1. Landscape photography:
The purpose of landscape photography, is to document different places from around the world. Sometimes on a large scale, such as photographing mountain ranges and oceans, but sometimes on a small scale such as houses or parks. The main features of landscape photography are focused on nature and wildlife, to capture the tranquility of nature, but, another feature is to capture man-made structures such as skyscrapers and such like. Sometimes the photographer put the two features together and have the contrast between the busyness of man-made things and then the calmness, delicate and slowness of nature.
This image, Milford Sound - David Evans, shows a lake with a mountain range surrounding it. The perfect reflection of the image gives it a slight eerie effect. The colour of the picture gives it a chilling effect as if you would need several layers of clothing to keep warm. The cold shadows creep over the mountain range, as the last rays of sun slip through the seaward opening to stroke the peaks with a final burst of colour. The image doesn't really give you a sense of size, but, looking at the snow peaked mountain you know get a sense of the size of the range.
2. Portrait photography:
The purpose of portrait photography is to capture someone or a group of people in the moment and to express how they feel and the mood in which they are feeling at the current time of the photo being taken. It is usually just of a persons face with an occasional prop such as a cigarette. But although this is the main feature, some photographers like to capture a scene behind them or their whole body as well.
This photograph by Diane Arbus (1923-1971) is a powerful one, because, the background is of a peaceful park with people and children, but then the main feature of this picture is of a small child, pulling a scary face, but at first you don't think anything is wrong, but as you see the boys hands you see him holding a toy hand grenade. Also his left hand is clenched in a claw like gesture as he hangs his thin arms by his side with his left strap hanging awkwardly by his side.
3. War photography:
The purpose of this genre is to capture iconic or distressing moments of war time, it sometimes harnesses fear in its photos and making people want to stop the war because of what happens in it and the photographic evidence. Although when you see and think of war, you mostly think of death and loss such as most of the photographs capture, but, on the odd occasion people can capture the iconic moment of victory.
This image, Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima taken by Joe Rosenthal is an example of the iconic moments of victory, as six marines haul the flag up on the top of the mount with a destroyed battlefield surrounding them. The picture was extremely popular, it had been reprinted thousands of times to give the americans and nations allied with them hope that the war was finally coming to an end. In the same year it was taken and published it got awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photography. Unfortunately three of the marines who raised the flag died in action later on in Iwo Jima.
4. Sport photography
Sport photography is a branch of photojournalism. The people who are professional sports photographers normally work for newspapers but there are a few that do it to promote small brands or sports that no one has heard of. Also it is meant to be able to capture the speed or brilliance of an athlete either in a group or just one person. It often captures iconic moments of an event such as the olympics or other big sports events.
This picture by Bob martin depicts loads and loads of people competing in cross country skiing. The picture shows people curved and going into one point. It shows vibrant colours of the skis and the outfits worn by the skiers. Also the image shows lots of people, who surprisingly are all stood up showing the skill of the people involved.
