Photojournalism

Composition is important to get your message across in photography. The image which I took (above) is the end of Lord Street, which was once the most grand part of the town, at the Lulworth Road end. This image is of the Victorian iron walkways that lined the street. because of the time of day, and the time of year, long shadows create leading lines that draw you into the picture, taking you along the scene past the boardings and fly posters to highlight the fact that the place has fallen into decay.
Throughout the work I used a Nikon D80 SLR, with a 24 - 70mm telephoto lens, as I needed to be able to respond quickly as opportunities presented themselves.






Below is the image of the wall that is starting to fall down at the start of Lulworth Road. Once again, this works from a compositional point of view, because the image is split broadly into 3 sections, the background, the wall and the pavement. This type of image in essence may not be valuable standing alone, but works in the context of the story being told.

The Lost Pictures of Eugene Smith

American photographer, Eugene Smith covered the 1950's general election for Life magazine, and produced some of the most powerful post war decade images ever seen, depicting the mining valleys of South Wales during Attlee's radical Labour government reign. Due to the opposition of the magazine to the government, the images were never seen publicly for decades. They depict a raw quality and dereliction. This type of image capture is seen in other works of Smiths, such as his views of New York. He often uses windows or framing, or a means of viewing the subject through something else which creates the impression that you are being allowed to see something that is hidden, and is a clever composition technique to capture the viewers eye.