Guest Speaker: Bruce Squiers

On Wednesday April 16, 2008, photojournalist Bruce Squiers came as a guest speaker to a journalism 200 course at the University at Albany. Squiers works for the Daily Gazette in Schenectady, N.Y. He spoke to a class of freshman and sophomores about his experiences. He said he majored in journalism. From there he started at a small weekly paper where he took photos and and wrote but started liking the photo taking part of reporting more.

Squiers said, "visual literacy is a broad term." Everyone has it, it can be photo images in your head. Two photo images from his head were the assassination of JFK and 9/11. He said that as a photojournalist, you miss more moments that you can capture on film but not to worry because "good pictures happen everywhere and all the time." So a moment lost can usually be made up for later in time. He also said "you can be anywhere in the world and shot great photography."

"Good pictures are suppose to speak for themselves" but "most pictures are improved with a little explanation information,a caption," Squiers said. He said a good photo depends on all the elements coming together. The elements are the photographers perspective, which is the position of the camera, the light, the sense of composition, and form. When the photo has a certain balance, it means that they are all in symmetry.

The famous french photographer Henry Cartier Bresson said "the eye, and the brain, and the soul makes the picture, the camera merely records." Squiers said, "I only took basic psych but you are your experiences, your life." "Your interpretation my be different from someone else so be aware the your filters may be different from everyone else." What he meant by filters is the minds eye that tells the photographer what type of shot he likes, for example, being attracted to outdoor shots over fashion. As Squiers implies by saying, "I report with a camera," photojournalism is journalism through photography. A picture is a thousand words, "you pick the time, you pick the moment."