analyzing news photos

Analyzing News PhotosInterpretability, Impact,

and News Value

Essential Question

•What makes a photograph iconic?

Objective

• Students will be able to analyze news photos for interpretability, impact, and news value.

Pulitzer Prize Winners#1

http://www.newseum.org/exhibits-and-theaters/permanent-exhibits/pulitzer/videos/defending-the-barricade.html

Pulitzer Prize Winners#2

http://www.newseum.org/exhibits-and-theaters/permanent-exhibits/pulitzer/videos/2000-feature-carol-guzy--lucian-perkins-and-michael-williamson.html

Pulitzer Prize Winners#3

http://www.newseum.org/exhibits-and-theaters/permanent-exhibits/pulitzer/videos/1982-spot-news-ron-edmonds--the-associated-press.html

Pulitzer Prize Winners#4

http://www.newseum.org/exhibits-and-theaters/permanent-exhibits/pulitzer/videos/1945-joe-rosenthal--the-associated-press.html

Summarizer• What do all of these photos have in common?

Article: What’s the difference between art and journalism?

What makes an image iconic?

Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph of an American sailor kissing a woman in Times Square became a symbol of the excitement and joy at the end of World War II.

During a raid at a Miami home in 2000, armed federal agents confront Elian Gonzalez, 6, and one of the men who helped rescue the boy. Gonzalez watched his mother drown when the boat smuggling them from Cuba capsized. Under international law, U.S. authorities were required to return the boy to his father in Cuba. Alan Diaz's photograph of the saga's defining moment won a Pulitzer Prize.

Marilyn Monroe’s sultry legacy is often traced back to the 1954 image of her posing over a New York City subway grate in character for the filming of "The Seven Year Itch." Monroe's then-husband, Joe DiMaggio, reportedly witnessed the spectacle and became enraged with jealousy.

Dorothea Lange's photograph of a struggling mother with her children in 1936 became an icon of the Great Depression. Lange was traveling through California, taking photographs of migrant farm workers for the Resettlement Administration, when she came across Florence Owens Thompson. "I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet," Lange recalled in 1960.

President Barack Obama and members of his national security team monitor the Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. It was a crucial moment in American history, and White House photographer Pete Souza captured the tension in the room.

Alberto Korda photographed Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara in 1960 at a memorial service for victims of the La Coubre explosion in Havana, Cuba. The portrait, titled "Guerrillero Heroico," has been widely reproduced through the decades, evolving into a global symbol of rebellion and social justice.

Following a crackdown that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of student demonstrators in Beijing, a lone Chinese protester steps in front of People's Liberation Army tanks in Tiananmen Squarein 1989. the event became a symbol of defiance in the face of oppression.

On Albert Einstein's 72nd birthday in 1951, photographer Arthur Sasse tried to get him to smile for the camera. Tired of smiling for pictures, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist stuck out his tongue instead. It went on to become one of the most recognizable images of Einstein, who reportedly liked the photograph so much he asked for nine copies. He signed one of the prints, which sold for more than $74,000 in 2009.

Firefighters George Johnson, Dan McWilliams and Billy Eisengrein raise a flag at the site of the World Trade Center in New York after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. The scene was immortalized by photographer Thomas E. Franklin and has been compared to the iconic image of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima.