Hello, I am a 23-year-old self-taught photographer, I seek through street photography, and photojournalism to show the world the cruelty of Argentine life, subjected to a dictatorship disguised as “good people”. I want my photographs to reach people from other countries so that they can see that Argentina is not the World Cup, it is hunger, anger, ignorance, corruption, insecurity and death. I’m not a great photographer yet, but from my place I’d like you to give me advice and opinions for this project which I’ve been working on for months, in order to leave a record of the irregularities of this horrible government, which censors and even imprisons artists, journalists and opposition influencers. Sadly, they may be re-elected through electoral fraud. I apologize for my poor English. I also apologize for this post, I don’t know if it will be the right place for this, honestly, I didn’t know it was like that.
If you want to convey a message in photos you need to include the subject, of course, but also elements which support the narrative.
If I want to photograph a person in context I try to get stuff in either the foreground or background to help establish that context.
Sometimes just a photo of the person themselves without the background is enough to convey a message.
When I want to include the foreground, but especially the background, to support the subject I use a wide angle lens. I move in close to the subject so they are large in the frame and I choose an angle that includes relevant elements in the background, or foreground.
If I want to exclude the background because it is not relevant or is distracting I use a longer lens. I will choose an angle that has the least intrusive background.
So the rule of thumb here is: Step in zoom out, to include the background or foreground. Step back zoom in to exclude the background or foreground.
I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for but I hope it helps.