i'm not sure if this is the right forum or not for this? Most of my images I do consider art, most

[juxtaposed]

are political. The ones I've posted during the rnc were not taken lightly. So this is a more friendly form.
I should have posted an Orange picture.............
This is tame.
This is what we do..........

[Speck Tater]

1. Photography...

...can be art, or it can be journalism, so I see no reason not to mix the two together and make artistic journalism. Come to think of it, National Geographic has been doing something like that for decades; mixing art with travelogue/documentary.

[juxtaposed]

2. lol !! agree!

[Stevenmarc]

3. For the most part

I feel there's a distinct line between fine art photography and photo journalism but there are times that line can blur, the best example, and my personal favorite, is Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother". Another one is Eisenstaedt's V-J Day in Times Square, an image that was captured by other photographers but what set his shot apart was an incredible eye for composition.

They are styles of photography that have a different set of priorities, fortunately they aren't necessarily incompatible with each other and when they do happen to come together it can become iconic.

[Celebration]

4. Honestly I feel more like a journalist than an artist

I don't do much photojournalism in the traditional sense, but I feel more like I am documenting what happens in the natural world than I am interpreting it artistically, if that makes sense. For that reason I do very few still life photos or portrait photos. I appreciate them as art, but I don't really want to do them because they have no journalism component. When I take photos of birds or other animals, or I take photos of landscapes I feel like I am documenting what is there already, and I am not impacting the scene.

What I am trying to say is that my entire approach is one of photojournalism rather than art, but, I do try to make the photos look good! And it doesn't mean that I chase fires or police cars. It is just more my mindset than anything else.

One of the main reasons I took up photography is that it helps train my entire being to having better observation skills. That is why I love photography! Art is secondary to me. Documenting the natural world or events of any kind is the priority.

I love street photography because at its best it is both documenting (observing) AND artistic. There isn't much money in it, though. My favorite street photographer here just started his own auto repair shop. He is (was) immensely talented. I still love thinking about his photos because his observation skills are so acute. My favorite photo of his was a tree growing up from a sidewalk, breaking up the concrete. He named it something really clever, too.

[Richard D]

5. My hit . . .

. . . is that if you hang out with the extraordinary DU photographers, your photojournalism shots would get even better. There's a lot to learn about composition, framing, using shutter speeds and aperture controls, etc. that will only help.

[Celebration]

6. oh, definitely

The problem is once you learn how to set these things with one camera, if you get another one, it is a whole new learning curve!!

(I just spent all afternoon with my semi-new Cannon and the printed manual, trying different stuff).

My favorite thing is observing. My second favorite thing is post processing. My least favorite thing is camera settings. Let's just say I like the first two a whole lot, but not so much manipulating the camera settings. I can learn to do it, but I don't consider it fun.

[juxtaposed]

12. agree, most are crap---- I get very little that are real good. Most are mudane

[JohnnyRingo]

7. I believe half of photoraphy is being in the right place at the right time.

Personally I'm always ten seconds too late for the great shots. I think most of the Pulitzer Prize winning images are incredible examples of timing and location.

Nice pic. It captures the mood of protest well, but you could have yelled at that one guy to "wipe that smile off your face, I'm taking goddam pictures here!". LOL

[Celebration]

8. I agree

The best shots are the ones that you don't have time to set up, but they work out anyway.

[MichaelSoE]

9. Yup. Here is the perfect example

Chris/Larry: So even back then you were able to be in the right place to capture the moment that defined the game.

Neil: Well, I was lucky. I don’t want to sound like I’m just being modest about it. Most good photographers I know, sports or any other kind, have pretty healthy egos and I’m certainly no exception to that. But sports photography is a matter of being in the right place. You’ve got to be in the right seat. A great example is to the Liston Ali picture. The photographer you see between Ali’s legs is Herbie Scharfman, the other Sports Illustrated photographer. It didn’t make a difference how good he was that night. He was obviously in the wrong seat. What the good sports photographer does is when it happens and you’re in the right place, you don’t miss. Whether that’s instinctual or whether it’s just luck, I don't know.

[Stevenmarc]

10. Well that all depends

On the type of photography. For a photo journalist, yes but you don't want to hear your wedding photographer say you should hire them because they are pretty lucky most of the time, experience allows them the ability to anticipate the shot, well certainly the good ones.

There's a degree of luck for street photography in so much that you can have a great day with a ton of photo worthy subjects but the skill is understanding your equipment so you can get the shot when it presents itself, this is where hyper focal and zone focusing comes in handy.

Personally I avoided shooting my OWS work like a photo journalist because there were so many cameras there that no matter how lucky you were you can bet someone else got a better angle. I went with a slower more deliberate style that took about six days to shoot because I spent more time talking to potential subjects than shooting them and I wanted a more WPA era DNA to the shots.

[JohnnyRingo]

11. I believe award winning photographers have the talent...

for being in the right place/right time with their camera at the ready, much like a wedding photographer.

It wasn't a coincidence that the guy was there on Iwo when that flag was erected, and the photographer who captured that little girl running naked down the Vietnam street ahead of the carnage, knew something was going to happen there sooner or later. They were just fortunate their subjects turned out to be so cooperative.

The list goes on, the inverted Boeing 707 wing, the sailor kissing the girl in the streets of Paris on VE Day, and so many others are historic because the photographer beat the odds by placing himself where he had to be when something significant happened. I imagine great wedding photogs innately know how to do exactly the same thing.

Having said that, I'm obviously not a photographer, I'm a picture taker.

[juxtaposed]

13. agree, but this is the worst of the set