Technological innovation plays a significant role in the history of photography.
Digital cameras, computers, image editing software and telephony all contribute to shaping photographic routines in photojournalism. As part of a much larger trend in society, the use of digital cameras and supporting technologies coincides with a relentless push toward faster, cheaper and greater quantities of information.
Since the 1980s, digital technologies have impinged upon the routines, rituals, traditions, and behaviors of photojournalists. These technologies include electronic digital manipulation, pagination processes, web-based elements, and digital capture and storage. In photojournalism, the digital camera’s capacity for reviewing, editing, deleting, and transmitting images on-the-scene changes the landscape of photographic routines guiding visual practice.
During the past five years, more than 95 percent of all daily newspaper operations have adopted digital cameras as the primary format for image capture, and more than 99 percent use a combination of film and digital cameras. Some studies now suggest that photojournalists are generally more satisfied using digital technology than they were using film (Roehl and Moreno, 2001; Halstead, 2003, Fahmy and Smith, 2003; Seelig, 2004). In fact, many photojournalists perceive the use of the digital camera as a positive influence on routines.
It may be assumed, then, that digital technologies in photojournalism are influencing routines in three ways -- productivity, empowerment and the social interaction between photojournalist and subject.
The digital camera intensifies photojournalism by increasing efficiency, encouraging creativity and experimentation, and redefining the boundaries of autonomy in the relationship between subject and photographer.
Further, technological innovation is bound to the landscape of photographic routines as it coincides with “an increasing capacity to encode a greater amount of information….” as well as a need for “reproducibility, and [yet] another is accessibility – both technical accessibility and economic accessibility” (Coleman, 1998, p. 79).
The shift in photographic routines away from film to digital in photojournalism is now nearly complete, but the transition has taken more than two decades to complete -- beginning with scanning film into computers to create digital files in the 1980s and quickly advancing to the use of the digital camera in the early to mid-1990s.
Reasons for the move away from analog photochemical processes toward full digitalization include, but may not be limited to, the speed in which images are monitored, edited and transmitted on-the-scene has increased; the cost of producing images is cheaper with digital technology when compared to previously experienced film processes; and the quality of digitally produced images continues to increase or surpass film quality. Moreover, environmental regulations played a role. As Bryan Murley observes:
In the mid-90s, there was an attempt by some cities to enforce tighter regulations regarding the disposal of photographic processing chemicals (especially used fixer). The school I was working for at the time went all digital instead messing with the new disposal regulations.
At the same time, use of the digital camera also signifies an increased liability in photojournalism – one that is inextricably bound to the routines of an occupational group concerned about public perceptions, such as credibility, veracity and objectivity.
Understanding the transformation of photojournalism from film to digital requires insight into the social, professional and personal routines contributing to particular behavior and conduct. As Peter Howe (2001) contends, “Technological developments rarely replace what precedes them, though they do force change” (p. 25).
What photojournalists are now learning from their experiences with digital cameras is that technology both constrains and enables certain types of human behavior. Although photojouranlists may feel productive in the quantity of images produced on deadline, they may also feel overwhelmed by demands made on their time. In addition, although photojournalists may feel empowered by the immediacy of reviewing images on the back of the camera, they may also feel constrained by the behavior.
Ultimately, a shift in photojournalistic routines has occurred with the immediacy of digital photography. For some photojournalists the ability to review, edit, delete and transmit images on-the-scene offers more control and autonomy over the creative process. In addition, digital technology is improving the performance of photojournalists in a variety of ways including helping to build better rapport with subjects.