Next Best Thing: Photojournalism Books @ Park Library

Know what the next best thing to real-world photo experience is?
…Looking at work by professional photographers!
Park Library is a great place to go for some really engaging photo books. We have hundreds of books specifically dedicated to the subject of photojournalism (not to mention our magazine and newspaper section, which also has examples of great photos). Studying these pages can help you get acquainted with the elements of a successful photograph.
These books not only contain incredible images but sound advice from photographers in the field. You can learn how a photograph was taken, the obstacles involved with taking it, and some of the do’s and don’t that every photographer should know.
You can learn some tips for breaking into the business and even verse yourself in a bit of media law. You’ll begin to understand that there is no such thing as being over-prepared in such an unpredictable field.
So get ahead of yourself. Start bracing for the challenges ahead. Believe me, you won’t regret it.

An easy place to start is by typing in "photojournalism" in the search box at the Park Library web site.


Some guides to the profession:

Photojournalism: the professional's approach by Kenneth Kobre
Call number: PHJ .K75 2004

Associated Press guide to photojournalism
Call number: PHJ .H823 2001

Some great collections of work:

Robert Capa: the definitive collection
Call number: PHJ-his .C236 2001

Facing the world: great moments in photojournalism
Call number: PHJ-his .F141 2001

This critical mirror: 40 years of World Press Photo
Call number: PHJ .C934 1996

Books on theory:

The burden of visual truth: the role of photojournalism in mediating reality
Call number: PHJ .N564 2001

Photojournalism and foreign policy: icons of outrage in international crises
Call number: PHJ .P426 1998


Those are just a few examples of the underexposed books in the shelves at the Park Library. Hunt around on the website and find what pertains to you. We're here to help you find what you need, so don't be afraid to let us know what you need to find.

A voice for the lonely books in the back

They make me feel guilty every time I walk into the back room. And it's not their fault - or mine - that they're lonely and unread. It's the fact that no one could check out books from Park Library until this past August.

Sure, now students come in all the time to check out class-related books, which is a good thing; the library is, of course, an academic resource. But this has played with the non class-related books' feelings. It gives them false hope every time one of us on staff goes to grab a book from the back, only to pull from the shelf the lucky book to the right or left that happens to be required reading.

Books like "What a Free Press Means to America," which compiles ardent one-page letters from editors and distinguished journalists on the topic of the title, are rarely touched. I'm glad part of my job is becoming familiar with the books here, because I can't put it down.

About 200 journalists from all types of newspapers contributed to it - those from the New York Times, Washington Post, Pittsburgh Post Gazette and a bunch of other community and big-city newspapers that were around in 1984. And the year adds character; journalists then were frustrated by the public's lack of interest in the first amendment and freedom of the press just as many are today. The editor of the The New Britain Herald (Connecticut) wrote:

"Editors write of it; journalists talk of it exhaustively when they get together; our newspapers live by it. But the subject of the importance of a Free Press in America seldom comes up anywhere else. Frankly, a free press is a bother to many Americans, especially when something they don't want to appear in print, does ... It is hard to keep explaining that by printing the bad news we protect the right to print the good news."

For those who are journalismed out, books abound that have nothing to do with the press. Famous First Facts is a book many would have on their coffee table to entertain guests if it didn't cost about $200 (yay for being able to get it from the library for free). It holds wacky tid-bits of information, such as where, when and why the first Santa Claus school was founded, or when the fork was first introduced to America. Turns out it was brought to the U.S. in a leather case with a bodkin and knife by Gov. John Winthrop of Massachusetts in 1630 - he wanted to follow a a new style of eating introduced by Queen Elizabeth.

There are rows of books in the back dedicated solely to the subject of writing. Old ones, such as Think Before You Write (1951), with its weathered cover, make it easy to pretend you're a 1950s newsman/woman - hunched over a desk in the midst of bustling reporters, cigarette in hand. (I love old books). On Writing Well is a nationally renowned book written more recently. It has funny witticisms interspersed with great advice (William Zinsser, the author, now has a quote on my facebook page).

And Jobs for Writers suggests alternatives to working for a newspaper or becoming a novelist for writers who find themselves in a pickle (this may especially apply considering our lovely economic situation).

There also are rows and rows of books dedicated to broadcast journalism, media ethics, feature writing, etc. We have about every book Bob Woodward (Watergate scandal journalist) has written. And we have the newly published Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, sent to us and signed by the author, who apparently went here. No one can tell me that's not cool

So what I'm trying to say is, we have a lot of great books over here at the Park Library. Come in and give them some company.

First Amendment Day!

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
--First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

We're celebrating the First Amendment today in the Park Library. Journalists make a cottage industry out of loving the First Amendment, and we're no different. Come by any time today to check out any of our books from our one of our subsections devoted to the five protections offered by that most essential of Constitutional sections.

Stephanie Brown, the Park Library Director, and I went down to see the UNC Liberty Tree planted in front of Carroll Hall. Dean Jean Folkerts of the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communications and assorted faculty members were on hand to help shovel a little dirt onto the elm, which will grow at the corner (call it the cornerstone?) of the building.

(image via Twitter: @smalljones)

There will be lots of other events going on today to commemorate the First Amendment. Be sure to see Chancellor Holden Thorp and others reading from banned books. (Thorp is going to be reading from Catcher in the Rye, which I thought was fitting, because when I read that book for the first time this summer, he's who I pictured as Holden Caulfield.)

Or you can read about how UNC students demanded their rights to free speech during the 1960s and 1970s, at a time when it was deemed illegal for students to hear from speakers with unpopular views. Students took matters into their own hands and organized a conversation.

But you don't have to do any of that to appreciate those freedoms. Just pick up a copy of the newspaper and be grateful that no one can make the laws that keep it from being printed.