Outstanding Photos in Photojournalism

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

One man stops a column of tanks, Tienanmen Square, China

What is photojournalism? Consider this examples

• Picture of a child burned by napalm running along a highway in South Vietnam – a picture that would turn public opinion on a war thousands of miles away.

• A picture of a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks in Beijing’s Tienanmen Square – symbolic of a mini-revolution to stop the actions of a government.

• Picture of an Afghan guerrilla proudly posing with his weapon, no fear in the eyes of a soldier who lost a leg taking on the Soviet army for his homeland – a portrait tat captures the bravado and pride of the man.

• Picture of a homeless person patrolling the streets, looking for a place to stay warm on a bitter cold day - an everyday battle some people would rather not see.

• Picture of Lance Armstrong winning the European bike race, and winning a bigger battle of his life: cancer – a picture that tells to the millions of infirmed and the sick of the meaning of hope and victory.

• Picture of the twin towers burning after two hijacked airplanes rammed and exploded into these superstructures – a picture that projects the horrors of terrorism heretofore unimagined.

Let’s look farther into history. Consider these photographs.

• The German dirigible Hindenburg, docking after its first ocean crossing busts into flame, killing 36 before cameras. It heralded the end of the dirigible as an air transport 1937

• A picture of a Japanese officer about to behead an Australian flier. It was passed hand to hand by GIs in the Pacific until it reached the press. 1945

• A classic picture showing the flag raising at Iwo-Jima to celebrate recapture of the island from the Japanese 1945

• Man’s first ascent of the world’s highest mountain. New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary and Sherpa climber Tenzing Norkay plant flags on top of Mt. Everest’s 29,028-gfoot summit (1953)

• Brutal climax to black-white confrontation, demonstrators led by Martin Luther King are set upon by guard dogs and battered by jets from fire hoses. 1963

• Historic act of revenge in picture - Jack Ruby shoots JF Kennedy’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. 1963

• A Japanese mother holds and tenderly bathes her daughter, 17, who was born blind and maimed as a result of mercury poisoning from a chemical plant polluting the waters of Minamata village. 1971

• “I am the greatest,” announced Cassius Clay (Mohammad Ali) after a knowdown in 1963.

• Mark Spitz seems more amphibian than human as he trained for his seven gold medal.

• At Yalta conference – three allied giants – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – are caught by the camera during discourse.

• Winston Churchill glares at the photographer who has grabbed away his cigar.

• Re-enactment of General Douglas MacArthur landing in Leyte, three months after the actual landing. Photo was copied into a shrine, in Palo, Leyte.

• Mahatma Gandhi at his ritual work – spinning.

• Kennedy at his inauguration impressed audience with his words, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

• In one of the heart-clutching moments of president Kennedy’s funeral, his 3-year old son John salutes the coffin as it leaves the cathedral in Washington.

• Historic photo on man’s landing on the moon. “ One small step of man, a giant step for mankind.” – Armstrong

• No man came closer to sainthood in his lifetime than Dr. Albert Schweitzer, missionary of Africa. Mother Teresa of Calcutta came after him.

. Hurricane Katrina slams on New Orleans, submerges hundreds of houses for days, hundreds of thousands were either killed or missing.

. Tsunami, spawned by earthquake sends walls of water slamming on coastal resorts and villages, killing half a million people, the biggest number of death in peacetime.

Now, our own – momentous, significant, electrifying.

• EDSA Revolution, Part 1 and Part 2
• Smokey mountain (Tondo), now Payatas (Quezon City)
• “I’m sorry.” PGMA on Garci Tapes
• Maguindanao Massacre
• Typhoon Ondoy hits Metro Manila, the worst flood in decades.
• 2010 national election turns streets into Fair.

Add on to the list. There are hundreds of outstanding photographs that have captured the imagination of readers of newspapers and magazines, TV viewers, and Internet surfers. Share your own from your country. It will certainly enrich this topic.