Artist Statement:
These are my selected works from my shoot of the UT-Rice Baseball game on 2/19/2022 for The Daily Texan newspaper of the University of Texas at Austin. This was also my first sports photography shoot, and I've learned a lot about shooting sports, frame composition of action and the "rules" of photojournalism.
My thoughts on photojournalism:
- Pros:
+ Truthfulness: Whatever is depicted within the frame is almost 100% what the viewer would see if they were standing at the exact same position at the exact same time. Frames don't lie.
+ Objectivity: Not taking subjects and context into consideration, the limitations upon editing and color grading takes away a significant platform of bias from the photographer/editor by giving them just minimal control over the "what" within the 5W's, and takes the viewer one step closer to the supposed "objective truth".
- Cons:
+ Framing: With basically little control over framing, and zero control over post-processing, there is less incentive for creative frame composition to accompany a certain vision. It instead only requires photographers to tick "checkboxes" as to what needs to be within the frame. A much more mechanical approach to photography.
+ Color grading: Color harmony is an essential aspect of photography. Without much control over hue, saturation, brightness, vibrance, etc. of pixels within the frame, there is much less a photographer can express through their photography. There isn't much "story" behind each frame, and there isn't as much depth to compositions, and the photographer has less of a platform for creativity and for showcase of skill. I guess that is a fair tradeoff when the main focus is the given event/occurrence documented rather than the photographer's "art".
Here, I've decided to take the liberty of framing and editing this album in an art-photographic style rather than photojournalism, because this is a project on my portfolio after all.
