Dying to tell the story response

After watching the story titled "Dying to Tell the Story" on Dan Eldon I couldn't help but think about how different photojournalists and photojournalism actually is compared to others that are in the business of journalism. I think there's something about these people risking their lives to just get the truth out to the world, to be able to tell a story through a picture that they personally took and for them to more then anything want to do this with their lives that truly demonstrates passion. People who know that they are in danger and can get killed at any moment, not by fighting in a war but by taking a picture of it, and are still happy to be doing what they're doing no matter how many traumatizing images they've seen shows that they must have deep, strong feelings towards this proffession; just like any other person does when they become passionate about their carreer or a simple hobby. I appreciate the risk they take in order to not only tell the world, but to show them what is going on outside of their city, country, state; for words can sometimes get scrambled and messed with whereas a picture can not.

But even though I appreciate that they are willing to do this I found one thing that not neccessarily bothered me but rather surprised me while watching this film. At least one of the photojournalists that were being interviewed shared that while they are facing death upon death, most of the time to people who don't deserve it, they see this along with their brain also foccusing on the technical aspects of taking the photo, as in is the light okay, how will this picture look, etc. Now, I'm not criticizing them for doing this I mean I understand that that's probably something they have to do in order to cope with all of the terrible personal exeriences they're going through while they are in a war zone. I just find it surprising and shocking that even though they're in that environment and seeing all of the images that they're seeing and dealing with all of the emotions that they're having to deal with they can still seem to focus on taking the photo, because if they can capture the shot of the child who's parents have just been killed or of the people who are starving then maybe those people can get some help. Maybe them risking their life by doing this can actually make a difference.