Editorial, Commercial, Photojournalism?

I’ve been working on a new site, ShotCritic.com and today someone posted about how to distinguish the difference between editorial photography and other genres of photography, so I replied and liked it so much that I thought I’d share it here, though cleaned up from my original forum post.

First, editorial photography normally has a photojournalistic feel to it as it tells a story, often used to illustrate a concept or idea designed around the contents of a specific publication.  Photojournalism is sometimes considered a form of editorial photography, though the distinction is that photojournalism often involves a news story.

As an example, for magazine editorial photography for a publication like Zink, the photos would normally include models to illustrate their fashion, glamour and beauty theme while Better Homes and Garden would have images of someone working in their outdoor green house.

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Is It a Lens Barrel or a Gun Barrel?

Some will say that when 1994 Pulitzer Prize photographer Kevin Carter, 33, claimed his own life from what many believed taking one too many heartbreaking photos (particularly an image of a vulture sitting on the left of a starving Sudanese child, waiting for the child to collapse), that photography is dangerous—is it a lens barrel a gun barrel?

It all depends whom you ask. I myself have almost 30-years experience as a photographer, many of those years photographing women in my “private glamour” group for what I like to call Photographic Therapy—so I can tell you from my own experiences, photography and war, photography is deadly if not executed properly.

What I mean by that, simply put, many photographic therapy clients come from my private shoots. They are usually women with almost 15-years of marriage under their belt, many unhappy with their belt size that age and child bearing years have brought them. Most are looking for a spark or sizzle as an insurance policy to sustain their marriage, through sexy photos. [Read more]