jianhua walked around the field to pay tribute to the audience. At this time, many photographers rushed to the front and followed. Hu Yue stood calmly in the stands and took a unique news photo of "the birth of a new record"-enthusiastic audience and sports reporter behind, Zhu Jianhua cheering for the audience in front-novel and refreshing.

Exclusive photo

Innovative news photos are often exclusive photos of the news scene, so we must be fully prepared for taking photos. In addition to the necessary interview preparation and technical preparation, it is more important to carefully observe the situation at the news site and be aware of it.

The exclusive news photo "Sleepless Night in Beijing on September 23rd" taken by China Youth Daily reporter Liu Zhankun is a typical example. When Samaranch announced that the host city of the 2000 Olympic Games was Sydney, when "Night in Beijing on September 23rd" was broadcast live on Beijing TV, people's expressions ranged from surprise, hope to confusion. This is an exclusive photo, and its success is undoubtedly due to the reporter's on-site observation in advance. At the shooting scene at that time, only Beijing TV reporters could take pictures in front of the venue. All the reporters were arranged on the second floor, and only the people in the live broadcast room could be seen. Liu Zhankun quietly surveyed the terrain and even knew the shortest distance from which door to the front of the venue. When the moment touched millions of people came, he rushed down the stairs quietly and quickly, jumped to the front of the venue flexibly, and photographed this fleeting moment very calmly.

Role action

Expressions and actions are the external expressions of characters' inner feelings, and they are the key to reveal people's spirit, temperament and personality characteristics. News photography can only express people's inner spirit, thoughts and feelings through their actions. Action is the most basic feature of the image used by news photography to "speak", that is, the image of an activity or the image of a plot in a group activity. In news photography, the action expression of characters' personality characteristics must be related to the expression of characters' thoughts and feelings, that is, the emotions expressed by characters' characteristic expressions and action gestures can be expressed.

Swing application

Regarding the posing phenomenon, Wang Wenlan, director of the photography department of China Daily, vice chairman of China Photographers Association and academic member of China Photojournalism Society, once said: "In China's photojournalism circle, the debate on capturing and posing ended in the Cultural Revolution, because the different shooting methods at that time came from the falsification of many photos during the Cultural Revolution, which constantly caused a long-term debate. Judging from Jose's photos, many of them have been posed, designed and planned, such as masks that won the second prize in science and technology, but they have not affected the authenticity of photos and the reliability and readability of news events at all. On the contrary, they improved their influence through the design of pictures. No matter how you shoot, capture and pose, you must achieve the effect of the picture, which should be the only criterion for your success or failure. "