Dennis Dunleavy

Why educators fear the demise of the written word

There is a fascinating debate going on in education these days about how students no longer read as much as they previously had.  Culture is apparently evolving away from the written word to something else with  the increasing immediacy and impact of the visual that has become so pervasive in society.

A few years ago, I became aware of this trend when only 18 of 78 students actually bought the text book I was teaching from. Now, there could be a lot reasons for the lack of interest in the textbook, especially high prices. Another reason could be disinterest in the subject matter.

Nevertheless, assuming that we are truly moving away from the written text as a primary tool for learning, then, we must ask ourselves what's next?

Jane Healy in "Endangered Minds" observes, "Fast-paced lifestyles, coupled with heavy media diets of visual immediacy, beget brains misfitted to traditional modes of academic learning."

As Fred Guterl argues, "The lure of the visual in today's electronic media, it would seem, is proving too much for the increasingly antiquated pleasures of the written word."

Education has always maintained a somewhat vertical and parochial view of the world in terms of the written word being a more exalted and intellectual form of communication than the visual. After all, hasn't history shown us that writing was a step up from the oral tradition and cave paintings.

Now, educators fear that in the digital universe of camera phones, PDAs, iPods, PlayStations, Hi-Def televisions, and TiVos, we might be headed for some sort of insidious slide back into the cave. The digital universe, for some educators, signifies a life tethered to machines spewing forth visual content. The visual turn amplified in a digital universe suggests the de-evolution of the literate society and a push back toward the immediate gratification of images. 

Does a paradigm shift in the ways in which we are informed and entertained represent a threat to democracy and  a participatory government?  I  am inclined to think that the digital universe of the millennial and gizmo generations, those people born from 1985 to present, learn differently than the "bookish"  boomers.  The key distinction here is to note the differences and then continue to engage each other in teaching and living out what we value.

Photojournalism's Lamest Moments 2006

[click on the image to see an enlarged view of the timeline] or Download lamest.pdf  

From the deaths of legends Gordon Parks, Arnold Newman and Joe Rosethal to the scandal surrounding digitally altered and set up pictures in the Lebanonese conflict, it's been an interesting year for photojournalism.

I've been taking a look at some of the more unsettling trends in the industry and have come up with list I call the Lamest Moments.  The categories are limited and very unscientific of course. The big winner, or loser, depending on your perspective, was in my opinion, Reuters not only for the digital manipulation debacle this summer, but also for its latest scheme in trying to attract citizen shutterbugs to contribute pictures to the wire services. Much attention was given to the events of June when a Reuters' photographer sent manipulated pictures of the conflict in Lebanon. Reuters' editors, for their part, dropped the ball by not using common sense and vigilance over what got put up on the wire. The fall out from all this continues to be the increased distrust of mediate visual images.

In the end, photojournalism also took some serious hits in terms of credibility this year from using pictures of the “Green Helmet” guy, which was alledgedly a Hezabollah insider. Bloggers started connecting the dots when pictures of the “Green Helmet” guy was shown at multiple scenes carrying the same body of a dead child and directing photojournalists to make images.

In the "Under reported visual reportage" category, much of the mainstream media missed or played down the release of hundreds of more abuse pictures from Abu Ghraib. Perhaps the images were too graphic for audiences or that since this was just a "follow up" on the pictures originally released in 2003, editors decided that enough was enough.

The New York Post, true to form, gets the "Lamest Headline and Caption" award with its layout showing the bloodied face of Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The use of a text call-out to put the words "Warm up the virgins" in Zarqawi does little to ease tensions between the Islamic and Western worlds.

Newsweek magazine walked away the the "Lamest Cover" award by violatiing of every known principle of design, not to mention common sense. Newsweek out did itself with this collage of representative Mark Foley’s fall from grace.

Finally, in the "Lamest Use of Digital Technology" category, a picture claiming to be the world's largest digital image (8.6 gb) tests the boundaries of "so what". Although a  highly debateable, I still think that making an 8.6 gigabyte image using multiple smaller pictures was a bit misleading in claiming to be the world’s largets digital picture. In the end, the PR this picture generated seemed more like a stunt than an actual technological achievement.

Camera Phone Buzz

The trend toward faster, higher resolution images is being driven partly by demand and partly by the industry itself.

Yong-Hee Lee, vice president of Samsung Electronics' System LSI Division comments,"The rapidly evolving trend of user created content, blogs, and personal web pages is triggering demand for constant access to high-resolution images, bringing the consumer's attention to high-resolution camera phones."

The pixel wars raging between Digital Single Lens Reflex camera makers is spreading across into the camera phone industry. With a 48 percent increase in worldwide cameraphones sales this year, manufactures are attempting to meet the demand for higher quality images. For the first few years of development, camera phones have been notoriously poor performing in terms of image quality. Today, however, cameraphones are  now attempting to bridge the gap with resolutions as high as 10 megpixels.

The allure of digital photography and its future

The camera's capacity to frame, freeze and fix experience in time has emerged from the basic human desire to shape, authenticate, and rationalize our relationship to the world and our place in it. Today, in a culture bombarded with visually-mediated messages, due in great part to the advance of digital technologies, the allure of creating and possessing increasingly personalized accounts of reality persists. The fundamental characteristics of photography -- the framing, freezing, and fixing  of moments -- has become technologically less challenging and cumbersome in a digital  environment.  The ease and speed in which higher quality images can be made digitally empowers people to move beyond technology to concentrate more on visually storytelling. The challenge now becomes a question of how to interpret all these stories.

Today, anyone with a camera phone or point and shoot digital camera can be a visual storyteller. Advances in digital photography such as liquid lenses, faster buffers, higher resolutions, larger storage capacities, and wireless telephony signify the possibility of democratizing ways of seeing, knowing, and sharing the world with on another. Instead of looking at the advance of digital photography as a threat to privacy, the demise of photojournalism, or even an influence on decreased attention spans, the potential of building communities of observers and the observed emerges. The photograph as an extension of our desire to share, explain, celebrate, expose, explore, and denounce the  human condition is being played out every day on the Internet through sites like Flickr and personal photo blogs.

However, the photograph is also very much a highly redacted and rarefied slice of life -- one in which the photographer's intention sometimes becomes suspect. Even at its very best, the photograph can never replace the array of moral complexities present at the moment of capture. At the same time,  with the increasing advance of digital technologies there appears to be an urgency in questioning the authenticity of the image as well as the credibility of the photographer.

Tom Wheeler in his book, Photo Fact or Photo Fiction, explores this consequence of the digital age.

Wheeler notes:

Larger questions abound. What is the future of photographic credibility and, by extension, the credibility of all visual media, in an age when even amateur shutterbugs have access to increasingly affordable digital cameras...?

Johanna Drucker observes that the possibility of altering images digitally, and by extension reality, does not necessarily radically transform truth. However, what digital technologies have done, according to Drucker, is  actually extend the "possibilities of sustainable disbelief." In other words, what digital photography has introduced into our naive and gullible ways of seeing the world is an increased sense of skepticism and disbelief of the visual. In a hyper-mediated world of instant everything on the Internet, this growing distrust of the visual will have positive  and negative consequences.  For example, since the introduction of the camera phone, we have already seen a knee-jerk crack down on making pictures in public spaces, especially in schools. However, on the positive side, the pervasiveness of the cameras in society represents the possibility for greater transparency in governance, community building and social responsibility.

As Marshall McLuhan contends all forms of media are an extension of self.

“ In this electric age we see ourselves being translated more and more into the form of information, moving toward the technological extension of consciousness” (McLuhan, 1951).

In 2006 more downs than ups for newpaper industry

Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher released his top 10 ups and downs of the newspaper industry today. According to Strupp, "Hands down, the online growth, both for and against newspapers, was the dominant story in 2006... The rapid rise of the Web report means newspaper budget wizards need to quickly nail down two things -- how to make more money on the web and whether to charge readers."

Interesting perspective, but as usual it seems that creating news content is all about the bottom line. Instead of emphasizing the web's potential for creating a more informed and engaged citizenry as well as encouraging a socially responsible press, many industry thinkers remain preoccupied with how newspapers can make money in a changing media environment. 

Photojournalism's Hybridization

In many situations, the impact of technological innovation in photography has had a hybridizing effect on photojournalism. In photojournalism, the push from the single frame as the sole conveyance of meaning, toward the use of multi-media, mini-digital, and audio presentation evidences this change.

The idea of a hybrid form of photojournalism suggests that a photographer must now preoccupy themselves with concerns beyond the making of singular iconic images. In a hybridized and hyper-saturated visual culture, the photographer must now be concerned with the mixing of other elements, such as video, interactivity, and sound.

The power of a single frame cannot be underestimated. In the foreseeable future, given our proclivity toward sight over sound and even the sequencing of images, the immediacy of a single frame will continue to subordinate other contributing elements. Yet the push for multimedia threatens to change all of this. Depending on your perspective, this could be a good or bad thing for photojournalism.

The fact that still photography had evolved well after the emergence of film and moving pictures supports this point. Now we are moving in a direction that aligns photojournalism more closely to film in many ways.

During the course of its evolution, the specific nature of photojournalism has derived much of its power from framing, freezing, and fixing specific moments in time. Now, in a hybridized digital environment the opportunities for amplifying these fundamental characteristics exist through the blending of interactive media and high definition.

At the same time, it is unlikely that the iconic image – that single frame that gains meaning beyond its original occurrence through repetition and recall – will fade away with the increased demand in multimedia presentations. Nevertheless, the pressure to produce packaged reportage in a multimedia format may have an impact of the way in which photographers work. In the rush to produce multiple usable images to be sequenced and packaged into a multimedia presentation, the potential for missing the most iconic and salient moment may disappear. When this happens, the danger will be that we may no longer have “decisive moments” to reflect upon, but rather a series of lesser moments strung to together with creative sequencing and sound.

January deadline for international journalism awards

Journalists and media organizations are eligible for the International Journalism Awards 2007. The contest is sponsored by the International Catholic Union of the Press. Deadline is January 31.

A total of eight awards will honor the work of individuals and institutions. The awards include the “Gold Medal”, awarded for a report that promotes press freedom and the”Titus brandsma” award, presented to a journalist who has suffered persecution.

The other award categories are: photojournalism, inter-religious dialogue, women issues, communications education, excellence in journalism, and solidarity with refugees. The prize money ranges from CHF 1,000 (about US$823) to CHF 3,000.

Application requirements vary according to each category.

For more information, visit: http://www.ucip.ch/eng/aw#a.

American Photo Q & A

Jay DeFoore, editor of the American Photo magazine blog PopPhoto has posted the Q & A from the session he used to write his recent article on influential bloggers.

Here's Jay DeFoore's interview

JD: Do you have a mission statement for the blog?

DD: My mission is directly connected to what I try to do as a teacher -- connect and stayed connected with my students. The web, especially blogging, is an excellent medium for keeping conversations going between us. If I have a mission, it is to extend my teaching beyond the four walls of the classroom, literally blogging can do this. It's just amazing.

I believe, the blog acts like a railroad switching yard for ideas and information. The purpose of my blog is to expand whatever understanding we have of our increasingly visual world by opening up the lines of dialog between professionals, enthusiasts, students, and teachers.  I think it works. I love blogging because it feeds me intellectually and emotionally -- there's this incredible feeling of immediacy that comes from posting and answering emails about the blog that I haven't found elsewhere.

JD: What's been your most successful blog post yet? Is there one you're most proud of?

DD: I am not sure about what a successful blog post might be, but there have been times when I have written something and another blog or e-zine asks me to write something for them or that they want to repost my work.

I have had about four or five posts make there way around the world this way. It's a kick to look at what I have written translated into at least eight languages including, Italian, Spanish, German, Polish, and Japanese. The piece I wrote about the use of the camera phone in the London bombings was this way. It absolutely amazes me who is reading my work. It's not always great writing but at least I am consistent. This essay was used in The Digital Journalist as well as Freelens (a magazine from Germany).

I guess what I am most proud of about blogging is that I have been doing it pretty consistently for more than three years now. I have hundreds of post, some short and some really, really long.

I post at least 4-5 days a week if I can and I am proud of that fact. It takes a lot of energy to write and post, but it is also a thrill because I feel that I am contributing to something much bigger than just what's on my mind.

JD: How much traffic does your site get, either in page views or unique visitors?

DD:  Traffic is generally about 1,000 visitors a week, which isn't a lot in the blogging world. I get about 300 unique visitors a day. The interesting thing is that if I post a lot, more people will pick up on the site and send it around.  However, what I write about is pretty specific so I've never expected anyone to really read my work regularly. What happens is that with the tags people will be out there Googling for something specific and they will stumble across my site.

Another thing is that I try not to be overtly political, although sometimes an opinion creeps in. I try to keep my audience in mind -- mostly students and professionals. The best way I have found to track traffic is to locate who is linking to the blog. This is, in my opinion, a more realistic measure of the blog's purpose and effectiveness. If people are linking to your blog, it means that you gain social capital through the networking factor. I am very happy that people take the time to look at my blog, but it's not the only reason why I do it -- I do it because it is a kick in the pants to be able to write every day about the things I love most about photography.  I wouldn't have this outlet without the blog I don't think -- so there it is.

 

JD: Do you have a mission statement for the blog?

DD: My mission is directly connected to what I try to do as a teacher -- connect and stayed connected with my students. The web, especially blogging, is an excellent medium for keeping conversations going between us. If I have a mission, it is to extend my teaching beyond the four walls of the classroom, literally blogging can do this. It's just amazing.

I believe, the blog acts like a railroad switching yard for ideas and information. The purpose of my blog is to expand whatever understanding we have of our increasingly visual world by opening up the lines of dialog between professionals, enthusiasts, students, and teachers.  I think it works. I love blogging because it feeds me intellectually and emotionally -- there's this incredible feeling of immediacy that comes from posting and answering emails about the blog that I haven't found elsewhere.

JD: What's been your most successful blog post yet? Is there one you're most proud of?

DD: I am not sure about what a successful blog post might be, but there have been times when I have written something and another blog or e-zine asks me to write something for them or that they want to repost my work.

I have had about four or five posts make there way around the world this way. It's a kick to look at what I have written translated into at least eight languages including, Italian, Spanish, German, Polish, and Japanese. The piece I wrote about the use of the camera phone in the London bombings was this way. It absolutely amazes me who is reading my work. It's not always great writing but at least I am consistent. This essay was used in The Digital Journalist as well as Freelens (a magazine from Germany).

I guess what I am most proud of about blogging is that I have been doing it pretty consistently for more than three years now. I have hundreds of post, some short and some really, really long.

I post at least 4-5 days a week if I can and I am proud of that fact. It takes a lot of energy to write and post, but it is also a thrill because I feel that I am contributing to something much bigger than just what's on my mind.

JD: How much traffic does your site get, either in page views or unique visitors?

DD:  Traffic is generally about 1,000 visitors a week, which isn't a lot in the blogging world. I get about 300 unique visitors a day. The interesting thing is that if I post a lot, more people will pick up on the site and send it around.  However, what I write about is pretty specific so I've never expected anyone to really read my work regularly. What happens is that with the tags people will be out there Googling for something specific and they will stumble across my site.

Another thing is that I try not to be overtly political, although sometimes an opinion creeps in. I try to keep my audience in mind -- mostly students and professionals. The best way I have found to track traffic is to locate who is linking to the blog. This is, in my opinion, a more realistic measure of the blog's purpose and effectiveness. If people are linking to your blog, it means that you gain social capital through the networking factor. I am very happy that people take the time to look at my blog, but it's not the only reason why I do it -- I do it because it is a kick in the pants to be able to write every day about the things I love most about photography.  I wouldn't have this outlet without the blog I don't think -- so there it is.

Photography's most influential bloggers

The upcoming issue of American Photo has a feature on some of the most influential bloggers writing about photography and society (including this one). Jay Defoore, an editor at American Photo, begins his article with a nice description about the bloggers he features.

                                                                             

A university professor in Oregon dissects the week's news photographs. A guy in Germany posts open letters to Corbis owner Bill Gates. An astrophysicist in Pittsburgh spotlights some of the best fine-art photography on the Web.

With blogging tools and social networking sites gaining widespread use over the last two years, a new generation of thought leaders has emerged to give photographers and photography fans new avenues of information.

For me to recieve such a mention feels a little odd. Since early 2004, I have maintained a blog because I believe that students could benefit from outside the classroom teaching. As an educator, I believe people learn in lots of diiferent ways and that in order to be successful with younger generations I needed to go where people lived -- on the Internet.

What I have discovered is that teaching and blogging are highly complimentary activities. I feel that many of my best ideas come from the feedback people give me off the blog. In a sense the experience of teaching is more global and interconnected to a diverse range of ideas than it has been previously. Teachers can no longer lock themselves away in an ivory toward, but must, instead engage students in a variety of ways - including blogging if they feel it is appropriate.

By George: Those darn camera phones

Actor George Clooney has a problem. Technology.

It seems he can't do anything without someone with a camera phone taking his picture. According to Maira Oliveira, a reporter with All Headline News, Clooney is paranoid that the "new technology, such as camera-phones, could jeopardize his career because he can no longer hide from prying lenses ...."

Welcome to the 21st century George --ready or not.

When people become the center of attention because they are known to live large, and Clooney has been known to live large, digital technology, especially camera phones, make the media spotlight of titillation and sensation that much bigger. In fact, camera phones make private moments pretty much non-existent for public figures like Clooney. Knowing that some stranger is always poised to capture the most embarrassing moments appears to be one of those undesirable side effects of a pervasive visually-driven, consumption-driven culture.

Americans not only consume the largest percentage of our planet's natural resources, but we are also a culture of denial. Consuming things with our eyes to feed the imagination seems little different than our need to fill our stomachs.

Camera phones can now be considered just another extension of our need to feed our insatiable appetite for diversion and entertainment. We are no longer satisfied with just seeing, we must also literally act upon the things we see. We have become obsessed with the need to possess our experiences in the world, even if it means sometimes violating a person's right to privacy.

Already we are witnessing the tensions that will test constitutionally guaranteed rights articulated in the First and Third Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

In the age of the blogosphere, the citizen shutterbug who catches George Clooney or some other celeb in a comprising position may do so by invoking the rights of a free press and the people's right to know. Whether or not they are trained journalists is becoming increasingly irrelevant. This was made clear to us recently when Reuters and Yahoo sent out notices inviting the public to send in their pictures for publication.

With camera phones and other personal media devices we become both the source and the user of our experiences. The popularity of social networking Internet sites such as You Tube, Flickr, MySpace, and Facebook proved this point well.

Folks like Clooney are hard pressed to escape the addictive nature of an all-consuming desire to possess a likeness or experience that helps people escape reality. Camera phones make us the seer and the seen -- all day, every day.

It is instinctual to possess a moment, to fix time, and to impose ourselves on others by taking pictures, with or without their permission.

Celebrities pay a high price of fame and fortune. Now with the immediacy of digital technologies, people, famous or not, can no longer assume that anything they do in public will not land on someone website, blog, or even in the mainstream media. 

Does this mean I have a right to shove a camera phone in someone's face just because they are famous? Beyond an individual's right to privacy, isn't there a sense of exploitation going on here that speaks directly to a deeply embedded pathology of obsession and fantasy?

Can technology change human behavior? You bet. Clooney observes:

"It's not that actors have all gone crazy, it's that there are just so many different sources now. You know, everybody's got a camera on their phone now so, all the time, any mistake that anybody makes, you're going to have it on film. And boy, there have already been some dumb mistakes."

Here's the catch of our camera phone culture -- don't ever make a mistake,  ever -- Someone may be watching.

An Oooh...Ahhhh....sky

photo by Steven Gantenbein

There is absolute delight in seeing a student turn the corner in terms of seeing the world in their own unique way. It gets even better when you open an email and its an image -- no words needed.

Steve, a senior in photojournalism at Southern Oregon University, captured the sky's intensity beautifully. More than the image itself, though, is knowing how deeply committed has become to the photographic process -- knowing they are always lugging a camera around -- always looking -- always patient in reading light.

The light becomes us

Here are few of the images of mine from the 1980s and 90s in Central America that will be on display at the Schneider Museum of Art at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon next month. Here's a link to a webpage with more pictures to view. The pictures above are linked to my Flickr site where you can get more details on when and where they were made.

The featured artist for the exhibition, which runs from Jan. 9 - Feb 24, is David Burnett. David's work is more straight new and features 40 years of excellence in photojournalism. The focus of my work has been the idea of displacement and identity. The intention of the show is to give viewers an understanding of how rich photojournalism is in terms of storytelling.

The demise of photojournalism is not all about the threat from citizen journalism

There has been so much discussion about the demise of photojournalism related to the growth of citizen journalism recently –  a discussion centered around the idea that just about anyone with a camera phone or digital camera can be published. Citizen shutterbugs cannot replace photojournalists entirely, but this newly created stream of images does present a few challenges to the profession. Chief among the problems with a citizen-centered influx of images for news publication is the question of credibility and authenticity. Editors seem to be having their hands full these days just making sure their own professionals are playing by the rules without the burden of checking on the veracity of Uncle Jim Bo’s pictures from the county fair.  Having acknowledged this argument as simplistic and reductive, more attention must be paid to other more systemic issues facing news operations in general, and photojournalism specifically.

If photojournalism is truly dying the slow death so many seem to be predicting then we must look at the economics of an entrenched media industry that is finding it hard to adapt and cope in a faster, leaner digital world.

In an effort to clarify some of the issues facing photojournalism today it may be helpful to construct a list of the top ten influences on the field in the past 20 years. As a disclaimer, as well as an advanced apology to those who know better, making any sort of list is problematic. Here  are some of the major influences affecting photojournalists worthwhile considering.  Some of these influences are more obvious than others.

1.    Media consumption habits and a decreased demand for full-time photojournalists at the daily newspaper.
2.    Media Consolidation
3.    Digital Photography
4.    Electronic photo manipulation
5.    Wireless Internet
6.    Citizen Journalism
7.    Broadband Internet Access
8.    Mini-digital video
9.    Picture Editing

Media Consumption

First to be considered in terms of influences are changes in the ways people consume media. With a decline in daily newspapers fewer photojournalists will be needed. This does not mean that photojournalism is dead, but it does mean few traditional job opportunities for competent individuals. Traditionally, newspapers have hired the greatest number of photojournalists, but of this number (between 6,000 - 10,000 newspaper photographers in the late 1990s), nearly 40 percent, were freelancers.

The decline of the U.S. daily newspaper during the period 1986 – 2006 illustrates a shift away from reading daily newspapers to the use of multiple sources such as the Internet, cable, broadcast, and radio. Even though there are far more media channels available to consumers than there were 20 years, the number of photojournalists entering the field far outnumbers the opportunities.

Digital Photography

Digital photography is has had an enormous impact of the field of photojournalism. Photojournalists are as productive, resourceful, and creative as ever but digital photography has intensified the process, especially in the area post-production. Photojournalists are now expected to know more and work harder on deadline than ever before. Many photojournalists are their own lab techs and editors now. They stay later on assignments, work from remote locations longer and more often, and are expected to turn around images in an instance. These pressures have transformed and challenged photojournalism.

In other words, 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. The key distinction between film and digital camera use is the immediacy of results and output. The digital camera allows the photographer to see images on-the-scene immediately after capture through an LCD monitor on the back of the device. The immediacy of the digital camera impacts how photographers make images and interact with subjects differently than previously experienced with the film camera. Digital cameras enable photojournalists to review, edit, delete and transmit images immediately after capture. The level of immediacy in digital photography means that photographers do not have to wait for their results to be processed, edited and printed, as previously experienced with film. The digital camera’s level of immediacy takes the guessing game out of photography in terms of content, composition and technique, i.e., “what you see is what you get.”

Photo Manipulation

Altering images to change the meaning of a frame is not at all new to photojournalism. However, what is new is the speed at which manipulations can occur.

The seamless and malleable nature of digital information presents great opportunities as well as challenges for a profession, which prides itself on producing accurate and timely visual reportage. What seems at odds here are the conditions and conventions in which photojournalists engage in photographic routines. Photojournalists adhere to professional codes of conduct that can be observed through the expectations and obligations imposed on individuals by the occupational group. Further, the de-centralization of post-production processes signifies a disruption in previously experienced routines and rituals through the elimination of mechanical processes related to film and print development. Previously, it was harder to get away with manipulation because there were always several other sets of eyes involved in the post-production process. This may no longer be true as seen in the case of Los Angeles Times photographer Brian Walski in Iraq. Even more recently the Reuters debacle over manipulated images from Lebanon points out how easy it is to mislead the public.

Wireless Telephony

In 2000, Swedish telecom giant Ericsson teamed up with camera manufacturer Canon to that will combine the technology of a cellular phone with that of a digital camera. Ericsson’s press statement after the company signed the agreement notes. “This technology will enable simple, fast and reliable transfer of images from digital cameras to wireless devices as well as to other consumers or the Internet.''

For years later, Canon introduced its EOS-1D Mark II with its WFT-E1 wireless transmitter. Along with the tethered LAN, the camera can transmit images immediately back to a server for editing and storage.

According to the Mobile Internet Technology Website, “Already today, digital imaging products and wireless devices are two rapidly growing categories of consumer products, and the merging of these two technologies will create entirely new products and applications, such as multimedia messaging.”

Over time as the technology improves, the ability to transmit images back to a server means that communication between photographer in the field and editors back in the newsroom should improve.

Broadband

Up until lately, the ability to send high quantities of information across the Internet has been limited by bandwidth issues. However, broadband access, the telecommunication frequencies available to distribute  information is increasing rapidly. In 2006, the largest number of boardband subscribers, 57 million users, live in the United States.What this represents for photojournalists is that more markets for images will emerge. At the same, the Internet is still in its infancy in terms of monetizing returns on investments. Even though photographers may benefit from having electronic means of promoting themselves and selling images, there is no guarantee that they will find gainful employment.

Panel on ethics and images

We just finished this press release for an exciting panel on image ethics for the First Amendment Forum here at Southern Oregon University. We are holding the forum earlier this year so that we can combine it with the opening of an exbition of photojournalism at the Schneider Museum of Art.

Can you believe what you see?

    Ashland, Ore. December 12, 2006 – “Can you believe what you see: The Impact and Integrity of News Media Images in the Digital Age,” will be the topic for 2007’s Thomas W. Pyle First Amendment Forum at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore.
    Using a grant from The Ashland Daily Tidings, the annual Thomas W. Pyle First Amendment Forum will feature three professional photographers who will explore the veracity and impact of visual images in the digital age on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007, at 7 p.m., in the Rogue River Room of the Stevenson Union on the SOU campus.
    The keynote speaker is Dr. Paul Martin Lester author of “Images that Injure.” Dr. Lester will explore the ethics of visually-mediated messages in an age of increasing digital manipulation. 
    Subsequently a panel, comprised of national award-winning news photographer, David Burnett; Bob Pennell, the photo editor of The Medford Mail Tribune; and SOU Assistant Professor Dennis Dunleavy will explore the impact and integrity of news photography from the local, national and international perspective.
    David Burnett is a recipient of the Magazine Photographer of the Year award; a World Press Photo of the Year winner, and a Robert Capa Award winner from the Overseas Press Club. In 2006, he also won a First Place in the Presidential category in the White House News Photographers' Association.
    Bob Pennell is a multiple winner of Oregon AP news photography awards and has been at the Mail Tribune since 1983.
    Dr. Dennis Dunleavy joined the SOU Communication Department in 2005. Previously, Dunleavy spent more than 20 years as a photojournalist and correspondent in the U.S., Mexico, and Central America. Dunleavy's blog.
    The SOU Department of Communication is also collaborating with the Schneider Museum of Art at SOU to present the collected work of David Burnett: “Measure of Time,” and Dennis Dunleavy: “The Light Becomes Us,” at the Schneider Museum on the SOU campus from Jan. 9 – Feb 24, 2007.
    The First Amendment Forum will be taped for broadcast on Rogue Valley Community Television, and David Burnett will be a guest on “The Jefferson Exchange,” on Jefferson Public Radio.
    The contact for these events is Dennis Dunleavy, (541) 552-8433; [email protected].

Photojournalism's Future Leaves a lot to Consider

The debate over the future of photojournalism has come to a head again as citizen media proponent Dan Gillmor started beating his drum once more. Gillmor's commentary is ruffling a few feathers from professionals and media observers not willing to accept, at this moment, any assessment of the field with the word "demise" in the title. In fact, Gillmor's prognostication for photojournalism is anything but new. For more than a decade people have been talking about the changes brought about by digital photography. However, what is striking here is that Gillmor's tone seems to be taking a much more emphatic quality. For example, Gillmore contends:

The pros who deal in breaking news have a problem. They can’t possibly compete in the media-sphere of the future. We’re entering a world of ubiquitous media creation and access. When the tools of creation and access are so profoundly democratized, and when updated business models connect the best creators with potential customers, many if not most of the pros will fight a losing battle to save their careers.

At the heart of this debate resides a tension between how some people define photojournalism as a professional occupation, and how others define it has an art and self-expression. The problem is that people confuse making pictures with making money. For the average consumer of images questions of aesthetics take second-place to content, especially if the subject is recognizable. How else can anyone explain why a fuzzy and overblown picture of Angelina and Brad on a beach in Africa can command millions of dollars from an agency, while freelance photojournalists risking life and limb in Iraq make barely a living wage.

In many cases, people don't even notice compositional flubs such as a telephone pole growing out of a subject's head.  The average image consumer just looks through or over looks such annoyances. What the average image consumer sees is the center of focus, even with all the imperfections.  At the same time, people aren't idiots. People do  recognize quality and photojournalism offers a lot of it. The conventions developed in photojournalism such as the decisive moment, framing, and layering have helped to make the craft into an art form, even in the eyes of the elite. The average image consumer, armed with a  camera phone,will be hard pressed to replicate a picture made by a trained photojournalist. Unfortunately, the professional photojournalist is being outgunned in terms of the increasing numbers of people willing to send in images for publication.

Gillmor's conclusion reveals the heart of the matter here:

Remember, there was once a fairly healthy community of portrait painters. When photography came along, a lot of them had to find other work; or at least their ranks were not refilled when they retired. Professional portrait photographers, similarly, are less in demand today than a generation ago. But portraits have survived — and thrived.

The photojournalist’s job may be history before long. But photojournalism has never been more important, or more widespread.

There may be a day, when the average Joe or Jan with a camera phone will start to think beyond the snap shot and produce images that are not only of-the-moment. People have the capacity to learn and put knowledge into action. What we may see, then, are people making images  not just of breaking news or spot news scenes of train wrecks and police beatings but also images that have aesthetic appeals as well.

This day may not be too far off, and it is this fear that is troubling many professionals.  As one photojournalist argues on the National Press Photographer Association list-serve, "Hire them, and get garbage images with trees sticking out of back of heads."  Another more rational professional observes, "Eventually, I want to believe, the public and marketplace will again respect that good cameras don't make good pictures. Good photographers do. And good photographers aren't necessarily good photojournalists."

What remains important to the profession as well as to democracy is  the authenticity of the frame and the credibility of the individual who produced the image. As Gillmor argues, "What does matter is the utter authenticity of the image, made so by the fact that the man was there at the right time with the right media-creation gear."

A similar battle is raging in the newswriting world as well -- one in which  bloggers continue to encroach on the domain of the so-called establishment press. But just because someone can blog doesn't mean they have all the facts.

If the citizen shutterbug movement does take hold, as Gillmor predicts, it is reasonable to assume that photojournalism as an art form will continue to thrive, while photojournalism as an occupational group will suffer.

As an educator, this issue raises a lot of questions. Why continue to train photojournalists in a world where just about everyone can claim they are photojournalists? What does getting a degree in photojournalism mean when the credibility of the field continues to be attacked as it did last summer during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. What does getting a degree in photojournalism mean when opportunities for employment seem so dismal?

The best answer to this question is reconciled by the fact that photojournalism teaches us to experience and see the world in ways that few other disciplines can match. Photojournalism is the practice of being engaged in capturing and fixing moments so that we can learn and grow from those moments. What philosophy seeks to do for helping students to think more critically and ethically, photojournalism does in helping students to see, feel, and act in the world. Photojournalism is a visual response to light and life  -- one that seeks to render, explain, interrogate, expose, and discover what it means to be human.

If more people, with camera phones, come to understand and appreciate the complexities of our times so be it.  At issue is not the need for more people with cameras. What is needed are more people with cameras that know and appreciate the device as a tool for illuminating and edifying, connecting and communicating, the richness of our universal human condition. 

In the end, what appears to be happening now is that far too much energy is being expended on fretting over the loss of a professional occupation and not enough energy is being spent on the implications of an informed and visually literate citizenry. 

Another stark reminder of where photojournalism is headed

A businessman stops in front of the giant Christmas Tree in
New York City's Rockerfeller Center to take a picture with
his camera phone.

Credit: Dennis Dunleavy, November 2006.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is linking to a story about cellphones and news content by The New York Times.

Photojournalism Leaps Into the Cellphone Age

Scott Carlson writes, "At first glance, this is technology news: Yahoo and the news service Reuters are going to recruit the general public as photojournalists — the public that is already armed with an array of image-producing devices, be they high-end digital cameras or simple cellphones."

Pictures from camera phones, taken by the general public can be uploaded to Reuters or Yahoo and then distributed to other news services.

Carlson suggests, "Technology news, yes. But it is also another stark reminder that the media are less us here in the newsroom talking to you, and more of you talking to each other. That shift carries responsibility with it. This is an issue for the liberal arts as much as anything."

If true, this trend supports the general theory that information is more about immediacy and quantity than it is about reflection and critical thinking. Camera phones, in this case, will bring new meaning to the old news phrase "Feeding the Beast."

In their rush to get more and more content into the public domain the question arises as to who will be responsible for editing and vetting this new flood of images. Chief among media shortcomings in recent years has been the lack of oversight in checking the veracity and fairness of images. Some new system will have to be put into place if the "Beast" can be trusted.

 

Photography's Photoblogging Future

For more than a decade now, photoblogging has increasingly become a popular mainstream online activity.  Today there are thousands of blogs dedicated to photography and a handful of read/write web services committed to photoblogging. Professionals and amateur photographers use the Internet in many ways, but the two most common facets of life online comes from creating social networks as well as displaying images to large audiences.

According to David Brooks of Shutterbug magazine, a weblog becomes a photoblog “when a photograph is substituted for a text message or part of a text message, as most photoblogs have some verbal content as well as pictures.”

I conducted a recent poll of 12 randomly selected Flickr members from my own Flickr contact list to help to expand and enrich our understanding of what photoblogging is and how people build participatory social networks through the Internet.

The Flickr members in this study can be described white and range in age from 18 to 60. One quarter were ages 18 – 24, while another quarter were ages 41 – 50. Half of the respondents were female and the majority of the group were college educated. In addition, a majority (66 percent) felt extremely comfortable with digital technology. Further half the group said they use point and shoot digital cameras while the remainder uses DSLRs. Only one member still uses film.

Defining Photoblogging

The respondents in this non-generalized study all pretty much agree that photoblogging to varying degrees uses blog technology to publish pictures instead of words.

As one respondent suggests, photoblogging “Is a great way to let someone peek into your life and what surrounds it. I love looking at photoblogs of people living in other cities or countries where they're showing the small details of everyday life. The designs on fence posts, the way their mailboxes look, trees, sunsets, people walking streets shopping.. etc etc.. News and magazines can only show you so much, but with photoblogs you get a more intimate view of outside your bubble.”

Another respondent defines photoblogging as "An aberration from traditional blogging (if blogging is old enough to establish traditions) in that although it is still conversing on a routine basis with strangers and friends via a web interface (blogging), the primary distinction being the use of visual images shared as the essence of the conversation. Images are worth a thousand words as the axiom goes is at the heart of photoblogging.”


As one photographer notes, “Photoblogging can take many forms, but I define it as using blog technology to publish pictures instead of words. Even if you use words, pictures are you main focus. Pure photoblogging uses just images.”

For Alan Levine, “Blogs are easy to use web publishing tools that allow anyone to create chronologically organized web sites (usually narrowly labeled as "diaries") with built in search and comment features. They are template driven and usually offer a series of well designed layout displays, that can be customized by those with the skills and interest to so.”

Social Connections

As Brooks observes, “Even though the social connection is an obvious and significant motivation, peppered among the snapshots of myriad faces are many, many interesting images which comprise a nonverbal dialog depicting many different, individually experienced worlds, a kind of graphic, off-the-cuff poetry in often abstract colors and shapes, sometimes humorous, cynical, wondrous, or melancholy. It reflects not just the diversity of people in the world, but a plurality of different worlds of experience, thoughts, and feelings.”

The social connections photographers make online through digital photography is doing more for the craft, not to mention the industry, than any other singular advance since George Eastman introduced the Kodak camera in the 1880s. This assumption, albeit a bit grand, suggests that the ease of the digital camera and the read/write web, like the Kodak before them, seem to be closing the gap between amateurs and professionals. Eastman’s strategy was to make photography accessible to those people interested in recording life moments that would otherwise require a professional. In the information/relationship age photoblogging, along with photo storage and sharing sites like Flickr, Photobucket, Ofoto, and Shutterfly, changing the way people make, share, and collect images. Although photoblogging may not be for everyone, Eastman’s mantra, 'you press the button, we do the rest,' seems to resonate in a digitally mediated world.

In terms of social networking, one photographer comments, “I participate in a number of "groups" related to photography. These groups include a general discussion site (utata.org) and numerous flickr groups that address specific aspects of photography. (technical, style, subject). There are individual photographers I admire, and visit with regularity to follow there work. We will comment on each others photos but the discourse is almost invariably photography related. I have not met any individuals in the online community personally although I know such "meet-ups" do occur.”

Pros and Cons

When asked about the advantages and disadvantages of photoblogging, respondents expressed a range of attitudes. One photographer finds photoblogging satisfying because “you get feedback and can share what you're doing with others.” Another said, “With photography you can discover again your own environment, posting it on Internet gives you the opportunity to share your discoveries and learn from others.” For a third respondent, “The primary advantage is that it is a creative outlet and that having the thing forces me to shoot more often.”

Another value of photoblogging seems to come from how people learn from one another online. “I get email from all over the world. People ask me questions about different things and share experiences,” one photographer said. In addition, photobloggers set up special interest groups to share information about their work and experiences. Other photographers feel that photoblogging is a source of motivation to publish and gain exposure.  As one photographer observes, photoblogging “is a motivator. [It]… keeps me going out for walks and shooting. It is a journal of sorts for me...logs my moods and perspective... “

“You see what people like… browse and see what you like in others' photos, and learn from that.”  Ultimately, for this respondent, photoblogging “…is fascinating people watching (the psychologist in me).”

As one photographer notes, “A disadvantage may be the addictive quality of wanting to see just one more image before bed...just one more...It is a real time consuming activity.” Another expresses the concern, “On the down side, I feel like I have to post frequently and sometimes I feel pressured just to put something up, anything at all, if I have not posted in a few days. I also feel like I need to keep taking pictures all the time to help "feed the blog."


Beyond obvious concerns over copyright theft --- something that has plagued the Internet since its inception -- many photographers spoke about issues that appear more sociological in nature. For example, one respondent observes “Another disadvantage may be the culture of "praise" that pervades the photoblogging site I frequent (Flickr).

This may provide an undue confidence when looking at building photography skills.” In addition, another photographer notes, “The temptation to please the lowest common denominator of "crowd taste" is bigger if you use this type of software platform (comments in posts).” Moreover, as a third photographer mentions, “You tend to use the same layout as anybody else because of a number of factors (time, laziness, the customizations still involves to much code which is a deterrent for the uninitiated). - For some types of photo work, customized galleries are a better way to display (but once again the technical aspects of that route forbids it for the majority of people).”

In summary, photoblogging satisfies a person's need for exposure, establishes an online identity, provides feedback, and an excellent application of social networking. At the same time, respondents revealed several disadvantages including, copyright infringement, as well as the addictive quality of feeling the need to post images regularly.

The anti-portrait

I made this image last night thinking it would be part of my Finding Nemo bath series that I have been doing for almost five years now with Liam.

Interestingly, what turned out, was anything but a cute bath picture with two adorable kids in the frame. Instead, I unexpectedly got an anti-portrait.

It's a real moment showing real children and how they interact. I've always felt portraits were sort of fantasy freeze frames and not truly representative of an individual's personality. Liam, who is being pounded on with a toy by Sophie, was fine after the bashing. I wasn't expecting Sophie to hit her brother and wasn't at all prepared to interevene at the decisive moment. However, you can bet Sophie didn't get to stay in the tub much longer after that one.

This leads me to reflect on the tradition of giving pictures as gifts to family and friends. I don't think I would frame this image for grandma, but I don't think you'd find me rushing off to Sears to have a formal portrait made either.

Ron Leiber, a staff writer for the Wall St. Journal, went in search of a place to have pictures made of his children and found a story at the same time. Leiber visited three chain portrait studios and two commercial photographers. This is a fascinating tale of America's addiction to possessing the perfect likeness of our loved ones, especially our children. We want to remember our kids as angels and not the little devils they can sometimes be. What this story brings up for me is how much money Americans pay for portraits each year.

A recent analysis from the Corel Corporation indicates a continued trend in do-it-yourself digital photography. By 2007, the report states, over 80 percent of home image takers will have more than 5,000 photos and video images stored on PCs." By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Americans, some 80 percent, will have knowledge of how "to manipulate and improve photos or video images," the report notes. 

With the costs associated with portrait studios increasing, it makes sense that people will become less dependent on commercial photographers to record life events. At the same time, professional photographers provide a level of quality that would be hard to match for the average consumer.