Photography has been around since 1800’s and stories have been around forever, so putting them together Photojournalism becomes possible. Putting stories and pictures together have shaped magazines, newspapers even lives. Action is captured by camera lens and told by writers that share stories needing to be heard. With the increasing technology process Photography has become known to all and becoming more common. The digital world is taking over Photography and will keep getting better as the future and technology progress.
The word Photography is derived from the Greek language, “photo meaning “light and “Graphein that means, “to draw (Bellis 1). Photography is ” a method of recording images by the action of light or related radiation on a sensitive material (Bellis 1). The photograph was the ultimate response to a social and cultural appetite for a more accurate and real looking representation of reality, a need that had its origins in the renaissance (Langton 11,1). The first goal of photography was reportage, which were the most potential.
Context is important to photographers; photographers have to show images in a “larger social event, whose significance goes beyond the individual act (Westbrook 3). In 1000 A. D a man named Alhazen created a Pin Hole camera, which “explained why images were upside down (Bellis 2). In the summer of 1827 Joseph Nicephore Niepice took the first image with the Pin Hole camera. Prior to Joseph’s image he was using the camera for heliographs or sun prints. In 1829 Joseph partnered up with Louis Daguerre. Louis invented the “first practical process of photography (Bellis 5).
In their partnership they improved Niepice’s original process. When Niepice died in 1839, “Louis developed a more convenient and effective method of photography (Bellis 4). In this process Louis would have a “fixed image on a sheet of silver plated copper polished with silver coated with iodine creating a surface sensitive to light (Bellis 5). Then “putting that plate in the camera and exposing it for a few minutes, the image is painted by light (Bellis 5). Lastly “bathed in silver chloride, this creating a lasting image the wouldn’t change when exposed to light (Bellis 5).
Later in 1839 Louis and Joseph’s son sold the rights to the “Daguerreotype to the French government and published a book about the process (Bellis 5). Henry Fox Talbot a botanist, mathematician and contemporary of Daguerre invented the first negative process. By putting “sensitized paper to light with silver salt solution until the background became black and the subject was rendered in gradations of gray (Bellis 6). This was later known as the “negative image (Bellis 6). Then from the negative image Talbot made “contact prints reversing light and shadows to create a detailed picture (Bellis 6).
In 1841 Talbot “perfected the paper negative process and called it a Calotype which in Greek means “beautiful picture ( Bellis 6). Next came Hamilton Smith who invented the “Tinitype in 1856, “another medium that herald the birth of photography ( Bellis 7). TiniType was a “thin sheet of iron used to provide a base for light sensitive material, yielding a positive image (Bellis 7). In 1851 Fredrick Scoff Archer an English sculptor created the wet plate negative. (Bellis 8). The wet plate process included “using a viscous solution of collation, Archer coated glass with light sensitive silver salts.
Because it was glass and not paper, this wet plate created a more stable, detailed negative ( Bellis 8). The downside of the wet plate process is that Photographers had to carry around a portable darkroom. Later in 1879 the “dry plate was invented with a glass negative plate with a dried gelatin emulsion (Bellis 9). This process made it easier for Photographers because it was not necessary to carry around a portable darkroom. Now “hand held cameras are possible with the invention of the dry negative process (Bellis 9).
Now with hand held cameras, roll of film will have to be created to capture the images taken by the hand held camera. In 1889 George Eastman created the “flexible roll film, which was film with a base that was flexible, unbreakable and could be rolled and placed into the hand held camera (Bellis 9). In 1940 when the color films were brought onto the market made it possible to create colored photos. “The films used modern technology of dye-coupled colors in which a chemical process connects the three dye layers together to create an apparent color image (Bellis 10).
The first 35 mm camera was named the “Lecia (Collins 1). The “Lecia was introduced in the 1930’s giving photographers the “ability to move with the action, taking shots of event as they unfold (Westbrook 4). This also made “it easy for photographers to take real life pictures without the bulky equipment (Collins 1). This camera was “used during the mid 19th century during the Crimean War, photographers used the novel technology of the box camera to record images of British Soldiers (Westbrook 4).
Robert Capa was a household photographer around 1930’s to 1950’s. Robert was also “affiliated with the “Magnum Agency (Westbrook 5). The Magnum Agency was an agency that “supported photojournalists and negotiated to get them copy rights of their images, instead of the copy rights going to the publishers (Westbrook 5). In the mid 1920’s “Germany came up with the photojournalism magazine, a newspaper life magazine full of photography (Collins 2). Then came Life magazine created by Henry Luce who created two other magazines called “Time and Fortune . Life debuted in November of 1936 and was a photo magazine it would incorporate photos that told stories and “relied on photojournalism (Collins 4). There were many other look-a-like magazines that followed “Life like Look, See, Photo etc. but none of them were as successful as Life became to be (Collins 5).
In the late 1970’s Photojournalism became well known “exhibitions and retrospectives at museums and galleries they were popping up all over the country (Westbrook 6). A man named “Frank Luther Mott historian and dean of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, he came up with the term Photojournalism (Collins 3). Photojournalism is the use of photographs in conjunction with the reporting of the news: newspapers, magazines, television news and Internet reporting (Westbrook 1The main principles for being a journalist are “timeliness, accuracy, fair representation of facts and events and accountability (Westbrook 2). Journalists have to be “concerned with producing accurate news for the public (Westbrook 2). “Photojournalists are visual reporters, public places trust in its reporters to tell the truth, the same trust is extended to Photojournalists as visual reporters (Hancock 5).
A Photojournalist takes the best of the journalist’s stories and photographers photos and mashes them together into “the most powerful medium available- the frozen image (Hancock 1). To incorporate photos into stories brings a sense of importance, “pieces of writing without photos to the audience is incomplete (Westbrook 1). Giving the audience a story without photos is giving readers “half of the story (Westbrook 1). Consumers depend on Photojournalists to capture images that make them feel “connected to the far away realties and to be educated about those realties (Westbrook 1).
When photojournalists take a picture it should have a “cutline a “sentence that describes and explains the photo that can be place under the photo in printed sources. (Hancock 5). Photojournalists capture “verbs (Hancock 2). “They hunt verbs. They hunt them, shoot them and show them to their readers, then they hunt them again (Hancock 4). The difference between “Photographers and Photojournalists are that Photographers take pictures of nouns were as Photojournalists take pictures of verb, sometimes nouns but they have to tell a story (Hancock 5).
Photojournalism is not a “glam job it is a hard job, news never stops meaning photos are always being taken and stories always being written (Hancock 11). Between the years of 1990 to the year 2012 technology has changed profusely, and so has photojournalism. “Over the years, the assignments that a photojournalist shoots remains pretty constant, but the technology has changed and a photo that took five hours on wired service now takes a mere five seconds (Lent 3). The “photos quality have gotten remarkably better as the years go on as well (Lent 3).
Within this modern society digital and wireless have become key words in photojournalists words now. Having the ability to take a million photos on one camera and send then thousands of miles away in a click of a button. Digital photography “has opened up new doors for photojournalists. It increases the market and an accelerated pace for the transmission of news through photographic images. (Westbrook 7) Also with digital photographers “are not limited to film, the can have a thousand plus images on one camera.
Now with “wireless internet photojournalists can send images from the field to the editor within seconds of their capture. (Westbrook 7) With all this new technology meant more money being spent, with new equipment such as DSLR’s and computers that can keep up in software and with being in the field you are looking at 6,000 bucks (Lent 6). But what that 6,000 bucks can get you is images that are magnificent and having the ability to sent it to the editor in a blink of an eye. The future of Photojournalism looks bright; with technology always processing it will become even more advanced as time goes on.
The past is what has shaped our present and photography has evolved into so much more than just pictures; its stories and these photos represent so much more now with Photojournalism. All those men that created the little things that have brought this career and past time so famous and enjoyable. It is amazing how far it has come since this all started in 1000 A. D and now in 2012 photos are everywhere and have captured moments no one will ever want to remember, and sometime moments are captured that we just want to forget.
Bibliography:
Bellis, Mary. “History Of Photography.” About.com Inventors. About.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. .
Collins, Ross. “History of Photography and Photojournalism.” A Brief History of Photography and Photojournalism. NDSU. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. .
Hancock, Mark. “PhotoJournalism.” : What Is a Photojournalist? Web. 30 Apr. 2012. .
Langton, Loup. “Brief History of Photojournalism in the United States.” Photojournalism and Today’s News: Creating Visual Reality. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. 13-45. Print.
Lent, Mark. “How Digital Technology Has Changed Photojournalism.” From Adorama Learning Center. Adorama Learning Center, 9 Mar. 2010. Web. 30 Apr. 2012. .
Westbrook, Dillon. “Â Photography Schools.” A Brief History of Photojournalism. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.
