Photojournalism (5)

Photojournalism begins at the end of the 19th century. The first interview made by only photographies and completely cutting off the use of text was made in 1886 and in 1890 an American magazine published a copy made of just pictures.
But it was just at the beginning of the 20th century that the first real photo reporters start to appear in the communication world. Photographers like Matthew Brady went to those places where the American secession war took place and risked their lives to get shoots of the camps and the battles. Those pictures though couldn't be printed on the newspapers because such a technology wasn't available yet.
Thanks to the following technological innovations, such as the first portable camera, photography could be introduced on the pages of our newspapers, with the objective to "tell" people about facts happening in far away places.
In its "golden age", between the two world wars, photography became a form of social reporting, mostly in Germany and in the United States.
In class we talked about Jacob Riis, he was born in Denmark and emigrated to America when he was 21. After some years he became America's first prominent photojournalist also because of his early adoption of flash photography.
He's known for using photographic and journalistic talent to help the impoverished in New York city. He experienced poverty himself, became a police reporter and wrote about the quality of life in the "Slums". He attempted to alleviate the bad living conditions of the poor people by exposing them to the middle and upper classes.
Riis published a book: "how the other half lives" that contains many pictures taken in the streets of New York city and for the first time people saw a photograph of the poor, before that they had seen just paintings.
Photojournalism completely changed the way news and social issues are reported, photographiess can tell about events in a more powerful way than words ever could and give the readers a sense of realty they had never experienced before through written paper or paintings. I believe this is why Jacob Riis' photographies are so effective: they got to show people for the first time how was like to be poor in a city like New York in the late 1800.