Bruno J. Navarro
1. What do you look for in a photograph that might be posted in a newspaper or magazine article?
First, the photograph should have “news value,” which means it has some relevance to some current events. Occasionally, photographs are also published in newspapers or magazines simply because they are interesting or funny. Photos are also used to illustrate the subject of stories, whether it is a picture of a place, a building or a person. But generally, the photograph must tell a story or at least complement a story.
2. What role do you think photographs play in a covered story?
Photographs help provide a visual perspective of an event or news story. Sometimes, a photograph tells most of the story, such as in famous photographs. The l-linden burg disaster, for instance, is one example. They help the reader relate to what is going on.
3. What role does the photographer play?
A photojournalist has a responsibility to make an accurate representation of whatever story they are covering. They are storytellers and they help record moments in history, much like reporters and historians.
4. Do you think that a photograph makes the article stronger or does it distract the reader?
Ideally, a photograph should complement a story, adding an extra dimension. A photo helps to tell the story and can, in many cases, make an article stronger.
5. Are there different types of photographs that you use for different articles? For example a close up the object being photographed, a medium shot?
It depends on the article, but often a combination of an overall image (of crowds or a protest, for instance) will help convey what the environment is like. Other times, focus on a single object or a single person will help convey the story.
6. Do you think that a posed photograph is better than a photograph that is taken right at the action scene?
Again, it depends on the subject. For example, if it is a feature story about an official or a business person, often a posed photograph will work to illustrate what the person looks like, their attitude and their environment. In such cases, a posed photograph can often be more compelling than someone working at a desk. But for hews events that are happening at the moment, a posed photograph is almost always unacceptable. The photojournalist’s aim is to convey what is happening at a given time and place.
7. How did you decided to become a photojournalist?
As a boy, I always found myself drawn to pictures of news events that told a story. Photographs of the Vietnam War, student protests in the 1960s, civil rights marchers going up against police officers were among some of the images that compelled me to look. Often through these images did history become alive to me, and I fell in love with the idea of being to tell a story so powerfully through photographs.
8. Where do you see the field of photojournalism headed?
It’s already headed there! Thanks to technology, digital photography and camera phones are so popular that we have far greater and more immediate access to images from around the world at any given time. When my father was a photographer in the 1 960s, in order to get a photograph from New York to Lima, Peru, (where his newspaper was located) he had to bring the film in an envelope marked “PRESS” to the airport and give it to a flight crew headed for South America. Once it arrived, a messenger would pick up the roll of film from the airport and deliver it to the newspaper offices, where it would be processed, printed and then placed in the next edition of the newspaper. Today, we can receive photographs from around the world in a matter of seconds through the Internet, moments after the picture is taken. Otherwise, photojournalism will continue to tell stories that capture human drama and capture pieces of history from around the world. That will never change.
Self- Portrait of Bruno J. Navarro
