Dennis Dunleavy

The Armchair Photojournalist: The Future of Photojournalism

Nearly two years ago, photographer and critic, Pedro Meyer, wrote  about some of the trends affecting professional photojournalism today. Meyer expresses concerns over the future of photojournalism in an age of increasingly immediacy, sensationalism, and amateurism. In writing about the images of prisoner abuse coming out of Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Meyers observes:

    If the most emblematic images from this war were photographed by amateurs, if agencies are able to send out people to take photographs who have never taken pictures, but have access to certain places, and if we are into a tidal wave of imagery coming in from all the digital cameras that are flooding the world; I am sure that  traditional photojournalism as is being taught today in schools all over the world,  better have a second look at reality and be prepared to tell their students that things  are no longer how they used to be and therefore need to adjust their expectations. 

Meyers continues:

    The same thing might also prove to be of interest to all those active photojournalists today, who are seeing their bread and butter documentary images being displaced by  pictures of celebrities and movie stars.

The convergence of several trends makes Meyers' take on the future of photojournalism extremely relevant.

I would summarize some of the trends influencing professional photojournalism today as not only the increase in the availability of amateur images made by shutterbugs, as well as the all-consuming and insatiable appetite of our culture for sensationalistic imagery, but also the insidious decline in the Fourth Estate's interest in and access to making images that have any value beyond the commercial, ideological, and political interests of the powerful in society via government and corporate stakeholders.

But don't go blaming photojournalists for the increasing public distrust in mainstream media or the acquiescence of the longstanding journalistic tradition of social responsibility. There are still extraordinary examples of photojournalism as a tool for social change being done today thanks to the Internet.

However, professional photojournalism as a part of a larger journalistic enterprise faces serious challenges in the future. Media consolidation, corporate downsizing, a continuing trend toward "softer" news, and increased competition from serious amateurs is shaking the foundations of what I believe has always been a pretty noble profession.


To understand the symbiotic relationship between the media, corporate America and the government in relation to photojournalism, it is imperative to step back and look at how the field came into being. Photojournalism, from this perspective, is an extension of an institutionally regulated enterprise – mass media.

Photojournalistic ethics and conventions evolved over time and continue to be constrained by personal, organizational, institutional, and moral rationales.

The rationale professional photojournalists use to justify photographing sensitive topics such as showing dead bodies on 1A of the daily newspaper or on the nightly news, are mitigated by popular tastes as well as profits.

The pathos of entertainment has always been deeply embedded in human behavior. In this age of paparazzi, we are compelled to be entertained first by media, and, if there is time, maybe enlightened a distant second.

People understand the power of the image -- image is everything. Put a camera in front of anyone and his or her behavior will change.

Thinking of photojournalism as some sort of "ideal form" that attempts an objective realism or aspires to capture a moment of truth in today's visual culture is a silly and futile notion.

Yet, there are some that hold on to the nostalgia of photojournalism's golden age -- a time when it was possible to believe what we were seeing. I still cling to this hope, but skepticism and observation is a sobering force.

Predicting what photojournalism, as an occupational group, will look like in fifty years is difficult.

But there are a few things we may portend here. First and foremost, the days of photojournalism as we have known them from the golden years of LIFE magazine are gone.

Although, the still image remains a pervasive force in society today, sound, text and movement increasingly augment it.

There is no question in my mind that photojournalism and other journalistic endeavors are being subsumed by an age of "personal media".

Our mass media world is fragmenting into a world of niche (entertainment and information) archipelagoes. I use the analogy of the archipelago because in a sea of information, camera phones, mini-digital video, videoblogs, photoblogs, mobile journalism, blogging, and other form of instant personal media represent tiny islands of content that may be overlooked one day, and then, discovered in the mainstream another day.

The handwriting is on the wall. Personal media will impact the shape of mass media in the future, but it will also be a part of it.

For Karen Becker, journalism has always been a form of institutionally regulated communication.

Becker notes journalism, "As a product" has "a structured hierarchy for conceiving, collecting, constructing, placing, positioning, and presenting information."  In the age of the BLOG, this structured hierarchy is cracking.

Extending Becker's observation to photojournalism, what happens when the profession fails to recognize the decentralizing impact of personal media on the processes of mass media content creation and consumption?

As products of culture, photojournalism helps to determine the extent of an informational and representational system that reinforces a society’s norms, values, and cultural belief systems. The introduction of personal media into a highly structured mass media hierarchy signifies an important shift or turn in our information age.

What we see and what we know are inextricably bound not only by context, but also by our systems of dominant beliefs, values, and norms.

The values and norms that have exerted power of our daily lives, perceived and real are constantly in a state of flux. New technologies are making it possible for more voices to be heard, more faces to be seen through personal media.

Already socially conditioned to a deluge of photojournalistic images, the future of the field is now being dramatically redefined by the potential of personal media and the Web -- for the better or worse.

Finally, getting back to Meyers' concerns about preparing "to tell ... students that things  are no longer how they used to be and therefore need to adjust their expectations."

What I know is this:

Educating the next generation media professionals demands an integration of knowledge beyond the specifics of specialized skills training.   

Although we may well prepare students for future careers with the appropriate technical knowledge, many students still remain challenged by understanding the social, economic and cultural aspects of what they do.

Over the past decade, in the field of photojournalism, students are finding the entry-level market for their newly acquired skills increasingly difficult to negotiate. 

Although venues for display in media seem to expand with the advent of electronic communication, traditional sources of employment such as newspapers appear to be providing fewer opportunities appear available for newcomers. Media mergers, corporate downsizing, and new technologies that help create content cheaper, faster and more efficiently combine to make the job market more a less predictable and more perilous place.

 

Private Eyes and Public Spaces

I haven't heard back from the company representing the security guard in Tom Hawks story. Interestingly, in my public journalism class we discussed the possibility of not entirely trusting the blogger's account of what happened.

The idea that blogging extends journalistic storytelling beyond traditional formats is complex. Could Hawk's posting of this incident be considered a type of public journalism? We couldn't assume that we would learn of the incident on the nightly news, the radio, or in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In this age of instant, information is a commodity that must be accounted for by the context in which it is collected, presented, and distributed. In short, we need to be skeptical.

In this case, I read an e-mail from the National Press Photographers Association list-serv about the post, read it, and decided to comment on the information. But how can I be confident that what I am reading and responding to is legitimate?

How are people able to trust the sources of information? How do we know that the ideas, information, news, and facts are true in an age when anyone and everyone can self-publish on the web?

Getting Back into the Biz of Photojournalism: Film or Digital?

Today, I received an interesting email from a reader that is considering getting back into photojournalism after several years. Photojournalism has indeed changed during the past decade. Thanks to Ronald for some  terrific questions and welcome back to a field that is still redefining itself. 

Is film photography dead?

Yes and No. In photojournalism, however, it is more dead than alive. Here's way, briefly: 

Digital photography increases productivity and efficiency. In my 20004 study on shifting routines in photojournalism, I found a strong relationship between digital technology and productivity in image-making processes.   

The biggest finding was that photojournalists no longer can make excuses if they come back with nothing when using digital. Photographers can review results immediately on a digital camera and stay longer on assignments to meet late deadlines. Within the next 10 years, almost all DSLRs will be equipped with wireless transmitting options. This will mean that not only how photographers make images will change but also what computer and telephonic skills they need.

Is film it still superior for archiving purposes?

Maybe, perhaps, ummmm... yes, I still think so. I am hedging because I think this issue has still to be determined as technology advances.

Nevertheless, the biggest difference in recent years is that people are  learning to manage his or her digital assets better.

The trick is to remember we are now dealing with data and not silver nitrates and other chemically-based substances.

If I purchase a Nikon SLR or Leica Rangefinder film camera, would that be a mistake?

It depends on what you want to do with your photography.

Here's my mantra:

Cameras are tools.
Cameras are tools.
Cameras are tools.

Repeat after me... Cameras are tools.

Does NOT using a digital camera prevent you from competing with other photojournalists working on deadline.

You bet.

Does making pictures with a digital camera significantly decrease the quality of the image.

No.....Not likely, especially with the right digital camera.

One way of thinking about the difference between film and digital is that there are the equivalent of about 6 million pixels in a 35mm frame. Although you can't completely depend on translating the number of megapixels in a digital camera to that of a 35mm SLR, you can get pretty close. Many pro-consumer and professional models of Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras have at least 6mgs, but if shot in digital raw format the file size can as high as 18 megapixels.

Here's the key point:

Shooting film, in my opinion, is no longer an advantage over digital. There is absolutely no reason not to invest in digital at this point. The quality of digital photography has improved a lot in the past few years. After the initial cost of the camera, lenses, and accessories there may be a slightly better economic return on digital.   

If I purchase a  Nikon, Leica or Canon digital camera, is the technology still changing so fast that the camera would be technically obsolete in a short period of time?

In my opinion, emphasis on "opinion", I think the technology is still improving every year. However, we have had enough time now to have a battery of great digital cameras to pick from on the market. Basically, I think the digital camera field is very strong and compete with anything on film. As far as preferences and technological obsolescence, Nikon may have been falling a bit behind Canon. I switch over to Canon in 1993 and haven't regretted the decision. Until then, I was a pretty hardcore Nikon user. I switched because I saw Canon putting more research into its lenses, which are, in my opinion, key to the picture-making process. I know this comment may upset Nikon users, but if you research the number of patents Canon has licensed in the field of digital photographic technology over the past 15 years, I think you will see the difference.

If you want to really know what photojournalists are using these days, hang out with them for a few days. You'll get more opinions than you'll need to make an informed decision.

Remember:

The camera is a tool. It's the photographer that makes images not just the camera.

The Best and Worst Things About Digital Photography

It's nearly spring in Southern Oregon. Water rushes through Ashland Creek on Sunday.

Here's my short list of best and worst things about using a digital camera.

Best Things

Photography is easier than ever -- anyone with a digital camera is a "photographer" now.  Depending on your perspective, however, this could be a bad thing,because there is not enough work to go around.  In the long run photographic images have  improved as more people jump on the digital bandwagon. Digital photography, camera phones included, are empowering people to increasingly make and share their images.

Chimping -- this refers to the ability to review images immediately after capture. We live in an age of instant gratification with fast food and fast cars. Why not fast pictures?

Exposure control -- The ability to switch from 1600 to 100 iso during the same shoot is extremely satisfying.

The cost of taking images may continue to come down as more models flood the market. The quality of the cameras also continues to improve.

Worst Things

Seat time -- sitting in front of a computer screen editing images is terminal with digital technology. I once thought that digital photography might actually save time -- it can, but most the time it doesn't.

Too many pictures. The digital camera encourages to make more images than they previously made on film. A lot of the picture I see, are much of the same thing over and over again.

Winter Light

Toward sunset a late season winter storm passes through the Siskiyous.  There is always something magical about the light near the end of the day, especially when the weather turns dramatic. Time seems to stand still as the light shifts from white to amber. Snow along the Oregon-California is pretty rare this time of the year, and although beautiful, I think about all the fruit trees that may suffer from a freeze.

We are almost finished this term's photojournalism class. Our last demonstration was an improvized studio setup in the library. Here, Sarah, Annie and Julie take turns making portraits. Below, Jerry downloads images to show on the big screen as the group works. Using digital technology is a terrific way to teach and learn about lighting and working with portraits.  Everything we do can be critiqued just after capture.

Make Room for Lightroom

Here are some of the features I have enjoyed recently in using Adobe's Lightroom picture browsing software. From top left are screen shots of the Library, Develop, and Print functions.

Adobe is working out the bugs on a new image management system called Lightroom. Now in the Beta 2 stages of development, users can become involved in having a bit of input on what works best for the product prior to commercial release. Lightroom is one of the more innovative and interesting projects at Adobe since the giant software company bought up Macromedia more than a year ago.

According to a Lightroom PR blurb, the software is an "efficient new way for photographers to import, select, develop, and showcase large volumes of digital images." 

There are already a bunch of software programs out there on the market that will do essentially the same thing as Lightroom. Programs such as, Cumulus, Photo Mechanic, and Apple's soon-to-be-released Aperture, are all image browsers that help photographers manage digital files. So, why do we need another system?

I have been experimenting with Lightroom for a few weeks now and there are actually a couple of nice easy-to-use features, such as the print and development functions. More importantly, is that Lightroom, like most Adobe products, is very intuitively designed. If you are comfortable with PhotoShop, Illustrator or other Adobe products, then you will probably find Lightroom easy to use. Adobe's stock-in-trade has always been focused on usability.  Putting Lightroom up in a Beta version gives developers some critical feedback they otherwise may  overlook. As case in point can be found in the many discussion threads attached to Lightroom's labs. Folks already weighing in about some major issues, such as power drag, that will have to be addressed later on.

Lightroom will not always be available for free, and it is currently only for Macs, but watching the product develop through the Beta stages is fascinating.

The tricky issue for Adobe and other companies wanting to grab a share of the image management market will be pulling people away from systems they are already familiar with. I have been using Photo Mechanic since it first came out and feel very comfortable with the workflow I get out of it.  Lightroom, or any other product, will have to compete not only in terms of producing a technically superior product, but always dealing with users like me that creatures of habit.

Read a few reviews of Lightroom by other bloggers

Digital Grin

Luminous Landscape

At play with light: Digital Makes a Difference

I was really excited to have the chance to borrow a Canon 30D camera this week from a friend at school (Thanks Jerry!).

I wanted to see the differences between what I was doing for the past five years using only a point and shoot and now trying out this model of digital single lens reflex camera.

Since I worked with similar camera models in film, the process was not all that strange to me. What I loved about the camera is the ability to take chances with low light, panning, and fill, and then see the results (translate this to mean see the mistakes)  immediately. I made this picture of roses on our table last night at a 6th of a second at f/5.6 with a slight motion pan. For most of my professional career I would never have attempted playing around with the camera as much. In such low light I could guess the results would not be what I would hope they could be. Therefore, I was hesitant to experience and explore light. The process of seeing the images after capture is liberating and I think produces images that are closer to what I see and feel.

The biggest differences between the point and shoot and the DSLR are (1) the quality of the image and (2) the shutter delay factors on the point and shoot. In the end, I feel, both cameras are tool that help us communicate with one another more clearly, and now, more immediately.

The Camera is Just a Tool: Point and Shoot Photojournalism

Liam has figured out how to multi-task by feeding the baby while playing on the computer at the same time. This image was made with a Canon G3 point and shoot and is part of a five-year experiment in learning to rethink how I make images.

For the past five years I have pretty much forced myself to re-learn how to make images using only a point and shoot camera.

I stored away my film cameras and moved to shooting pretty much exclusively with a digital sure shot for several reasons.

First and foremost, using a point and shoot camera has taught me to rethink how I make photographs. The process, for me, has become more conscious and deliberate.

As an experiment, the point and shoot, with its painfully slow delayed release, has made me slow down and consider every element in the frame. In the past, with the SLR, I could easy "spray" whatever I was looking at with a brust of frames.

Now every picture takes great patience.

A young girl waits for a Halloween Festival to begin in Ventura, Calif.

Curiously, as a teacher I have seen an increasing number of students interested in photojournalism come to class with an array of digital cameras, everything from top of the line digital single-lens reflect models to prosumer point and shoots.

For me, it is important to know how students experience what they see with tools they can afford. Ultimately, all students would be working with DSLRs and interchangeable lenses, but in many introduction courses it is impossible to expect a student exploring this field to drop a lot of money on cameras and lenses.

We learn to adjust and adapt to the tools we have.

Recently, I read a story on Rob Galbraith's Digital Photography website about how Alex Majoli of Magnum used point and shoot cameras to cover the war in Iraq. Majoli learned to adapt is style of picture-making to the smaller, less invasive cameras.  In the article Eamon Hickey observes:

To be sure, doing effective photojournalism with point-and-shoot cameras requires some special techniques. Shutter delay is obstacle number one. Like the earliest digital SLR shooters who faced the same problem, Majoli has honed his anticipation skills and learned a new shutter timing rhythm, but he says he can't eliminate the problem entirely.

I am not sure the limitations of the smaller point and shoot cameras outweigh the benefits of the faster and bigger pro digital SLR cameras, but applying the aesthetics of photojournalism to the picture making process makes a world of difference.

In the end, photojournalism is still about relationships -- considering light, social responsibility and interaction with the people and places we photograph. At the same time, another very important relationship to consider is the photographer's relationship to the tools they use to make pictures.

My experiment with point and shoot cameras as taught to appreciate making images in many ways. I am now more conscious of making things seen through light, point of focus and the effective use of storytelling elements in the frame.

 

Do images make us care more or less?

Something insidiously evil is at work in the world today and we’ve got pictures to prove it. The eyes of a nation, once again, turn toward images of suffering and torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Nearly two years after pictures of torture and abuse were made public, we are once again reminded of our capacity to inflict pain on others.

We see the pictures and our insatiable appetite for viewing unimaginable atrocities and brutalities is piqued anew. 

Susie Linfield, in an essay after the release of the first abuse pictures, observes what can only be described as an increasing pathology of shame associated with this scandal.

"The casual brutality of American pop culture-embodied in Internet pornography, video games, rap music, movies, and television shows-has created a generation of moral cretins immune to, or perhaps even delighting in, the horrors of real violence."

Has anything changed in the time since the release of the first set of prison abuse pictures?

Has justice been served? 

A few people are now in jail and forgotten in the eyes of the media. A few people have been demoted in rank and have returned to obscurity.

Through the lens of a camera, the central narrative of the early part of 21st Century is being recorded for prosperity, and it is not a pretty picture.

Can we not take the time to look at these images and see human beings? Do we not see that in some way we are all victims?

Those who dare to understand the implications of such images are singed with grief.

These images – a naked truth revealing how human beings are strapped, bloodied, humiliated, and stripped of dignity – signify a larger tragedy in the cultural pathology of a society saturated with visual messages.  We may look at these pictures and remain unmoved. We may see them but still be blinded by apathy and what can only be called the propaganda of mass distraction.

Does a relentless bombardment of visually mediated messages depicting suffering and deprivation reduce our capacity to feel?

In comparing images showing toilets used as torture chambers to Jackson Pollock's paint-splattered abstract art, Philip Kennicott explains:

"What's powerful, and infinitely sad, about this bloody floor is the silence. Whatever happened in this room, it almost certainly was accompanied by a cacophony of pain. That's gone now. As is anyone involved with what happened there. The garbage on the floor, the opening of a toilet, suggest human beings reduced to refuse. The anonymity of those who may have suffered is absolute."

Susan Sontag understood the power of pictures of deprivation, humilitation and suffering. In her book "Regarding the Pain of Others", she notes, “In a modern life – a life in which there is a superfluity of things to which we are invited to pay attention – it seems normal to turn away from images that simply make us feel bad."

We must make a study of these images of horror and disgust and carefully place ourselves in the skins of the "other".

We must analyze and evaluate what these images come to signify in a culture that promulgates a value for the sancity of human life and the integrity of self.

We must talk about these pictures with friends over dinner.

We must take these images of suffering into our hearts and minds so that we may contemplate our capacity for the brutality and hatred we inflict upon each other. This is what pictures can do. Pictures can make us feel, but only if we have the capacity for feeling.

 

A few snaps

A full moon rises gently over the Siskiyou Mountains of Southern Oregon near Ashland. I made this picture from our porch after accidently locking myself out of the house. I'm glad I had the little point and shoot digital to keep me distracted from thinking about how to get back inside.

In many ways, this picture points out the limitations of the camera. The larger the magnification, the noisier the image gets. At the same time, I do like the flexibility and creativity of using o the smaller digital cameras, not to mention how I can't afford anything else at the moment. I like that I can see something, make an image, and then immediately see the results.

In this scene, I burned down the sky and the foreground. I wanted the moon to pop a bit more. It could still use a little more work, but it's still fun to play.

Valentine's Day in the Darkroom

I noticed the darkroom door to the photo lab at Southern Oregon University has become a little worn thin from use. Thinking of Valentine's Day, I had been looking at things that reminded me of the shape of a heart. This one jumped out at me.

One thing that I recognize now in my photography is that I no longer feel the pressure to create images I once had while working at newspapers.

These days, I make simple images just because they appeal to me for one reason or another. More than anything else, though, making pictures is relaxing and fun.

The Digital Camera of Your Dreams

This is a wonderful illustration of someone's sense of humor when it comes to poking fun at all the latest innovations in digital technologies. I love the choices here, especially the "pee break now" and pizza functions. Click the camera to link to the original reference for this image.

A Brief History of the Digital Camera

I had another chance to contribute to the Digital Journalist magazine this week. The current issue is really nice and features the photography of Mary Ellen Mark, Louis Sinco and other great photojournalists. 

Compared with my last two commentary pieces for the magazine, this article was far more challenging.

Trying to talk about the history of anything can be a lot of work, but tracking down the development of the digital camera in photojournalism was quite an exercise in humility.

Actually, the idea for the article came from research I did during my dissertation. When I first sent my article to Dirck, it was still very long and ponderous. After a few edits, however, the writing began to flow a bit more. I wouldn't say this is my best or most creative effort to date, but it's a fairly significant piece in that the writing reflects ongoing changes in the industry.

You can link directly to the article I wrote by clicking on the image above.  Thanks to Dirck Halstead for giving me the chance to write for him again and to Cecilia White for her editing talents.

To "express all the human feelings -- joy, sadness, love and excitement": Those Stubborn Film Camera Fans

There's an interesting editorial in the Japan Times today concerning Nikon's decision to stop producing most of its film cameras this year. The only two models to survive the cut in a digital age will be the F-6 and the FM10. According to the Times, "Last year about 72.2 million digital cameras were shipped compared to only 6.4 million film cameras."

What is interesting about the editorial is the following claim:

"Certainly, digital cameras are handy. But film cameras offer what digital cameras cannot -- high-quality images at a reasonable price and a better feel for taking pictures."

Say what?

Maybe that would have been true a few years ago, but I am not convinced the writer's claim can hold water today.

Navel Gazing and Luminous Lint

There's a major photographic resource building up on the Internet called the Luminous-Lint - World Photography project.

So far, the site has collected the works of nearly 2,000 of the greatest Photographers from around the world, hundreds of quotations and annotates more than 5,000 Books on photography.

According to the site's founder, Alan Griffiths, "This is one of the most comprehensive and highly integrated sources for the history of photography on the Internet."

You Too Can Become a Presidential Photo Prop

Washington Post Staff Writer Philip Kennicott raises some interesting points when he attempts to understand the power of the presidential photo-op.

In the article Kennicott notes:

"Photographs of the president (any president, since Reagan, at least) are among the most manipulated and crafted images in our society. Are photographers too easily complicit in the crafting of these pictures? Does the natural quest for beauty by photographers make them unwitting propagandists?"

The answers to these question seem so obvious.

Yes and No.

Yes, photographers are too easily manipulated in the hyper-spin world of presidential image making. Photographers are handled by professionals who know how to set up a shot to make their politician look good. It is all about image.

Yes, photographers are susceptible to manipulation by the image-makers, but do they have much of a choice? These sorts of images are less about the photographer's sense of aesthetics and more about how well the presidential image-makers can control the visual outcome of an event. Pictures speak volumes.

If even a president's words fail him, the image coming across the television screen or the photograph on the front page ultimately wins out.

What choice to photographers really have in covering dog and pony shows when all of the elements -- people, location, background, signage, and lighting remain outside of their control?

Kennicott supports this ideas when he writes, "given the ground rules for taking photographs, they [photographers] have little choice. And to intentionally subvert the intended political message is itself an intrusion on straight journalistic truth-telling..."

Often, given the ground rules for taking photographs, they have little choice. And to intentionally subvert the intended political message is itself an intrusion on straight journalistic truth-telling,

If the media complained to the White House that they were feeling manipulated by the way in which presidential photo-ops were being staged they may fear retribution in having their credentials pulled. The media play by the rules of the game, and the presidential image-makers own the rule book. Here's why:

• The presidential image-makers control access to the event and determine who gets in.
• The presidential image-makers tell photographers where to stand to make their pictures.
• The presidential image-makers often herd the media into pens hours before the start of an event for security reasons.
• The presidential image-makers control the angles that photographs can be made from.
• The presidential image-makers control the distance or focal length that photographs are made from.

The visual results of such endeavors for image-makers must be  predictable. That's what they are do -- package and sell messages.

For presidential image-makers, the pseudo-event is far more concerned with the science of winning hearts and minds than it is about creating art.

So, are photographers unwitting propagandists? No. Making these sorts of images is a little like delivering the mail. Photographers shoot, for the most part, what people expect them to shoot.

I wrote about the Photo-Prop/Photo-Op effect last year at about this time, when the New York Times deviated from the norm by running a wide angle shot of President Bush at a press conference. Many of the newspapers, however, selected a wire image that showed a close-up of President Bush with the presidential seal framed nicely behind his head like a halo.

I think these two newspaper front pages do a nice job illustrating how  lens choice combined with a photographer's intentions can frame the meaning of what is mediated for public visual consumption. All to often, media criticism fails to focus on the relationship between framing and  meaning through visual variety, lighting, focal point, and other considerations.

If we are looking for reasons why the public distrusts the media these days perhaps we should step back a bit to consider how the news is socially constructed for us under the pretense of journalistic values such as fairness, balance, accuracy, and objectivity.

Photo Agencies Crack Down on Web Copyright Violators

Vauhini Vara of the The Wall Street Journal reports today that photo agencies are actively pursuing people who use their images without permission. Cheap and easy image-search tools are allowing people on the Internet to appropriate images without having to pay for them. Last year alone, according to Vara, Corbis recovered over $1 million in fees from people using their images illegally.

Photo agencies are turning to companies like Digimarc Corp. of Beaverton, Ore., to embed "digital watermarks" on images. Once watermarked, a free software program lets users read the encoded images to see if they have been used in violation of copyright laws. Another company PicScout makes a business of recovering copyright violations for a fee.

According to Vara, some fair use of images still applies without breaking any laws. Some websites, like this one, are allowed to use images for educational purposes under  U.S. copyright law guidelines. Vara explains:

Not all Web site owners who use photos without permission are breaking the law. The "fair use" guidelines in U.S. copyright law provide exemptions for some cases, such as when an image is used for educational purposes.

Understanding of the the Fair Use doctrine is far from being settled. A U.S. government document makes this point clear:

Although the courts have considered and ruled upon the fair use doctrine over and over again, no real definition of the concept has ever emerged. Indeed, since the doctrine is an equitable rule of reason, no generally applicable definition is possible, and each case raising the question must be decided on its own facts.

 

Thanks to Andy Goetze's Stock Photo Blog for following this issue.

Photoblogs are not just "All About Me"

According to an article in this month's Discover magazine, "Photoblogs are not purely extroverted. It's nice to share your cat pictures with perfect strangers, but it's arguably more valuable to create a visual diary as an extension of your memory."

I think the author, Steven Johnson, has the right idea here. Photoblogging is more than some narcissist's wet dream. Blogging is about carving out some individual and collective space amidst a cacophony of voices. Photoblogging is an attempt to grasp memory in a world that seems to be spinning faster and faster out of control -- a world,  with the immediacy of  communication technologies, that appears to make the distances between peoples so much shorter.  Perhaps this is just illusion. Perhaps there is something to the criticism that photoblogging is more "me" than "thee".

For Johnson, "Digital cameras are leading the way toward a passive diary keeping, in which common forms of personal technology churn along in the background."

The history of collective memory favors the "collective" as a tendency toward nationalism. Marie-Claire Lavabre notes, "Collective memory can be defined as an interaction between the memory policies – also referred to as “historical memory” – and the recollections – “common memory,” of what has been experienced in common. It lies at the point where individual meets collective, and psychic meets social."

In the blogosphere, the production of a cultural "collective" memory shifts as content moves from the domain of institutions to the domain of individuals. Photoblogging is about the multiplicity of experiences and recollections that is both highly individualized, as well as highly public.

In the production of a cultural collective memory photoblogging suits our increasingly revved-up lifestyle. As Johnson argues, "Even low-resolution camera phone pictures can be worth a thousand words. It takes time to jot down a paragraph or two describing your day at the office, but it takes only a few seconds to snap a few images. And because visual memory is so powerfully associative, when you see these images 10 or 20 years from now, it’s likely that a whole host of other memories from that day will come rushing back."

Technology Can't Always Trump Mother Nature

With all the hype and hope over emerging technologies liberating the commoner (me) from relying on the mainstream media for all the news, along comes Katrina. After witnessing a flurry of articles and stories about the use of camera phones and the Internet following the London subway bombings, it would appear that Katrina, packing a 75-mph-punch, has thrown a speed bump up on the information superhighway. At least, that is the sentiment of one commentator.

Gregory Favre, a columnist with the Poynter Institute, stirs up memories of an earlier killer hurricane, Camille, and bemoans, yet again, a lack of information about his hometown in Bay St. Louis, Miss. Favre well remembers how he lost contact with family and friends back home during Camille in 1969, and now some 35 year later, Katrina has done it again.

The author tells a story of how his connections with muckety-mucks at the phone company got a repair worker to help him find his family during Camille. Now, with no telephone service available for cell phones in the area, Favre is feeling left in the dark. Where is the telephone repair worker, Favre wonders? For Favre, the worker has "been replaced by cell phones that don't work. They take pictures, but what good are pictures without some good news as captions?"

I think Favre's comments do not give a fair accounting for all the information humming across the Internet about Katrina. In fact, I think Favre's assessment is a bit misleading and fails to accurately represent the impact emerging technology is having on crisis coverage. Yes, I know Favre's report is anedotal and personal. But it is still misleading.

For example, MediaPost.com is reporting that MSNBC has racked up more than 9 million video streams to the Internet from the hurricane. In fact, MSNBC has a Citizen Journalism Reporting page with images and comments from survivors of the disaster. Moreover, CNN has a website dedicated to the contributions of citizen journalists, which features photographs from across the region. NOLA.com (Everything New Orleans) has a page called "Caught on Camera" with even more images from citizen shutterbugs. Now if that isn't enough, surfers can see even more downloaded images on WWLTV's weather page.

Despite Favre's observation that he is not getting the information he needs, I would argue that the new technology does and will continue to have an impact on how the news is covered in the future.

Shoot, Scan, Sell: Do-It-Yourself News Photography and Feeding the Beast

Just a few days before the first bomb blasts jolted London and camera phone images of the crisis began to splash across the Internet and the news, Kyle MacRae launched Scoopt.

Scoopt is an online photo service for citizen journalist shutterbugs looking to have their images noticed by picture editors and possibly picked up by mainstream media. Scoopt is clearly picking up on a trend in society. It is trying to establish itself as the beginnings of a new cottage industry in society—one that caters to the average citizen’s need to share their news with the world.

As Joe Light of the Boston Globe notes, “Citizen journalism has quickly infiltrated an industry sometimes sluggish to make big changes, and the phenomenon demonstrates that a mainstream industry has learned its lesson from the revolutionary impact of the Internet.”

The Washington Post's Ariana Eunjung Cha reports that citizen journalists are “creating what some believe to be a more democratic press, but throwing into question what it means to be a journalist and adding a new dimension to debates over fairness, libel, protection of confidential sources and trust in the media.”

Here's were the Scoopt idea comes in.

Scoopt’s promotional pitch poses a provocative question, “Who will take tomorrow's front page photograph - a professional press photographer or a passer-by armed with a cameraphone?”

If you photograph a newsworthy event, you could have a valuable scoop on your hands. Scoopt represents you, making sure the right people see your photo and ensuring that you get a good deal. Scoopt is simple. Scoopt works. Above all, Scoopt works for you. Join Scoopt today. Snap... Send... Sell...

MacRae’s project is ambitious and only time will tell if the idea of an amateur stock picture agency will take hold. Right now, however, we are caught up in the novelty of the moment and I think it is a little early to answer the question of “who will take tomorrow’s front page photos.”

There is always a period of sociological adjustment when any major technological change, such as camera phones and the Internet, becomes a pervasive force in our lives.

Citizen shutterbugs armed with camera phones images are part of a larger societal trend in the information arts. Conventional forms of media are struggling to make sense of these changes across multiple platforms, still, video, print and audio.

Citizen shutterbugs are average people with little or no training in photography or photojournalism. For one reason or another these individuals find themselves in a news situation, feel compelled to capture the situation digitally and then transmit the images through the Internet.

The images that citizen shutterbugs produce are for the most part inferior to the pictures professionals make. What makes these images special, however, is the context and moment in which they record an event of significance to the general public. Often citizen shutterbugs, out of circumstance, capture moments that circumvent the established institutions of news gathering and dissemination.

However, the mainstream media plays a huge role in the publication and
promotion of these images once they have been made known. So it seems that citizen journalism is in large part dependent on channels provided by
mainstream media outlets.

Will sites such as Scoopt contribute to an alternative view of what photojournalism is?

Public interest as well as the mainstream media’s acceptance of what they may consider pseudo-journalistic enterprises like Scoopt will ultimately be the deciding factors.

Our definition of photojournalism may be changing in these times of instant everything. From the traditional perspective, photojournalism applies both to a style of photography as well as an occupational group.

Camera phones are revolutionizing photojournalism because they represent another important source of visual reportage that can help to inform and edify the public's understanding of the world.

Ultimately, photojournalism is about visually reporting and witnessing events that are of import and relevance to others in society.  Does it matter significantly if the source of these images is a professional or an amateur? I think it does if you consider how important credibility is to maintaining public confidence in sources of information.

Thinking about the ethical and moral consequences that may arise from citizen journalism is still a gray area. Most people do not understand how abstract concepts such as objectivity, balance, fairness, and accountability. It is a matter of professional journalists helping citizens to understand what news credible in the eyes of the public.

We are entering a new era of information arts that make audio, video and still photography accessible to many people that only a few years ago would be impossible. It is critical that as educators and journalists we acknowledge and accept these changes.

One of the biggest challenges for sites such as Scoopt will be to verify the authenticity of images.  Since citizen journalists are not necessarily trained to considered the ethical issues involved in making pictures will the public perceive the source as credible?

Scoopt’s MacRae is taking this issue seriously and has attempted to build in some credibly safeguard.

According to MacRae, “First off, we only accept submissions from members, so we already have the sender's personal details on file….Registration means accepting our strict terms and conditions. This is legally binding.”

In addition, “When a member uploads a photo directly to our server, he has to complete a disclosure form. This is the who-what-where info that any buyer needs to know. We also make them reconfirm yet again that the photo complies with our general terms and our keeping it legal conditions.”

Furthermore, beyond disclosure, MacRae calls the member to “discuss the circumstances surrounding a photo if we have any doubts about its veracity of legality.”

MacRae uses his journalistic instincts along with an established code of ethics to deal with possible hoaxes.

“As for the ethics... that's our call,” he said.

“So will we get hoaxed? I'm absolutely certain that people will try to hoax us (and by extension newspapers and other media outlets) but I'm reasonably confident that we won't get hoodwinked.”

At present, Scoopt is just beginning to catch on.

According to MacRae membership stands at, “Only a couple of hundred but that's from a standing start and with virtually no effort.” However, it may takes months or even years for the project to really take off in terms of a business.

When asked if the average person really understands the concept of using a media agency to disseminate work, MacRae responds:

I'm not sure they'll see it this way. Our target audience is not the pro photographer or the wannabe pro, or even the enthusiastic amateur. We're dealing with people who have camera phones and just happen to stumble upon a newsworthy event. I think it is already well-established that it's possible to publish amateur photos online in blogs and sharing sites like Flickr; and it is now evident to everybody that media outlets will publish such pics. What is not obvious (yet) is that amateur pics can and should attract a fair fee. Scoopt offers a fast, simple route to the paying market so it should be something of a no-brainer to send a hot photo to Scoopt.

Citizen journalism is not a substitute for the values, competencies and skills professional reporters and photojournalists bring to providing insight and depth in the coverage of complex events.

It is unrealistic to expect that citizen shutterbugs with digital cameras and camera phones could serve the same function as trained professionals.

However, with some basic training in area of news judgment, news values, ethics, and truth-telling, citizen journalism can and is making a difference in our world.

Photojournalism has never been the exclusive domain of paid professionals who are specialists in visual reportage. There are many important historic images which images were not made by trained photojournalists. Today we have an occupational group called photojournalism, but twenty years prior this profession was called news photography and before that just photography. It should come as no real surprise that the way in which images capture reality can change with technological innovation and access.

At the same time, there are certainly codes of conduct, values, skills and conventions that apply to photojournalism that are very different from conceptual art photography or even commercial photography. Ultimately, photojournalism gets its power from the context and truth in which the images are made, regardless of who actually snaps the shutter.

Camera phones, as a device, alter how journalists can now interact with each other in gathering information. For example, a reporter with a camera phone can relay images of a news situation back to the newsroom to help clarify information in a story. These images would most likely never be used for publication but they would serve an important function in the news cycle.

Reporters can also provide instant images for artists in the newsroom to create information graphics and visuals in far less time than a verbal description. Photojournalists can use camera phones to communicate with photo editors prior to making images with higher grade professional equipment.

Camera phone images can provide immediate visual references for understanding the context and details of a scene in which editors can be better informed in making important news decisions.

Society in general must become more visually literate before we will see any real shift away from a mere snapshot of something to the more highly refined ways if seeing and visual storytelling that photojournalism has become. Can a visual literacy happen on a world-wide scale where average people become more visually sophisticated and analytic thinkers. Yes. It is already happening.

Citizen journalism can and will develop around the world to help educate themselves in the production of news images. Will they seriously compete with professional journalists as a primarily source of visual reportage?

Despite changes in how news made be gathered and consumed in the future, the information needs of the public will remain high.

Citizen journalism is a form of social advocacy that challenges how news is constructed. The potential of citizen journalism is that it confronts the capitalistic model of a revenue generating information system that the mainstream press has become. 

Now, getting back to Scoopt and Do-It-Yourself news photography.  Although it appears Scoopt promotes citizen journalism it is also designed to "feed the beast" of mainstream media.

The criticism that might come down on sites like Scoopt is that they are based on making money off the mainstream media by providing another source of visuals.

Some critics may feel that the motivation for people making pictures with camera phones might put them in harms way just so they can make a few bucks. Will this new cottage industry spawn a generation of snaparazzi willing to risk it all to get a picture at the scene of a disaster or even of some celebrity walking along a beach somewhere?

I am reluctant to pass such a judgment on what Scoopt represents in the emerging world of information arts. I understand the business of our visual culture and Scoopt, along with many other ventures, is all a part of it.

Truth Has Consequences: Thoughts and Comments

Documentary Photographer Robert Gumpert has responded with some thoughts  about my article on how digital cameras and digital technology is changing photojournalism. Read an earlier post (2004) about Robert .

Bob starts off with a critique of a quote from Washington Post Magazine photo editor Keith Jenkins, suggesting that "With the technology now, the amateur photographer is as capable as a professional journalist and is operating with the same tools: Digital camera, laptop and an Internet connection."

RG:

"What is the point of you teaching what you teach?  Of course I don't believe that the above is true but is only a reflection of a growing trend - namely that technique and equipment are all that is needed to do images/journalism.  Sort of like now that there is spell and grammar check anyone can write.  Or because there is now simple but powerful desktop publishing software everyone is a graphic designer.  This is a phenomena that has hit us everywhere - the idea of everyone can do everything - from "professional movie making to journalism to teaching"  It isn't so. 

Further, responding to an assumption I apparently made that disregards the historical context in which photography has not solely been the exclusive domain of professionals Robert points out.

RG:

The Abu Ghraib photos weren't something new, these kind of images have been around for a long time.  The fact that they were digital only made it quicker and easier for them to hit the general public.  The Mai Lai images, as I recall, were not taken by a professional photojournalist and the sinking of the Argentine battleship was taken by a soldier. There have been for a number of years, images of plane crashes taken by passersby.

The camera phone or for that matter the tiny still/video digital that everyone now carries are, I think, powering an accelerated change, a change that had already hit the "news desks" years ago.  We live in a time that values reaction over thought.  A time that seems to increasingly distrust education, professionalism, specialists and value speed and technique.

Is this new? No.  Has the electronic information age sped it along? Yes.  Does the dumbing down of images affect the way photojournalists work and current styles of "journalism", "reporting", portraits? Yes. The fact is given the right circumstances anyone can take "good" images.  Years ago, to prove a point, an editor of one the Sunday magazines in London ran a cover taken by a gorilla in the zoo.  It was as good as about 75% of the covers they ran.  The camera did the work and since the gorilla was being "paid" with food, she (I think it was a she but I really don't know) took hundreds of shots.  All that was needed was one. 

We are living in a time where the old adage give a monkey a typewriter and enough time and Shakespeare will appear has sort of come true. Unfortunately we are confusing every image with greatness and news value.  First because we marvel at the technology (live remotes on local news 20 years ago, live, real time images from the battle field in Iraq.  And now camera phone images/video from tunnels in London) and then because they have become the standard.  Local news goes to a live remote all the time not because it adds anything to the story or is needed but because it is convention. 

Technology for a long time now hasn't been aiding in news gathering, it has been shaping what is news.  Not every car chase is news but you wouldn't know that from the way such "events" are covered in most news markets around the country.

We talk and pundit far too much about the technology and not enough about the use and what "journalism" is or should be.

With regard to privacy and the ubiquitous presence of cameras in society Robert observes.

RG:

Just one last thought:  Privacy.  Camera phones and other small imaging devices in the hands of what you call CSers have and are going to increasingly make the job of journalists and photojournalists more difficult.   As the "citizens" become more intrusive and the "reporting" they do becomes less and less trustworthy, it is not they that will pay the price but the professionals who will find getting the image harder and harder.

The quote from the Washington Post photo editor really does sum it all up: Form over content.  Content over thought.  Technology over everything. Once I took a workshop from Don McCullin and he was asked what kind of camera he used.  His response:  "It wouldn't matter if I used a pinhole, the pictures would look the same because I took them".  Way too many in the business, at the papers, magazines, agencies and schools, have forgotten that the camera doesn't take the photo, the photographer/journalist does. 

Robert's note brings up some of the things I have been wrestling with lately as I prepare for a pre-conference workshop in San Antonio next month as the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. I would like to think that many if not most journalism educators are concerned with how best to teach both new media skills as well as common core values.

The impact of the visual in society is undeniable. Media, from print, broadcast, film, digital video and the Internet, increasingly rely on images to tell stories. Effective teaching in Journalism and Mass Communications suggests the conviction that students toward critical and sophisticated visual thinking along with other communicative skills, such as writing and developing healthy interpersonal relationship in the newsroom and beyond. In addition to understanding new media skills influencing traditional routines and rituals in visual journalism today, educators must continue to emphasize core competencies and values –– components which are inextricably bound to the visual storytelling, writing and editing process.

For Dates (2001), “As technology advances, our graduates must be prepared to hold onto core values, using the basic foundations we have built with them to help share media to meet society’s needs” (Janette L. Dates, “Symposium: Journalism and Mass Communication Education at the Crossroads”. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Autumn 2001, Vol. 56/3, page 21).
   

For Mitchell (2002), “Instructors need to teach new media skills in the context of being tools to get journalism done. I think they probably get that; where I have some concerns is when traditional journalistic courses are aced out to make way for new media skill courses - taught, at some times, by professors who know less about new media than the students” (Poynter Online Discussion Thread).

In a recent address to members of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, Mary Alice Shaver, emphasizes how educators must continue to teach toward the traditional core values of truth-telling, accuracy, public service as well as minimizing harm. Further, Shaver suggests that educators need to ensure that’s “today students have the skills to meet today’s employment requirements,” but she also cautions that students must be prepared to “adapt and thrive in tomorrow’s marketplace” (AEJMC News, May 2005, page 2).

Last summer (2004), the Carnegie Corporation sponsored a study inviting journalism deans from across the country to consider the role of the higher education in revitalizing journalism program in order to strengthen the profession and its obligations toward an informed citizenry in a democracy. In the study, more than 40  news industry leaders were interviewed about the state of journalism education and how journalism schools could elevate the profession’s standards and status (Improving the Education of Tomorrow’s Journalists, 2005, Carnegie, page 2).

The Carnegie study showed agreement among news industry leaders that changes in the news business brought about by the drive for profit, diminished objectivity and a trend toward “entertainment” content seriously challenges journalists and the organizations they worked for. Findings of the study suggest that educators must be dedicated to “emphasize the basics of the journalism craft, along with analytical thinking and a strong sense of ethics” (Improving, page 3).

The Carnegie study examines the shared concerns of news industry leaders pertaining to journalism education. For example, “The majority of interviewees agreed that the most critical responsibility of journalists is to serve the public interest and protect our democracy.” Further leaders expressed opinions suggesting that may journalism schools may not fit into the changing media environment -- one in which readers admit to having far less free time to consume news in a progressively interconnected world (page 5).

How are visual journalism educators expected to respond to the demands of an ever-changing media environment? How can a balance be struck between teaching new media skills and core journalistic values?

In a recent study exploring the perceptions photo managers and photo editors hold toward the adoption of new technologies, Michelle Sellig (2005) explicates the concerns professionals have about journalism education.

Sellig’s research suggests that professionals expect students not only to be competent in the producing news images, but also understand how to generate story ideas, gain access to and build rapport with subjects, demonstrated solid news judgment and ethical decision-making, write clearly and cohesively, as well as have a mastery of editing images for visual impact. Photo managers and photo editors, according to Sellig, want students to have good people skills, show compassion and respect for others, possess a good work ethic, show that they are able to listen and learn, demonstrate solid news reporting skills, and understand the importance of fairness and accuracy in journalistic practice.

For visual journalism educators one of the present challenges appears to be finding ways in which to demonstrate inter-connectivity between the art of photography and the science of journalism. 

Last year I wrote about one of the most important gift teachers can  leave with students  -- empathy. I am not sure I am always successful at teaching this quality but I recognize how critical it is in making meaningful and socially relevant images.

One of the most important skills we can learn from photojournalism is empathy. As photojournalists our strength comes from the ability to communicate honestly through our images. Communication is all about making connections. As photojournalists, we are not mechanics fixing broken parts. We are storytellers communicating about what it is like to be in the world.

Every time we go out into the world with a camera to interpret and record what we experience through seeing we become participants in a very human drama. Our images must reflect the contingencies of human experience at a given time and place.

My Big Brother and Me: How Citizen Shutterbugs Police Society

Following the bombings in London authorities are asking citizens to hand over camera phone images and video of the attacks in an attempt to identify the perpetrators.

According to the BBC, the police "believe the footage could provide vital  clues as the search for bodies and forensic evidence continues." 

I have mixed feelings about an appeal to the public to hand over images on the speculation that they may or may not prove useful in the investigation.

What is clear to me from this story is that we are now living an era where the use of camera phones will make everyone a potential "big brother."

Get The Picture?

I fear that cherished civil liberties in democratic societies such as privacy rights will soon get trampled and shuffled aside for the sake of the so-called "greater good" of the whole.

More than 1,700 people have already responded positively to the appeal to "hand over" images, but there is still a dangerous precedent being set here -- one that needs to be explored more deeply and in the calm light of reason.

Populist Photojournalism

An article in ITNEWS on the use of camera phones during the bombings in London struck me as interesting because yet another term to describe citizen shutterbugs has surfaced to describe the phenomena.

In the article, Photosharing Surges Following London Bombings, the authors use the term "populist photojournalism" to describe how people with digital cameras and camera phones have taken to downloading images from the disaster.

According to the article:

Populist photojournalism took a bow on photo-sharing sites in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in London.

While the news of Thursday's terrorist attacks in London spread through the traditional news media's Web sites and the newer blogosphere, populist photojournalism took a bow on photo-sharing sites such as Yahoo's new acquisition, Flickr.

Camera Phone Article in This Month's Digital Journalist

The June issue of The Digital Journalist is out and they are running my piece on camera phones and the London Bombings. It is always great to find others interested in similar issues. I think camera phones raise a lot of serious questions about news gathering and information seeking in society.

This month's Digital Journalist is excellent. If you aren't on the mailing list I am posting Dirck Halstead's letter to his readers so you can get an idea of what's being offered.

A good photojournalist is one who can make a commitment. It is
commitment to the story that drives him or her. Sometimes the
commitment is brief; in other cases, the commitment can last a
lifetime. Such is the case with Philip Jones Griffiths. When he first
went to Vietnam in 1965 to cover the war, he had no idea that story
would continue for the rest of his life. In 1966 he published his
first photographs of that war in a book that stands as one of the
greatest volumes in photojournalistic history, "Vietnam, Inc." Long
after the last battles, Philip continued to return to Vietnam to
document the lives of the people who had been contaminated by Agent
Orange, the defoliant that the U.S. Air Force sprayed over the
jungles. Last year, we presented that body of work on The Digital
Journalist, and it became an important book. In this issue, we look
at the breadth of his reportage from that war-weary country over the
past 40 years, in our cover story, "The Vietnamization of Philip
Jones Griffiths." The introduction is by our Executive Editor, Peter
Howe. While the still photographs in the essay depict Vietnam at
peace, in our streaming video interview that accompanies the story,
Philip talks about his work while Vietnam was still at war. It is an
inspiring look into the heart of a master photojournalist.


With summer upon us, in our second feature, "Hollywood Splash," we
decided to just jump into the pool with photographer Veronique Vial,
who has chronicled the aquatic high jinks of her Hollywood celebrity
friends as they cool off at home.


For the past five years, Amy Bowers, who became Amy Marash when she
married ABC "Nightline" correspondent David Marash, has done an
incredible job of editing our "Dispatches" section. She has built a
loyal following of photographers who have contributed stories from
all the news fronts of the world. Since she moved to New York, Amy
has become ever busier doing freelance production for NBC and
traveling around the world with Dave. She realized she could no
longer handle the "Dispatches" section on a monthly basis. We will
miss her. But we are pleased to announce the appointment of Marianne
Fulton as our new "Dispatches" editor. Marianne has been a senior
editor for The Digital Journalist since 1998, and is the former
curator of the George Eastman House. She wrote a seminal book on
photojournalism, "Eyes of Time: Photojournalism in America," for
which she was named Person of the Year in the Leica Medal of
Excellence competition. She has lectured worldwide on 20th-century
photography and photojournalism. She served twice as judge for
Pictures of the Year (the only curator to do so) and for Women in
Photojournalism. Fulton is on the advisory board of the W. Eugene
Smith Memorial Award. We welcome her to this new position.
Contributors to our "Dispatches" section can reach her at
[email protected].


In her first "Dispatches" section, Marianne has chosen three stories:
a report from Uganda by Francine Orr; Spencer Platt, a regular
contributor, from Getty Images talks about his experiences in
Bolivia; and Lucian Perkins contributes his diary from a major
project he did for The Washington Post on Finland.


History was made in photojournalism during the recent subway and bus
bombings in London. For the first time, both The New York Times and
the Washington Post used front-page pictures that were made with
camera phones. Dennis Dunleavy, assistant professor of Journalism at
Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore., looks at what this
breakthrough means as we create a new generation of
"citizen-journalists."


We are proud to announce that our Editor for Europe, Horst Faas, is
this year's recipient of the German Society of Photography's
prestigious Dr. Erich Salomon Award. The award honors Horst's
extraordinary career as a photo reporter/picture editor, as well as
his charitable projects, such as the IMMF workshops that he organizes
and finances for young photographers (see last month's Digital
Journalist). To coincide with the award, a comprehensive exhibit of
Horst's lifework opened June 3 in Frankfurt, Germany. "Visible War"
celebrates his incalculable influence on modern photojournalism. The
curators of "Visible War," Michael Ebert and Julia Wallstab, report
on the remarkable man, and exciting history, behind the exhibit.


In this month's issue, "E-Bits" Editor Bev Spicer takes on the
subjects of the past, present and future. She presents EPIC 2014, a
futuristic video about the fusion of media and information systems
tailored specifically for each individual. She also touches on the
issue of transparency, and reminds us of past efforts to increase
security with the classic, and now laughable, U.S. Civil Defense
film, DUCK AND COVER.


Our regular columnists, Bill Pierce, Terry Heaton, Mark Loundy, Ron
Steinman, Chuck Westfall and Jim Colburn provide, as always,
thoughtful and provocative reading.


There are two journals in "Assignment Sheet" for your reading
pleasure this month. Both are the work of a pair of retired news
photographers. Actually, the first contributor is Tom Hubbard, who is
also an emeritus professor at Ohio State School of Journalism and
Communications. His journal, "A Lens on an American Icon," goes back
to the early '60s and talks about covering a press conference with
the renowned American poet, Robert Frost. The interview grew
belligerent and Hubbard tells us about the two different Robert Frost
that he encountered in front of his lens that day. Dick Kraus,
retired Newday (Long Island, N.Y.) photographer, goes back to the
same era in his ongoing "Through a Lens Dimly" memoir with "Frootz
and the Gang." Kraus recalls the zany crew of news photographers with
whom he worked in those Damon Runyonesque days when newspaper
photography was a lot more fun.


The Digital Journalist will be at the Visa Pour L'Image festival in
Perpignan at the end of August, and we invite you to stop by and see
us at the booth we are sharing with The Digital Railroad.


We hope you enjoy this issue.

Dirck Halstead
Editor and Publisher
[email protected]

 

Camera Phones Prevail: Citizens Shutterbugs and the London Bombings

Many years ago I found a cartoon of a tourist visiting hell. I think it may have come from the New Yorker, but it could have been Gary Larson's Far Side as well.

In the cartoon there is a tourist standing in line at the gates of hell with the devil standing proudly above the crowd in a sort of pose reminiscent of Napoleon. The line of people waiting to get into hell winds around through smoke, ash and flame. Then there is the tourist toward the back with his camera raised and pointed at the devil. I still chuckle a bit when I think about this cartoon and the increased advance of the digital camera and camera phones in society.

For the past year, I've been predicting how the camera phone will profoundly change the way people receive and mentally process news. I have often times seen this trend as something that is to come--something in the future--but I was wrong. 

The future is here, now. The future came with the Abu Ghraib prison Scandal, the devastation of the tsunami in the Pacific last year, and now without question, London. The digital camera phone is the future and we have much to learn from this emerging technology.

There are now some 192 million cell phones being used in the U.S. and nearly 20 percent of them have cameras attached. In fact, Tony Henning, managing editor of the Mobile Imaging Report is estimating that more than 300 million camera phones will be sold this year alone. If true, camera phones will out pace the sale of digital camera by nearly 30 times greater.

The SmartMob blog is a good place to track what is happening with this new technology.

In London, during the attacks on the transit system, camera phones provided some of the most intense and immediate imagery from the scenes. The pictures were made by citizen shutterbugs, average people with an interest in sharing what they have experienced with others through email messages.

Cian Donovan, according to the New York Times, went down into the subway with a cellphone shortly after the blast and uploaded them to his Flickr page. Now the world can see Donovan's images.

In fact, the 7/7 Community, formerly the London Bomb Blast Pool as well and the London Moblog sites contain hundreds of images from the attacks.

Furthermore, the BBC obtained images from citizen shutterbugs and posted many of them to their news site following the incident. One well composed and technically clean image was shot by an office worker looking down upon the destruction of a double-decker bus.

Many times these images are sent to family members first and then later find their way into the river of data that become public information. At times, some of these images are "picked up" by the mainstream media and disseminated as "real" news, which of course they can be.

Matea Gold of the Los  Angeles Times reported that  "Because tight security prevented news crews from quickly reaching the bombing sites, the cellphone footage was all that was immediately available from underground. Its instant embrace by traditional news networks underscored how an evolving technology can take on new and unexpected roles."

Forbes' Zachary Seward reported in "Phone Offer Snapshot of Terror":

....Even as photojournalists hit the streets to document the aftermath of the attacks, camera photos and video remained the most vivid illustrations of what had occurred. One video on the BBC showed an orderly but tense evacuation from a smoke-filled subway car; a shot of passengers walking along illuminated train tracks was the top photograph at NYTimes.com for several hours yesterday.

As was the case in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, digital images and the Internet have circumvented the systems of control placed on society in the information age.

The camera phone is rapidly changing our visual landscape through its immediacy and interactional qualities. It is also changing the nature of how news is gathered and consumed.

In modern times, society has come to depend primarily on trained professionals to report what constitutes the news. News, in this configuration, however, has values which  has value reporters, editors and photojournalists learn to prioritized, classify and categorize. Information is placed in a hierarchical order based on values such as relevancy, consequence, proximity, prominence, novelty and other values.

Washington Post Staff Writer, Yuki Noguchi reports in a story Eyewitness Journalism: Camera Phones Lend Immediacy to Images of Disaster:

Camera phones, once a novelty, now outsell digital cameras by about 4 to 1, according to analyst data. As more sophisticated phones and higher-speed networks have become available, wireless companies have recently started offering video camcorders on their phones that can nearly instantly transmit moving pictures over e-mail or onto the Internet.

What this means potentially is that everyone is a visual communicator with a camera phone -- everyone has the potential of contributing to shaping our perceptions of major and minor events happening around the world.  As Noguchi observes, "The availability of the cameras, combined with the ability to transmit pictures and text instantaneously, is enabling the world to view news with nearly the immediacy of a victim or eyewitness."

Is having an army of citizen shutterbugs running fast and loose with digital  cameras and camera phones a good thing for society? Is the ability to make and transmit images immediately after an event has occurred good for democracy, free speech, free will?

I think so... I really think so.

I believe camera phones have the potential of providing yet another stream of information that can be used to help people understand, interpret, make sense of, and cope with the life and all its complexities.

In an interview with the Associated Press following the release of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos last year, Washington Post Magazine photo editor, Keith Jenkins, commented:

“With the technology now, the amateur photographer is as capable as a professional journalist and is operating with the same tools: Digital camera, laptop and an Internet connection.”

At the same time, make no mistake about it, camera phones will become part of a reporter's toolbox for information gathering in the future. Photojournalist will carry them to communicate with editors immediately by sending digital snap shots of what they see before actually working with more professional cameras. Reporters will use camera phones to provide graphic designers on-the-scene visual references for information graphics and other visuals to package a story.

Bruce Rutledge (2003) argues:

Welcome to 21st century journalism, where citizens armed with camera phones can instantly become reporters -- or publishers.

Today?s mobile technology means you no longer need to be at a desk -- or even own a computer -- to e-mail a photo to a newspaper, or to publish an online magazine or blog. Now you can publish text and photos directly to the Web -- or send them to your local paper -- from a camera-enabled phone."

Paddy Holahan, CEO of NewBay Software, predicted two years ago that what happened in London with camera phones reporting the news was only a matter of time.

For Holahan:

"It won't be long....before "some globally significant event will be reported by an amateur camera phone blogger who takes a picture, provides a comment and publishes it to their personal phoneblog before professional reporters can do so."

At the same time, folks like Al Tompkins on the Poynter Institute website questions the efficacy of news operations who use camera phone images from citizen shutterbugs.

According to Thompkins: "There are tons of questions about how and whether newsrooms should publish or air such images:

    •     How do you know the image is authentic?
    •     What do you know/need to know about how the image was captured?
    •     What was the photographer's involvement in the incident he or she captured?
    •     How do you keep from encouraging people to take unnecessary or dangerous risks in order to capture a photograph?
    •     Will you compensate people for images? How will you decide how much to pay?
    •     How much are you willing to compromise your standards of quality in order to use a cell image?
    •     How easy is it for people to send you images and how easy is it for you to use them?

All the questions aside, the bigger issue is how will journalism adapt to an onslaught of independent content produce by CSers (citizen shutterbugs)?

As Robert MacMillan of the Washington Post writes about citizen journalism in his column Random Access I am inclined to think that we have been witnessnessing for some time now a significant turn in the information age -- a turn toward not only the mass consumption of news from multiple sources but also the mass production of news from multiple sources.

MacMillian contends:

Citizen journalism is different. It often covers a wide territory from soliciting arts and entertainment coverage to providing the angle on the city council budget that the cub reporter might have missed.

The London attacks moved the trend to a new level. Web sites from the BBC's to the Guardian's provided eyewitness accounts, some showing up as little as an hour or two after the first bomb went off. Rather than relying on unfocused, rambling blog entries, the London papers and the Beeb ran pithy postings from the people who were there. They ran alongside the staff reporters' accounts and presumably with the same amount of editing.

How is the mainstream media responding to the deluge of images produced by CSers?

Will newspapers and television stations hire people just to sit in front of a computer to monitor all the photoblogs out there that might have images they can use?

As it now stands I do not believe that many of the individuals  producing images during the London bombings have not received any financial compensation for their efforts. Photo stringers typically receive between $75 - $100 for pictures of events, but this is different. Traditionally, amateurs who have captured an important news event with a camera have sold their images to news sources, sometimes for great sums of money.

How does having hundreds of camera phones at the scene of a bomb blast change the course of news gathering?

It is abundantly clear that the mainstream media will at first claim fair use of the images as they appear on sites like Flickr, Yahoo or Smugmug. They will encourage journalists not only to ask eyewitness if they have seen anything, but also if they might happen to have a camera phone in their pocket.

The mainstream media will now have to cull through thousands of news images that best fit their schema and purposes for determining what is news. Can you imagine what would happen now if an event like the attacks on the World Trade Towers occurred given the popularity of camera phones today?

What will happen when citizen shutterbugs start competing, as they already have, with news organizations for breaking news images?

Will there be a war of competition between media outlets in their lust for the most graphic and intense images produced by citizen shutterbugs?

Will citizen shutterbugs begin demanding money for their images?

What copyright issues are involved? 

How will the average citizen, an individual who might become the subject of some horrific act like the London bomb blasts or 911, react to a fellow passerby making images of them without permission?

What will happen when citizen shutterbugs become more sophisticated with the use of software like Photoshop that will allow for the greater temptation of digital manipulation?

Indeed, I think the London situation brings us into a brave new world where, at present, there are more questions than answers.

 

[Cameraphones] [Current Affairs] [Digital Camera]

Kodak's True Legacy: The Smile

Christina Kotchemidova in her essay,  “'Why We say ‘Cheese': Producing the smile in snapshot Photography" points out the historical significance of Kodak's strategies for bringing photography to the masses by creating and defining the "snapshot" aesthetic of the smile. 

Kotechemidova provides an analysis of popular photo journals throughout the twentieth century suggesting that Kodak played a leadership role in shaping the conceptualization and the culture habits around photography at the time when the technology was becoming mass-consumed. We are culturally habituated to smile before the camera, but historically this has not always been the case.

The researcher shows how Kodak, through its own publications, photo magazines and advertising created the habits shutterbugs we now accept as second nature. 

It was Kodak's brilliant marketing as well as the cultural values of the times that encoded the smile as a sensory and symbolic mode of communication. 

In fact, the expression "Say Cheese" is contextually tied to a socially desirable ethos -- one that co-incides with American values at the turn of the twentieth century and the pursuit of happiness.  In fact, according to Kotchemidova, Kodak actually toyed with the notion of promoting post-mortem photographs in the 1920s but decided against it. 

Instead, the company pursued its claim to the Kodak moment -- perhaps better described as the fleeting glimpse when the subject appears happy and content.

When Liam, my son, is asked to "say cheese" for the camera, and I am sure this is true for other children, he produces a most hideous and contorted look on his face. Saying cheese and smiling, for a child, is not a natural act, but something that is coerced in order to give the impression that the child is "normal" and "happy."

It is interesting how little attention is paid to the cultural ideology behind the idea of putting on a face for the camera. How natural it seems once the image is made, but the interaction leading up to the moment seems, at times, unnatural.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art just opened a terrific exhbit of photographs from the Prentice and Sacks collection. I made this image of some little children playing with a digital camera inside one of the halls. I decided to slow the shutter down as much as possible and hope for the best with movement. I really like how the girl is modeling for the camera.

Sources: Christina Kotchemidova. “Why We say ‘Cheese”: Producing the smile in snapshot Photography. Critical Studies in Media Communication. Vol. 22 March 2005 pp. 2-25.

SFMOMA's "Taking Place" Exhibit

San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau Announcement on the SFMOMA Exhibit

SFMOMA Debuts One of the Largest Photography Exhibits Ever Mounted
  "Taking Place: Photographs from the Prentice and Paul Sack Collection" will   be on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) from June 2-Sept.   5, 2005. Drawn from the Prentice and Paul Sack Photographic Trust of SFMOMA   and the Sacks' private collection, this extraordinary photography exhibition   is one of the largest ever mounted at SFMOMA, 151 Third St. The collection is   loosely united around the theme of architecture. Paul Sack, a real estate developer,   specifies that each photograph must depict a building that could be bought or   leased. What seems a simple pretext immediately proves much more complex. The   exhibition includes 285 vintage prints that span the history of the medium from   1840 to 1975. Among the many photographers represented are Berenice Abbot, Eugène   Atget, Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, William Klein, Man Ray, Charles   Sheeler, and William Henry Fox Talbot. For information, call 357-4000 or visit   www.sfmoma.org. Media contact: Sandra Farish Sloan, 357-4174, [email protected].

 

Martin Fuchs in New York: Why Relationships Make the Images

This is the splash page for Martin Fuch's New York Photo blog. Martin, a photo student from Austria, is interning at Magnum this summer and is sharing his views of New York with the world. One of Martin's first posts makes me think about the value of building relationships with the people we meet and photograph.

On one of his walks around the city, Martin was called out by a homeless man on the street who thought he had just had his image made. Martin tried to convince the man, Joe, that he was actually making an image of a sign. Martin put Joe's anxiety to rest by sharing his images on the back of his digital camera.

As a ritual act photography is grounded in, according to Goffman's idea of interaction ritual, which suggest the rules in which guide expectations and the obligations people feel toward one another during a social exchange.

What were Joe's expectations of the man with a camera? What were Martin's obligations to Joe as a fellow human being?

Interaction ritual refers to symbolically social acts that are mediated by rules of conduct, as well as expectations and obligations to self and others. Goffman (1957) suggests interaction rituals impinge “upon the individual in two general ways: directly, as obligations, establishing how he is morally constrained to conduct himself; and indirectly, as expectations, establishing how others are morally bound to act in regard to him” (p. 49).

Goffman’s model of interaction ritual provides a rich context for evaluating the complexities of professional conduct and ethical behavior in photojournalism.

For Goffman,  “An act that is subject to a rule of conduct is, then, a communication, for it represents a way in which selves are confirmed–both the self for which the rule is an obligation and the self for which it is an expectation” (p. 51)

Martin's narrative adds a dimension to the images he's poster that provide a richer context for understanding the meaning of relationships in the photographic ritual.

After photographing a transparent lying on the ground just a few feet away from him he waved me to come over and just said: "You took my picture". I sat down on the ground next to him and told him that I was just taking a photo of that sign over there. He didn't realy believe me. One of the good things of shooting digital is that you have the possibility to show people the pictures you took on that little screen. I convinced him of the fact that I didn't take his picture and offert him a cigarette.

We where smoking this cigarett together and started to talk. He told me that everybody want's to take pictures of him. He has been photographed a thousend times already. People from the press took pictures of him, people who did books took pictures of him and tourists took pictures of him. Joe told me that he'd like to get some money if people use his photos to earn money theirselfs.

Clearly there are some rules of conduct here between the photographer (Martin) and the subject (Joe). Joe was observing the observer because of past experiences he has had in having his picture made. Did Joe feel exploited by tourists, news photographers, and documentarians?

For many, the homeless are an invisible and undesirable population that are tolerated on the streets of many urban centers as long as they don't call attention to themselves in a negative way or pose a threat to the so-called average person.  For some photographers, the homeless become the equivalent of ornamentation and decor that add a sense of color and novelty to the frame.

Joe knows this. Martin suspects it.

As Martin's story goes the two men start talking and by the end of it all, Joe gives the photographer the green light to make as many pictures as he wants.

In the end, I find Martin's story very compelling and revealing. Perhaps it is the start of a friendship that will extend beyond the brief interaction of sharing a cigarette on the streets of New York.

Erving Goffman (1922 - 1982)

References:

The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (monograph), University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre, 1956, revised and expanded edition, Anchor Books, 1959.

Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior, Doubleday, 1967.

 

Too Good to Be Printed: Photographers Turned Away From Making Prints that Look Too Good

Robert MacMillan's "Random Access" column in today's Washington Post touches a nerve. Apparently, photo labs are now turning away customers who turn in work that simply seems too professional to have been made by amateurs. The labs fear that people are stealing or manipulating the work of others so based on their best judgement they can decide if the prints can be made. In some cases, the photographer has to provide proof that they actually made the images.

Links:

Not a Pretty Picture

Digital Cameras Cause Dilemma

Digital Photography as Cultural Practice

Photo by Carolyn Hack

When I came across Carolyn Hack's pictures of people making images with digital cameras in the Lourve I was once again struck by the pervasive nature of photography in our culture.

This is even more true now with digital technologies. The Mona Lisa is a cultural icon without question and one of the most famous and more frequently reproduced works of art in the history of humankind. When visitors pack the small exhibition space in the Louvre to see the diva they are kept at a distance and are spearated by a layer of bullet proof glass protecting the painting.

Although it is easy to get caught up in the hype of technology what seems more interesting to me is the actually act of photography as cultural practice in a digital age.

How do our expectations and obligations change with the immediacy of digital photography? Is there anything different about using digital photography instead of film?

Do we take more pictures now with digital, and if so what are we doing with all these images?

I have argued that one of the most important aspects of digital photography is the ability to immediately review images after capture. Along these lines,  once we can see the pictures on the back of the camera immediately after making them, we can also share them with others. The digital camera's potential for making the cultural practice of photography more collaborative and perhaps even more democratic is significant and should not be overlooked.

People make pictures for a multitude of reasons, but it is in the expectation that a "moment" can  become fixed in time and memory through photography that gives it social and cultural relevancy.

We take pictures to remember experiences, but also to create and shape self and social identity.

Making pictures of the Mona Lisa is a way of telling people, "Look what I saw...isn't this cool...aren't I cool?" Picture making is inextricably tied to self and social identity. We shape our identity in the eyes and minds of others by exposing them to the parts of who we are and what we do that we want them to see.

Digital photography is making this process increasingly easier and faster.

Carolyn Hack is noticing something about how people use digital camera that seems a bit different than prior experiences with film cameras too. After seeing Carolyn's images online I sent here an email asking her to comment. Here is what she has to say:

The photo I made reminds me that although digital photography has become commonplace, people still maintain an interest in its ancient history: DaVinci's image-making via brushstrokes on canvas. Because it's a photo of a moment in time, I enjoy it more and take more pride in it than I would if it were just a photograph of an object (even the Mona Lisa) sans context.

In my opinion, having an image is not only a way of possessing the things we have seen, as you said, but of permanently connecting ourselves to places we've been. For example, I joked with a friend about the people who had been using camera-phones to take pictures of the Mona Lisa. It is highly possible that those phones already contain a stock image of the Mona Lisa (or some other famous work of art) meant to be used as a background or wallpaper image. Now, however, these picture-takers can use a photo of their very own creation for the same purpose, telling friends, "No man, that's not the picture that came with the phone. I was there!"

Still, a question remains in my mind: If these people return to the Louvre in the future, will they take another photograph of the Mona Lisa? Chances are she won't have changed. Does an identical image taken years later still have value if it doesn't show the passage of time? Are people motivated to take photographs simply because they can and because their cameras happen to fit in a pocket?

When Words Fail: Digital Photography and Ritual Experience

Photography, since its inception, has always been about ritual and ritualized experience. Human beings depend emotionally and intellectually on ritual as a way of making sense of the chaos that living can bring about. Rituals provide order and logic to an otherwise endless and often times senseless series of experiences. Rituals, in this way, can be thought of in terms of either secular ceremonial acts or as established routines.

A classic example of a photographic ritual can be seen when someone is asked to have their picture taken. "Can I take your picture," I say. "Sure," you respond. "What do you want me to do,"  they add. 

"Say Cheese?"

This most predictable response between observed to observer has been played out for more than 150 years.

Sociologist Erving Goffman (1967, 1969) studied interaction rituals between peoples. Goffman suggests that interaction rituals are based on a set of unspoken expectations and obligations. In the example above, since I have the camera, there is an expectation that I must know what I want or that I know what I am doing. Along with the expectations I hold of making a picture, the observed also feels a sense of expectation as well as obligation. The observed's sense of expectation about the image will depict them after it is made, however, places the sense of obligation back on on me. This is the cycle of expectation and obligation that happens in a ritualized practice.

Along with expectations and obligations in the photographic ritual, there is also a strong sense of performance or theater that is played out both in front of as well as behind the camera.

Goffman’s Interaction Ritual suggests that that relationships between photographer and subject may be influenced by the immediacy of the digital camera. Social relationships between photographers and subjects constitute a complex symbolic universe of visual rituals that signifies a culture of surveillance. Goffman suggests:

Interaction rituals impinge “upon the individual in two general ways: directly, as obligations, establishing how he is morally constrained to conduct himself; indirectly, as expectations, establishing how others are morally bound to act in regard to him” (p. 49).

Goffman’s model of interaction ritual provides a richer context for evaluating the complexities of professional conduct and ethical behavior in photography

 

To take this argument even further, photographic rituals are situated within cultural practices that symbolically reorganize sensory experience. 

David Tomas (1982) contends, “Photographic activity can therefore be considered a ritual, for it represents a formal sequence of acts, an ordered pattern, the purpose of which is to transmit a collective message to ourselves.”

The characteristics of digital photography eliminate sequences in the ritual process of image production, which was traditionally comprised of three major stages of production: “the taking of the photograph, the development of the negative, and the printing of a positive.” 

With digital photography, as in the Polaroid process, the traditional “liminal” period of the latent image—one that transforms the subject into a negative and then back into a positive print—is altered. Symbolically, the liminal period granted the photojournalist a greater degree of autonomy from the subject.

Historically,  according to Tomas, the ceremonial ritual of separation in photography consisted of two distinct rites, the capture of an image in a viewfinder followed by processing and development in the darkroom. Therefore, the symbolic transformations of reality occurring between the subject, photographer and viewer correspond to face-to-face interaction rituals on one hand, and optical-chemical processes on the other hand.

In digital photography, the transitional rite of exposing, developing and printing is accelerated in the age of an instance—one which provides the photographer more creative control over the image by what is referred to by professionals as “chimping.”   

Chimping is a colloquial term used by photojournalist because the actions of reviewing frames on-site appear similar to the actions of monkeys preening. What are the implications of a visual encounter in which the subject is no longer symbolically "separated" from the world through periods of liminality and latency?

How does photographic ritual change in a digital age? How does the immediacy of the digital experience intensify the image-making process for both observer and observed?

Digital photography's capacity for intensifying relationships temporally and spatially has yet to be fully explored or understood. We must think of the act of photography as a communicative exchange between the observer and the observed that is based on the series of expectations and obligations that come from the creation of interpersonal exchange. This exchange, however, in a digital age intensifies relationships by the immediacy of fixing a moment in time and space that differs from previous experiences with film.

The digital camera also levels the playing field of specialization in the picture making process. Just as the Kodak One and the Brownie camera popularized and democratized photographic practices and routines for the average person in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, so does the digital camera in the 21st century.

As people adjust to and move away from the liminality embedded in the ritual of making images with film to the immediacy and intensification of digital photography a period of angst and discomfort is underway.

The rituals of digital photography alter how we consume visual images without the extra time or liminality film gave us to fully digest the experience. We no longer are patient with ourselves in fulfilling our sense of expectations or obligations with digital photography. This is the "I wanted it yesterday" generation played out to its fullest sense.

Previous analog experience with film forced us to digest the act of recording simply because of the liminality of film. Some photographers fear that they are losing control of the autonomy they once enjoyed when using film. No longer can photographers expect to go unchallenged over the control over when an image is viewed by the subject. 

Personally, I feel the experience of sharing helps to build rapport and trust between the observer and the observed. I think our responsibility as photographers rests in our ability to affirm the human condition through images when words fail us. I see this with my students' work and how hard it is to teach photography as a transformative experience not only for the photographer but also for the subject. 

Digital may make some aspects of photography easier for many people, but it may also complicate things as well. Using a digital camera I do not have the same feeling of permanency as I had with film. With digital, the process makes me feel like I am dealing more with data than with the relationship between the tangiblities of such things as tonalities and contrast.

In the end, however, photography is still about relationships and about ritualized experience. Images still need to be about immediacy, intensity and intimacy -- even if fleeting.

 

San Francisco Chronicle Article on Digital Photography is an Eye Opener

Last week Todd Wallack, a San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer, called  about a story he was working on concerning the impact of digital photography on society. Todd's article, "Pixel perfect: Torrent of images is leaving film in the dust; Evolution of photos is creating unforeseen effects on society," provides some interesting perspectives, including a photo shop owner who still sells only film.

Todd does a good job covering a lot of the issues raised with the introduction of digital over analog. Here's the excerpt where I am quoted:

"People have to be skeptical,'' said Dennis Dunleavy, who runs the photojournalism program at San Jose State University and wrote his dissertation on the impact of digital photography. "It is a question of skepticism. It is a question of education. It is a question of not allowing people to be gullible."

But Dunleavy said the notion that the "camera never lies" has always been a myth. Photographers, he pointed out, have always presented just one, narrow slice of reality, while leaving the rest outside the viewfinder.

"As soon as I pick up a camera, I am editing my reality," he said.

Read more of the article online or even take out a subscription to the Chronicle.

 

So Many Pictures and So Little Time

Kiosk Marketplace quotes a new report suggesting that thanks to digital photography people are making more pictures than ever before. The reports also claims that many of the images made with digital cameras are never printed.

According to the Photo Marketing Association International, "9.4 billion digital photos went unprinted in 2004. While many (if not most) of those 9.4 billion images were likely blurry, accidentally taken or worthless for some other reason, some of them undoubtedly represent potential prints."

This makes me think that with all those images sitting around inside of computers these days, the need to save shoe boxes for the extra prints is becoming a thing of the past.

Making Digital Images Look Like Film

Into the Looking Glass
Photo by Tomomi Tsuda from her recent documentary project on Bay Area immigrants

Other than aestethics, I am not sure what the fascination is with rendering digital images as if they were made on analog processes. Photojournalism student Daniel Sato recently created a list of websites that offer advice for his blog which is interesting.

There appears to be different camps setting up on this issue. However, as far as photojournalism is concerned I would like to suggest that the media we use is a communicative tool. If the photographer believes that making digital images appear more than film images and it fits the message, then, no problem. However, if the photographer values technique over content eventually it will show in his or her work. Personally, I would rather have an image that speak to my heart no matter the medium used.

Looking Backwards and Forwards in Photojournalism

Once is a while it is a good idea for a teacher just to get out of the way and let students figure things out for themselves. Since photojournalists are required to have an array of competencies and skills, especially in studio lighting, portraiture and illustration, it is important to give students a chance to experiment. An alumnus, now working at a major metropolitan daily newspaper remarked recently that about 60 percent of her assignments are portraits.

Today, the students in my visual journalism I class were asked to work together to produce an image of a product as an illustration in the studio. The only rules for the assignment were that the image had to surprise me and that they had to have fun making it.  Looks like they did both. Overall, I think they did a nice job with this one.

Daniel Esch, one of the group's ringleaders, sent me an email with a few of the images they made along with a note explaining how well the students worked together.

I think we did a pretty good job collaborating on the task. I supplied the camera, and we shot straight onto my Powerbook, so everyone was able to see the pictures clearly on the screen without passing the camera around....Kevin, Daniel, Brian, and Deanna all took great shots. Unfortunately, nobody brought any good props, so we used Dan Espinoza's camera as a subject. When we got some cool colors reflected in the camera's lens, Ben had the idea of dropping everything but the lens into grayscale. I did that Photoshop work on a couple of shots, and the results look pretty good to me.

The biggest surprise for me here was seeing Daniel's AE-1 film camera, reel, tank, unprocessed film, and darkroom timer. Three years ago the program at San Jose State University, like many other institutions, converted from teaching wet processes to working in an all-digital environment. It is fun to fondly remember the years spent in darkrooms fussing over making the "perfect" print. Ironically, many of these students will never have the opportunity to share in these experiences now, unless they happen to take an art photography class.

 

It's All About Light

 El Salvador 1991 Dennis Dunleavy

Many years ago I discovered that the difference between so-called professionals and amateurs is the ability to read and capture light in order to tell a story. Professionals understand that it takes tremendous patience to compose an image. I am not sure if the stories about Ansel Adams waiting three weeks for the light to change in Yosemite to make the picture he wanted are true, but if so this would be an extreme example of patience. For most of us mortals, there seems to be an eternity between seconds and minutes or minutes and hours.

I have great empathy with students when they come back after making pictures of an event with only a marginal feeling of satisfaction. I wish I could wave a magic wand to fix it for them -- I wish I could encourage them to be more at peace with the process of seeing and understanding what is being seen.

Light, I would suggest, is the key to making compelling pictures in photojournalism. Through light, the photojournalist communicate the mood, tone, intention and purpose of the communication.  This almost sounds too simple, but with our tendency to rely on auto-everything in a digital age, I sense that many students abdicate control over light as a compositional element to the technology. Today's mantra in photojournalism seems to be, for some people, Point, Shoot, Chimp... Point, Shoot, Chimp.

With the camera's capacity to produce significantly more images without stopping to change film, as well as the immediacy of reviewing images afterward, the ability to understand, read, anticipate, and capture light as communicative tool seems to be an afterthought for many developing photojournalists. The instant gratification of digital photography makes it easier for students to react rather than reflect on what it is they are seeing. I imagine the same thing has been said of film, but there is a difference. Some students and professionals try to tape off the back of the camera so that they are not tempted to check the progress of their picture-making. They try to avoid using the immediacy of reviewing images on-camera as a crutch, which may be fine. At the same time, if the photographer shows little improvement in the quality of his or her images over time then there is something else going on. I would suggest that the issue resides in the personality and behavior of the image maker and not the tool one uses.

We know that there are two main properties photographers must concern themselves with -- intensity and direction.  If we visually encounter something that interests us, we are usually drawn to the something because of light. Understanding the subtle changes light renders on a subject is the essence of what we do.

I believe the difference is all in our heads. We seem to be so focused on what comes next for us, that we tend to be remiss in paying greater attention to the details and nuances of life. When we start thinking about making pictures as part of a process of understanding light instead of a product -- getting the picture -- I think things can change for us. The key to reading light is to have a picture in our head as to exactly what it is we are trying to communicate with the intended audience. I think we sometimes forget about this with a digital camera because it is too easy to be satisfied with first results. At the same time, it seems to easy to be satisfied with shifted the intended audience from an unknown viewer to ourselves.

Recently, a friend gave me a copy of The Tao of Teaching by Greta Nagel. In the beginning of the book, there is a quote attributed to an Ancient Chinese Saying:

When I hear, I forget
When I see, I remember
When I do, I understand

 

The gadgets that change the way people think

The frontier of digital innovation appears to be expanding at light speed or something close to it. This is presumptuous on my part, but I cannot help but notice the number of advances announced this year alone. Innovations in imaging technology, data storage and retrieval, telephony, and cross-platform compatibility are changing the way human beings interact.

Consumer demands and market interests are pushing many new developments in the world of digital photography and we have only just seen the beginning of all this. At the beginning of the year, for example, Varioptic introduced plans to bring a liquid lens to the market. The lens utilized the principles of "electro-wetting" and promises to increase image quality three fold through lighter, more durable, and much smaller designs. Now, a merger between and an imaging chip maker and an optics company promises to add even more quality to camera phones.  Techweb provides a summary of the merger: 

Omni Vision Technologies, a maker of imaging chips, will acquire CDM Optics, Inc., a company that has created a technology to increase the depth of field in a digital camera  without using moving parts. CDM Optics will continue operating as a subsidiary of Omni Vision, and will not be relocating from its Boulder, Colorado headquarters.  The CDM technology, called "Wave front Coding", will allow sharper pictures to be taken by camera phones. The technology also allows for smaller camera bodies and reduced manufacturing costs. Omni Vision expects to start selling improved, less-expensive camera phones using the CDM technology within 12 to 18 months.

In professional photography, February's announcement by Pentax for its first digital medium-format camera was expected but also exciting. This new Pentax 645 Digital camera offers one of the highest quality resolution to date with 18.6 megapixels.

People are adjusting to the ever-increasing expansion of new technology, but I am concerned that some sociological and ideological issues may be overshadowed by a tendency toward technological fetishism.

If we use these new tools to promote social change and real-time participation in representative governments, then, I believe that we are headed in the right direction. Otherwise, any potential these technologies represent may be subsumed by the increasing concentration of the have-mores in society.

At issue, is how self-identity and social-identity are being redefined by emerging technology in ways not quite yet understood as a driving force in the way people communicate and interact in a digital age. It is not just about new technologies replacing older one. In this free-for-all age of innovation there is a significant opportunity for people to become more engaged and empowered in everyday decision-making. 

Yesterday, for example, our family visited a car dealership to look at the possibility of getting a new car. As the sales representative started the dance of getting us a "better deal" we were able to compare quotes with other dealerships, online reports, Blue book values, etc... all online within minutes. Car dealers hate when customers don't jump at the first offer. They hate it when you say you need a few minutes to check out the facts. In the past, we might have gone on good faith with a dealer, but now, with the possibility of checking information on-the-spot there is no excuse for due diligence and saving money. Actually, not only were we checking the numbers on line, we had family members checking facts at the same time. In this way, we were able to make a more informed decision.