Photojournalism Review

This picture comes with an article on the Fox News website in regards to North Korea and their nuclear talks with the U.S. The photo was released by the Korean Central News Agency and distributed by the Korean News Service.  The article was published on the Fox News site on June 16, 2013. The photo shows Kim Jong Un and his military personnel. It appears that they’re helping or just showing some unity as he walks from his plane to a military unit in a southern part of North Korea near the border of South Korea.

            I feel the photo does a solid job of showing the countries unity and support of their leader, even if we in the U.S. don’t agree with their military tactics or beliefs. Unfortunately the way I hear people talk about our President in the U.S. they’re not as supportive of the way he’s running a country. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion though which is the benefit one has in the U.S. Kim Jong Un, like most leaders of a country, has a celebrity type influence. If you think of other political type photos where a crowd surrounds the leader, for the most part people are trying to flock to the person or even just touch them. The same can be seen in this photo in my opinion.

This photo is in a set of 14 photos in the Huffington Post article regarding the Oklahoma City tornados. This is a photo from The Associated Press and Alonzo Adams. Adams provides Oklahoma and weather fine art and stock photography. His website is http://archive.alonzoadamsphotography.com/ and he also takes bookings for portrait sessions.

            The article itself talks about the death toll from the Oklahoma City tornados but I feel that this picture brings a positive outlook on the situation. The first thing I think of when I see this photo is the general idea of hope. Most photos you see from the destruction that weather such as tornados and hurricanes has are that of despair and sadness. This shows a man on his motorcycle just continuing to press forward with his life and not let the destruction cause him to feel like he’s lost hope. Most people would not try to drive through such high water in a car, let alone on a motorcycle. This photo serves as encouragement to the people of Oklahoma City that you can still keep pressing forward. Not even high waters can keep him from accomplishing what he has planned. He may even been on his way to visit a loved one, I’m not entirely sure. But wherever he was going he was determined.

This photo also comes from the Huffington Post and was photographed by Megan Rogers. While looking at the article on the Oklahoma City Tornados I saw this photo on the side and what really stood out to me was the story behind the picture. “Girl, 5, Collects Hundreds Of Dollars For Peace Selling Lemonade Outside Westboro Baptist Church” is what the article headline says and I thought this was just super awesome. We all know what the Westboro Baptist Church has done in the past. A lot of people find their actions disgusting. What better way to fight the negativity of the Westboro Baptist Church than with love and compassion. It’s easy for us to get angry at their actions but the heart of peace of a little girl selling lemonade can be an encouragement in rethinking our reactions. What makes this that much better is the fact that she set up the stand OUTSIDE Westboro Baptist Church. The little girl in the photograph is Jayden Sink along with her father, Jon. Jayden fought off many efforts by the Westboro Baptist Church to get her to shut down the lemonade stand but in the end she raised $400 alone with the stand. Her online campaign raised over a $1000. I think this photograph is a great example of how the use of a photo a long with an article works.

This photo comes from “The Week In Pictures: June 6-13” slideshow on NBC News website and is picture 10 of 14. The title of the picture is Line of Hopefuls and the description of the photo says “An elderly Pakistani woman holds a plastic bag, while standing at a window of a food distribution center, hoping to receive a ration of rice at a shrine in Islamabad, Pakistan on June 7. People who visit shrines and pray that their wishes are fulfilled usually offer food to be distributed to the poor.” The photo comes from Muhammed Muheisen and The Associated Press.

            The main reason I choose this picture out of the slide show was due to the fact that I feel this picture truly shows an aspect of the Pakistani community and how bad off the people in the low poverty areas have it. I’m still not sure if this is a photo or a painting but either way I feel it is well done. I think the fact that they used an elderly woman at the front of the line brings more power and strikes a bit more emotion. Two things people, including myself, don’t like is seeing elderly people or children hurting or starving. I think this may be one of the ideas the photographer may have been trying to accomplish here.