REPORTAGE AGENCIES

I am using here few pictures shot by chance in San Sebastian in 2007 during the film festival. I was there to follow the festival with friend film maker Tom Nerling. Lovely scenery, beautiful architecture, exquisite pinchos (local tapas), films obviously and walks around the bay. It happened that week-end that few weddings were taking place too. Well, being a photographer and doing weddings on a regular basis, you cannot actually be insensitive to the difference of approach in other countries. Weddings are and will be eternally a source of inspiration and knowledge about different societies, religions, stories and human nature in general. There are just few shots, but they actually express more closely what reportage is. Meaning being an observer and collector of clues.
In this new post I just would like to focus on few links that could be very helpful. Firstly, I would encourage you to go to Wikipedia and type key words such as reportage or origin of wedding photography, etc... I would just transcript here some definitions found. REPORTAGE Collection of written, recorded or photographic materials from an event (basic) RELATED TO PHOTOGRAPHY Term of an eye-witness genre of journalism. This style is often characterized by travel and careful observation PHOTOJOURNALISM A particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a story. It is distinguished from other branches of Photography by the qualities of Timeliness the images have meaning in the context of a recently published records of events Objectivity the situation implied by the images is as fair and accurate representation of the events they depict in both content and tone Narrative the images combine with other news elements to make facts relatable to the viewer or reader on a cultural event.
First major agency that really created this genre on a global sense is Magnum www.magnumphotos.com - All the photographers are top class and have collected tons of images for the last half Century. We all know pictures from them, they are all part of our contemporary visual memory. Magnum is the reference in reportage photography. They are quite a few other agencies to mention but I would only refer to few ones. Panos pictures www.panos.co.uk - We could also mention Agence Vu www.agencevu.com - And two collectives, new form of agency due to the last 10 years of economical struggle in the industry. Oeil Public www.oeilpublic.com and Tendance Floue www.tendancefloue.net

Visit the websites, images, videos, etc...it is very interesting and endless.
I hope you will enjoy and see Photography in a new way.