Anadolu university journal of art & design cilt / volume sayi / number aralik / december 2016 issn: 2146-7692

46
ANADOLU ÜNİVERSİTESİ
Holschbach‘s term seems essential to the characteristic of many press photographs. It 
can be adapted to the emotionalization of a specific visual language, even if Holschbach‘s 
conceptualization of style to me ultimately refers to a purely stylistic component. The so-called 
“style of the human” often relies on the renewal of known pathos formulas (Sullivan, 2012).
Especially showing human feelings as sadness, joy, and pain seems the most immediate way 
to cause emotions of the viewer and to capture his attention. So, for example, the Stern, one of 
the largest German reportage magazines, formulated in a self-presentation of its philosophy it is 
looking to show “the human side of the news”. The chief image editor Andreas Trampe said in an 
interview with the magazine Photonews that it is important for the Stern to print “tangible faces 
of history” and that the “Stern perspective” means “to show a person of a story in his or her aut-
hentic environment” (Giannetti, 2008 ). The Stern represents a kind of a 37-degree journalism 
deliberately seeking an emotionalization of images.
In the award-winning images of the World Press Photo Awards‘ Revue of the recent years, 
the importance and the dominance of the “style of the human” are visible, which made use of 
a familiar iconographic motif repertoire. For example, a color photograph of the French pho-
tographer Jean-Marc Bouju was selected to be the World Press Photo of the year 2003 (Visual 
9). Bouju‘s image shows a detained Iraqis who comforts and protects his four-year-old son in a 
prisoner of war camp near the city of Najaf in Iraq. The image receives special drama by a bag 
which was placed over the father‘s head and by the composition of the image since the viewer 
sees the scene through a barbed wire barrier – an indication that the situation may not have 
been easily accessible for the photographers as witnesses.
Visual 9. Jean-Marc Bouju/AP: on Najaf, Iraq, March 31, 2003, World Press Photo of the year 2003
The pathos formula of the gesture of the female figure is pointedly present in Chris Steele-
Perkins’s photograph that recorded the massacre of 1,500 Palestinians on September 16, 1982 in 
the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp (Visual 10). In contrast to the iconography of Mary in quiet 
mourning, a dramatic gesture of despair is expressed. In the center of the image, a headscarf-
wearing woman spreading both arms far in a sweeping gesture can be seen. Her face is contorted

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SANAT & TASARIM DERGİSİ
with pain, the mouth wide open, the eyes half-closed. The shock and the sorrow as an emotional 
symbolism, which is further enhanced by evoking a synaesthetic perception, convey in this 
gesture of horror. The open mouth synaesthetically refers to the plaintive crying or screaming of 
mourners (Krautheimer, 1942). This works as in Edvard Munch‘s famous painting The Scream 
from 1893 (Visual 11), that immediately expresses the phenomenon of fear and despair about 
the horror of the gesture and brought the emotional symbolism into art history like hardly any 
other painting.
Visual 10. Chris Steele-Perkins: Sabra & Shatila, Beirut, 1982 
Visual 11. Edvard Munch‘s famous painting The Scream from 1893
Photojournalistic Objectives
A photojournalistic “style of the human” aims to prompt the viewer‘s emotions. In these 
shots, the degree of reality – the specific promise of reality – is measured less by objectivity and 
detachment of the photographs than by the mediation of authenticity, immediacy and emotion. 
Here, a way of distinction between documentary and authentic images opens up. It is the aut-
hentic of photographs allocated to the “style of the human” that evokes the impression of reality

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48
ANADOLU ÜNİVERSİTESİ
 – not necessarily, but more often. Susanne Holschbach uses the term of “realness”, which refers 
to the impression of an authentic image as to be close to the action (Cook & Mieke, 1999).
The placement of authenticity in the sense of “realness” requires special image strategies. The 
criteria of the good image demanded by press photographs, which require technical precision, 
are often undermined given an authentic pictorial language. Basically, it can be stated that on 
the level of artistic implementation of the claim on readability its equivalent of journalistic pho-
tography in strong terms is on the technical perfection of recording. The original idea of tech-
nical precision to achieve the “good picture” .Critical topos among the most image processes of 
media courses involved refers to categories. The figure of subjects and that of the essence of the 
statement in the center of the image as well as the requirement that content should be clearly 
identifiable and legible. The demand for a “good” press photograph requires compliance with 
certain formal criteria such as a straight horizon or the image and depth of focus. According to 
Sandra Abend, so-called “good” journalistic photos contribute to an event ever to be perceived. 
Nevertheless, the ideas of a “good” press photograph is subject to temporal changes and trends. 
In contrast to the claims of “good” pictures that can be found on the conveyance of “realness”, 
press photography is often targeting just the opposite effect. It uses formal means such as moti-
on blur, strong picture bleeds, and image motifs fading from the center of the image to express 
that the image was hard getting access to or could only be realized by chance. Also the position 
of the photographer as a witness of the seen, who tries to convey first-hand experiences, changes 
in the face of such image patterns, since the situation is always in danger to be changed by the 
presence of a witness. Therefore, the photographer as an observer must be rather invisible in 
these contexts. In the regard of photographing focused on immediacy and authenticity, images 
by amateurs or surveillance cameras get special meaning (Alunno, 2013).
Visual 12. Alexander Chadwick: London, 2005. The subway passenger alexander chadwick photograph after the 
Bomb explosion near the Kings Cross Station with the mobile phone of a friend as passengers
try to bring in safety.
 

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