9/11 composition - covering a disaster with a photographer's eye

Overview
Like great pieces of art, great photojournalism shots are well composed. The photographer carefully places the elements of a photo within a frame in order to tell a story in the most visually powerful way possible.

Unlike art, the content of photojournalism is not, for the most part, controlled by the photographer.

This was never more true than during the attacks of September 11, 2001. This has been called one of the most photographed events in history.

Imagine being a photojournalist on that day, running into this disaster while most people are running away. In the midst of this misery and chaos, it is your job to capture the the human side of the story in an orderly and effective way.

Assignment

As a group and individually, you will learn about some composition techniques and find examples of how photojournalists applied them to the chaos of 9/11.

First - Everyone must read about the the rules of "Simplicity, The Rule of Thirds, Lines, Balance, Framing, and Avoiding Mergers" on the following web site:

Composition Web Site

Next- Go to the site below, and find excellent examples of photos shot on 9/11 that follow each of the rules. Each group should agree on all of the photos, and everyone in the group should post the same photos as examples of the advanced techniques.

Upload these to flickr, and post to blogger.
The title of the post should be the name of the technique.

For example- Everyone should have a post with "Framing" as the title, and everyone in the group should have THE SAME photo posted for this.

9/11 photos