Photo Genres
When I first got interested in photography, I thought that being a sports photographer would be the ultimate job. This was mostly because it involved two of my favourite pastimes - taking photos and watching sport.
However after taking photos at various sporting events, I realised that, in general sports photographs with some notable exceptions are fairly boring. At least the ones I take are. Maybe its because you can open any newspaper on Monday morning and see the same picture of the same guys jumping for the same ball (accompanied, in the case of the above Stormers, by the same result - a loss).
Anyway my early enthusiasm for sports photography has waned and I have become more and more interested in Photojournalism, specifically conflict or war photography. Often Im not so much interested in the photos but in the people who take them. What makes these men and woman walk into a war zone to take photographs?
So I was delighted when recently, I was given a book, which I have been wanting for ages, The Bang Bang Club. Its the story of a group of photographers, who covered the violent clashes that took place on South African streets around the time our democracy was being born. I havent read it yet (only got it last Monday) but it looks great and the photographs are anything but boring.