View PhotoBlog: Your source for the newspaper's photography

The best photos are the ones that tell stories. These are the stories behind the stories. This blog, a first for the West Valley View, will bring readers into the photo department of the newspaper. Visitors will see the photos that make the news, learn the stories behind them and find out what the photographers had to go through to get them. The blog will also serve as a basic commentary on photography, with the occasional photo tip thrown in for good measure for all you shutterbugs.

It will be a visual experience, one that will encourage readers — if they haven't already started — to appreciate photography, especially photojournalism. After Restrepo director and prominent war photographer Tim Hetherington was killed in Libya last month, NPR interviewed one of the original soldiers stationed in the Korengal Valley, Afghanistan. The soldier said that Hetherington always spoke about "truth in photography," as if it were the late photographer's driving mantra. I haven't been to war, but I can relate to that idea: a camera lens can't lie, so what it captures is truth.

Take for instance the photo above of a man getting a shave and a haircut at a homeless outreach event last month at an Avondale church. Notice how the worship area of the church has been reorganized to accommodate the barber's chair, or how the barber — a volunteer, and much younger than the man getting a trim — tilts his head to see out from above his glasses. Notice the man's work boots, how they are worn from work and life. What do these elements tell you about these people? There's no right or wrong answers.

Sometimes the things we notice in photos are simpler, or more subtle. Like the race between a baseball player and a baseball, or how a construction worker is dwarfed by the scale of his surroundings. There are many things that make photos interesting, and this space will serve to bring more attention to photography.

If you have an idea for this blog, or would like to know something about photojournalism, please email Michael Clawson at mclawson@westvalleyview.com.