Say Cheese;

"A picture has no meaning at all if it can't tell a story"

After four weeks of attending Uni, lugging bags from lecture to lecture, making friends, getting stressed and living a completely changed lifestyle, this quote is what has struck me most. I like photography, quite a lot. I've never been trained or anything, just dabbled with cameras and editing, but this quote has completely changed how I view photography, and especially photo journalism. 

I love photos more than anything because you can make something out of nothing at all. You can take the most mundane items and facets of life and turn them into a mesmerising photo. It is this finding the extraordinary in the ordinary that I admire, and wish I was better at. The photos I've taken don't tell stories though, and that is soon about to change. I loved this lecture, I've learnt a lot.

Bruce went into detail about what makes a good photo. Framing, Focus, Angle, Exposure, Timing and 'Capturing the Moment'. Capture the moment...interesting...This lecture keeps getting better. The Golden Mean, all these new concepts introduced to me are making so much sense. Ever since I came out of this lecture I've been flicking through newspapers and surfing news sites online and ever single one of these aspects of a 'Good Photo' is being used. It's good to know that I'm being taught real things that will help me be successful in the field of Journalism. 

People engage in photos. They connect with pictures. That is why this photo journalism is as, if not, more important than the text of journalism. People connect with emotion and pictures convey emotion more than any word can. The story found in the picture is where this emotion resides and that's what makes a good photo. 

Through this lecture Bruce displayed various photos that 'Capture the moment' and show this emotion. However, I don't think he showed the right photos. There are so many more photos that have made me sad, and have ripped my heart out.

Two lights from the former site of the World Trade Centers shine for the 10th anniversary of 9/11.(Reuters / GARY HERSHORN)

Firefighters of Ladder Company 4 — which lost seven men on 9/11 — perched together on their aerial ladder, watching a news bulletin in Times Square declaring that Osama bin Laden was dead on May 2.Source: lens.blogs.nytimes.com

Billy Stinson comforts his daughter Erin Stinson as they sit on the steps where their cottage once stood on August 28 in Nags Head, N.C. The cottage, built in 1903 and destroyed by Hurricane Irene, was one of the first vacation cottages built on Albemarle Sound in Nags Head.(Getty Images / Scott Olson)

A phone hangs off the hook on Wall Street.(Reuters / LUCAS JACKSON)

A distressed bride attempts suicide in China after her fiance abruptly called off their marriage. Still in her wedding gown, she tried to kill herself by jumping out of a window of a seventh floor building. Right as she jumped, a man managed to catch and save her.(Reuters / CHINA DAILY)

To me, all these photos sum up everything that we were taught in the lecture. They encapsulate so much in just one shot. The timing is perfect, the angle works in all of them, the framing complements what they are trying to say, but most of all, they all tell a story. Just by looking at these photos the audience can fill in the gaps. They can learn so much about the events just by one still image. These photos are what I think photo journalism is all about. All different events in 2011, but all of which are equally powerful and moving. 

I wish I could be this good.