Contact Press Images

Contact Press Images was established in 1976 by French-British journalist and editor Robert Pledge and American photojournalist David Burnett. It is a international photojournalism agency based in new York and is one of the last small independent photographic agencies still in existence.

They have many active photographers across the world including names such as Don McCullin who won the world Press Photo award in 1964 for his image of a Turkish woman, mourning the death of her husband who was killed in a village battle with the Greeks. (see my blog titled - The Visual Principles of Photojournalism) - to see the image)

Also Annie Leibovitch another founding member of Contact images who was named by American Photo in 2005 as the most influential photographer at work today. As well as Sebastaio Salgado who is one of the worlds master practitioners in the tradition of social documentary.

The agency's mission statement is "To produce in-depth photographic essays of pressing global concern instead of “disposable” news, to pose difficult questions rather than provide facile answers, and above all to make important and lasting images – always with history in mind."

Below is information from Contact Press Images website which advises how they have survived from the transition of using only film to incorporating using modern technologies within a now contemporary digital revolution beginning the 21st Century.

"As Contact Press Images approached the end of the millennium, and twenty-five years of recording history, the landscape it surveyed differed greatly from the one that existed when it began. Color photography, a novelty for covering news in 1976, had long since become the norm. Black and white, by contrast once the standard, now appeared innovative; and all film, black and white or color, was quickly being replaced by digital photography. Most small independent agencies had disappeared, swallowed by corporate behemoths. And 24/7 live television coverage and the internet had largely overshadowed the role traditionally ascribed to photography. But Contact, with members from a dozen countries, men and women of different origin, personality and culture, shooting in every format, from Leicas and Canon digital cameras to inexpensive Holga cameras, remained independent and committed to a spirit of activism and humanitarianism guided by its larger historical project.

To manage the agency’s transition to this new technological theater while maintaining continuity with its past, Contact established a digital domain, including a fully updated website, and scanning and transmitting facilities, run by Dustin Ross in New York and Tim Mapp in Paris."

http://www.contactpressimages.com/about.html

Sebastiao Salgado.

In 1986 Sebastião Salgado began a series of reportages on the theme of manual labor, throughout the different continents. This work was conceived to tell the story of an era. The images offer a visual archaeology of a time that history knows as the Industrial Revolution, a time when men and women work with their hands provided the central axis of the world.http://www.amazonasimages.com/travaux-main-homme

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Here is a publication of his essay in regards to 'Workers' featured in The New York Times Magazine . 09/06/1991

The Visual Principles of Photojournalism

To have exceptional and successful imagery, that will be memorable to the world within a photo-journalistic approach and to be truly newsworthy they will need to have at least a couple, if not all, of the key qualities advised below;

• Juxtaposition - This is a photograph having recognition, meaning and showing excellent attention to detail.
• Decisive Moment - Showing a great awareness of visual observation, taking the photograph at exactly the right time, as if taken seconds before or seconds after would not be as successfully composed or be profound in extreme juxtaposition! One of the most famous photographers known world wide in regards to taking photographs using the 'Decisive Moment' is Henri Cartier Bresson
• 
• Behind the Gare St. Lazare, Paris - "There was a plank fence around some repairs behind the Gare Saint-Lazare train station. I happened to be peeking through a gap in the fence with my camera at the moment the man jumped." This is the world's most famous photograph which depicts 'The Decisive Moment' at its very best
• Visual Irony - Employing a humorous reference
• Viewer Recognition - A human or living creature being aware that the photograph is being taken
• Supreme Composition - A multitude of lines, shapes forms and patterns to create a excelling artistic and aesthetically pleasing supreme composition
• Symbol Inclusion - Sign's and written references placed carefully within the framing of the photograph to aid key qualities above

What is photojournalism? Occasionally, a very unique photo, in which form is precise and rich enough and content has enough resonance, is sufficient in itself - but that's rarely the case. The elements of a subject that speak to us are often scattered and can't be captured in one photo; we don't have the right to force them together, and to stage them would be cheating... which brings us to the need for photojournalism. - Henri Cartier-Bresson - "American Photo", September/October 1997, page: 76

http://www.photoquotes.com/ShowQuotes.aspx?id=98&name=Cartier-Bresson,Henri

The camera enables us to keep a kind of visual record. We photo-reporters are people who supply information to a world in haste and swamped, willy-nilly, in a morass of printed matter. This abbreviation of the statement which is the language of photography is very potent; we express, in effect, an adjudgment of what we see, and this demands intellectual honesty. We work in terms of reality, not of fiction, and must therefore “discover”, not fabricate. - Henri Cartier-Bresson - February 22, 1968., The World of Henri Cartier-Bresson by Henri Cartier-Bresson , ISBN: 0670786640

Henri-Cartier Bresson (1908-2004) Considered to be one of the world's most influential and modern photojournalists of the 20th Century and was 1 of 4 photographer's who formed the world's most prestigious photographic agencies called Magnum

Below are further images by Henri-Cartier Bresson which I find inspiring , his attention to detail and the sheer amount of patience needed to photograph the scene at precisely the correct time I find admirable

Hyères, France 1932

Madrid, 1933

Palais Royal, 1960

http://www.afterimagegallery.com/bresson.htm

La danse Alloeng Kotjok, Sayan, Bali, Indonésie, 1949

To accomplish a truly decisive moment, which has become a common place within photojournalism, is for the photograph to describe a dramatic and also give an expressive visual climax, to show a story rather than just a picture. A great example of a genuine spontaneous news moment holding such strong compositional values is Don McCullin's photograph that won the World Press Photo award in 1964.

Cyprus 1964 - a Turkish woman mourns for her husband killed in a village battle with Greeks

Harold Evans - "Pictures On A Page - Photojournalism, Graphics and Picture Editing", 1978, page: 118

A truley renowned street photographer who has focussed a high majority of his work on America's social landscape from the 1950's is Lee Friedlander. His photographic art has a strange and unusual vision as he uses detached images of urban life, similarly how pop art works, to capture the feel and look of a modern society. His style usually incorporates store-front reflections, signs, posters and framed structures.

There are many hidden attributes to his photographs which in affect gives a delay of recognition to the viewer. Many of his images have a sense of visual irony, like some of the below images I have selected below.

http://www.all-art.org/20ct_photo/Friedlander1.htm

Baltimore, 1968

New York, 1963

De De and Billie Pierce

New Orleans

1962

Shaped By War: Photographs by Don McCullin at the Imperial War Museum 'The Review'

Where do I start 'absolutely fantastic' and even if you don't have an interest in photography I'd definitely suggest for all to go and view the exceptional, shocking and deep emotional war photographs of Don McCullin. Although my main interest in photography has not been of a documentary nature, after viewing McCullin's work, who is recognised as one of the greatest British war photographer's, I can appreciate the necessity of why the world is needed to be documented and recorded to show the very nature of the reality of what the average person does not see! Due to society not being as it is now photography and news articles where the main resource in which this hidden truth could be shared with the rest of the world. Through the eyes of Don McCullin, the production of his images takes us on many journeys, showing in great detail of the suffering and destruction caused by wars over the last 50 years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/feb/07/don-mccullin-shaped-war-review

This is one of the most famous images of Don McCullin

Shell-shocked US marine, Hue, Vietnam, February 1968. Photograph: Don McCullin

Although the camera is directly in front of the marine you can see from his gaze that he is looking straight through and beyond the camera. A gaze of horror at the reality of combat which lies ahead of him. The utter shock that in minutes could be the last gasp of air that he will ever breath although knowing full well his job is morally sacrificing himself for the freedom of his country from their enemies. The shot is perfectly composed within the frame and masterly developed from the negative, given great attention to detail (i.e burning of the hands to depict a true resemblance of his hands / features) in the darkroom.