What motivates a Photojournalist

Image: Lynsey Addario

Image by: John Moore/Getty Image

Lynsey Addario is a famous war photographer. She explains her motivation to be an “unstated missionto stir the emotions of people like herself”. When I read about all the hardships photojournalists have to go across and leave their comfort zone, a simple question arises in my mind. Why do they do this? Then I read stories from Lynsey Addario and Felix Masi to get my answers. As explained by Masi in thevideo, his main motivation was to convey and portray the story of people livingin poverty. The main motivation of a photojournalist is to present these problems going on around the world. These images will portray the real problem and urge people to find solutions.

Image: Children in a village of Mayan, Kenya

Image by: Lynsey Addario

Image: Ansel Adam

Image by: Unknown 

Ansel Adam is a famous photojournalist known for his love towards Environment and Wilderness. He describes his experience with the environment as “a mystique: avalid, intangible, non-materialistic experience.” This experience is the motivation for him. Through the work of art or photojournalism, he is appealing to all human beings to understand the earth’s beauty and conserve it. Humans have a natural tendency for developing a feeling of satisfaction or happiness when getting in touch with something that is admired. This feeling is similar to the feeling Professor Nordell might have got while taking the photograph of the rap group, Run-D.M.C.

Image: Grassy Valley

Image by: Ansel Adam

Image: Stephanie Sinclair

Image by: Unknown

According to Stephanie Sinclair“The worst day is not when my safety is at risk; it’s when I can’t get thepictures I want. You have a chance to get voices heard, so every day counts”. Her motivation is to let the voice of the suppressed and abused women to be heard by the world. As shown in the video by Lewis Hine, he tries to portray the cruelty of child labor resulting in many child labor reforms. Stephanie is also a progressive reformer like Lewis Hane working on ending the child marriage customs from different parts of the world.

 Image: Too Young To Wed

 Image by:Stephanie Sinclair

Image:Motivation map

Image by:Sirjana Lamichhane

Every person has a different perception and they view things in their own way. Just as with these photojournalists, I have my own motivation. I compared the reasons I did things as outlined in my motivational map along with those of these three photojournalists. The fact is that a photojournalist can be the eyes of society and let people know about the injustice and problems going on around the world. Just like Addario, I feel images should be able to stir emotion in people and grab their attention towards these conflict zones. I also feel like Ansel Adam does on making people concerned about environmental issues through works of art. Similarly, my motivation is also parallel to Stephanie Sinclair, who is working to abolish child marriages.