Chapter 9 - What Motivates Photojournalists

I couldn’t agree more with Professional photojournalist Mark M. Hancock's words, he referred to “Motivation as an art term. Artists are encouraged to find their creative motivation and meaning of their work before they create,” (source 1). In his blog he also discusses how this notion is unique and personal to each and every individual, very similar to how values are. In other words, my motivations could be similar or very different to yours. It just depends on what is important and why people behave the way they do. While “all photojournalists have the same general purpose - to tell visual stories,” the factors that motivate them are exclusive and are the primary reason they get out of bed each morning. Just from the Module 12 content area alone, I quickly discovered that the featured photojournalists had very divergent yet strong motivational forces governing their work in the field.

Hancock provides a number of categories in which he believes photojournalists fit in to, however, in my opinion these are rather generic and in reality, many more actually exist:

·         “To fulfill the obligation”

·         “To help people”

·         “To answer ‘why?’”

·         “To show the facts”

·         “To inform/educate”

·         “To share the experience”

·         “To achieve”

·         “To prove we existed”

According to Mark Hancock, a freelance photojournalist, helping people is his greatest motivating factor. He finds it tremendously rewarding to document images of those in need so the readers can be exposed to the truth following a natural disaster or crisis. He believes his work helps to achieve a domino effect, if an image of suffering is printed, in turn readers can provide donations to help those in need. The photographs act as a means of connection with the reader and in some instances this can provide aid and assistance and even change laws in extreme cases (source 1). 

Photo created by Mark M. Hancock (2006)

Image Source: http://markhancock.blogspot.com/search/label/award%20winner

Similarly, Lewis Hine was also motivated by reform, particularly helping vulnerable children and ultimately  improving working conditions for children (Module 12 Content Area). Through the use of multiple disguises, Hine secretly exposed the truth behind the dangerous working conditions and physical and emotional abuse the children were subjected to. His objective was to educate the world about child labor and wanted to encourage people to “exert the force to right wrongs.” In other words, Hine wanted stricter laws to be imposed to improve working conditions for children. His work was largely human portraits, he successfully captured subjects looking into the camera in an attempt to depict and communicate intimacy to the viewer. Overall, Hine’s work was groundbreaking and significantly helped the implementation of stricter laws (Module 12 Content Area).

Photo created by Lewis Hine

Image Source: http://reelfoto.blogspot.com/2011/05/lewis-hine-littlest-laborers.html

In contrast, Lynsey Addario is famous for her documentation of issues and sexual discrimination related to women, particularly in Afghanistan. Her goal is to give those women subjected to terrible injustice and gender based violence a voice. “The increasing trend of self-immolation – where young women in desperate personal situations commit suicide with boiling water and oil - motivated her to capture this horrific self-infliction of painful disfigurement and deter other women from taking this extreme step,” (source 2). Moreover, through her photographs Lynsey is trying to raise global awareness and show what harsh treatment young women are subjected to in Afghanistan.

Photo created by Lynsey Addario

Image Source: http://www.freedomtocreate.com/lynsey-addario-02

Overall, the motivations underlying the three photojournalists I selected do not really match up with mine. Unfortunately, nothing on my motivational hierarchy is geared towards changing laws, each factor is specific to where I am currently at in my own life. The closest association I could observe was Mark Hancock’s inspiration to help people. The Graduate Program I am pursing in the fall is Clinical Psychology which is inextricably linked to empathy and helping others.

Below is my personal Motivation Hierarchy (Sorry about it being sideways, it was the correct way on my computer but the blog flipped it around):

Works Cited:

http://markhancock.blogspot.com/2008/05/pj-motivation.html (source 1)

Module 12 Content Area (Lewis Hine)

http://www.freedomtocreate.com/lynsey-addario-02 (source 2)