![\"Question](\"\/alc\/wp-content\/uploads\/alc_images\/article12375_0.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLet\u2019s take a trip in the wayback machine and look at photojournalism technology of the not-too-distant past, and revel in the progress that has been made.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1990 was the year that Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and a small company called Microsoft released an operating system called \u201cWindows 3.0\u201d at a time when the only people who really knew what an operating system was were carrying their slide rulers in their pocket-protected shirts.<\/p>\n
What do all of these have in common? Simple, the photos that the wire services sent out to newspapers around the world when covering these events took 40 minutes to transmit- per photo. The quality was poor, the connections unreliable and 20 years ago photojournalists like me thought it was the bomb. Little did we know that the revolution in imaging was just beginning and a mere 20 years later, those same photos are transmitted in seconds, are full color and of a quality level that kills those 1990 images.<\/p>\n
![\"Press](\"\/alc\/wp-content\/uploads\/alc_images\/article12375_1.jpg\")
Over the years, the Assignments that a photojournalist shoots remain pretty constant, but the technology has changed from 1990 to 2010 and a photo that once took five hours to send to the wire service now takes seconds. The quality level between those 1990 images and now has gotten remarkably better too.<\/p>\n
In 1990, to \u201ccut wire<\/b>\u201d, or transmit a photo to the wire services<\/i>, you had to first shoot the image on film, take an hour or so to process and dry the film, then go into the darkroom to edit and print the image, another hour; type the caption on a typewriter using pressure sensitive labels, attach the caption to the side of the image, another hour because it had to be perfect, and \u201cwhite out\u201d messed up the transmitter. Then transmit the image to the AP, another 40 minutes IF it transmitted perfectly. One little \u201chit\u201d in the line (black lines that would show up in the image due to analog line noise) and you had to start all over again, because there was no way to correct the image.<\/p>\n
Just the time to physically produce the photo and send it on telephone lines was an incredible 3 hours and 40 minutes, assuming the process went perfectly (which, it seldom did). If you include an average amount of time to travel to and from the location and shooting the images, you\u2019ve gone well over five hours to produce ONE image. Yet, at the time, we photojournalists were tickled with the technology.<\/p>\n
Little did we know.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go waaaay back…<\/p>\n
I grin now when thinking about this because the first \u201cdigital\u201d photography I was exposed to was in 1984, when I was invited as a guest to the photo lab on Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. There, they had film printers that had small TV monitors that showed the image on the negative as a positive. The image could also be color-corrected, and those changes would show on the screen as well. When you had the picture adjusted to your liking, you hit a \u201cprint\u201d button and a nice, 4×6 inch print popped out of the machine.<\/p>\n
![\"Basketball](\"\/alc\/wp-content\/uploads\/alc_images\/article12375_2.jpg\")
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A \u201cSpecial\u201d photo<\/b>: Occasionally, other newspapers would request a photo within your coverage area, and this was called a \u201cspecial\u201d and had to be marked as such, with the requesting newspaper\u2019s name and approving editor. Here is an example of one of these images that I shot during the state basketball championships at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Note too that the caption information is made with a typewriter and is cut from the paper and taped to the photograph to ensure that the information is sent with the photo. On this shot, I apparently mis-numbered this print and wrote the correction in by hand.<\/p>\n
Then, the first digital camera I saw was a huge thing that Kodak and the Associated Press developed in the early 1990\u2019s. It was .8 of a megapixel (note the singularity of that word\u2026), weighed in at about 10 pounds, most of which was battery, and took all of the Nikon lenses that most photojournalists used at that time. It also cost about $32,000 per camera. I was shown the compact flash card and I ignorantly asked the tech, based on my earlier \u201cdigital\u201d experience, \u201chow do you process it?\u201d, not realizing that brown fingernails from photo chemicals was a thing of the past with truly digital images. I had assumed that once the image was made, you had to plug the card into a device similar to the printer on Eglin to make a print. And surprisingly, as stupid as this sounds now, it wasn\u2019t that uncommon in 1990 for a working photojournalist to have a question like this.<\/p>\n
I mean, I was tech savvy…I owned a Commodore 64 with the audio cassette tape drive and telenetted into my college\u2019s mainframe server on an 800 baud modem. And at work, we used Radio Shack TRS-80\u2019s (lovingly called \u201cTrash-80\u2019s\u201d by those of us who used them), which you just about needed a PhD in programming to work correctly. Radio Shack is high-tech, right?<\/p>\n
![\"Leafax\"](\"\/alc\/wp-content\/uploads\/alc_images\/article12375_3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Shortly before 1990, the Associated Press introduced the Leafax, a mobile computer system that photographers could take with them. The Leafax contained a scanner, a small 5-inch monitor, and phone connections to allow the digital images to be transmitted. All of this technology was permanently embedded into a metal case that was the size of a small suitcase. The machine could use either color or black and white film, both of which had to be calibrated by using a clear section of that film stock for the scanner to do the calibration before making your actual scans.<\/p>\n
The Leafax also loved underexposed negatives; images that were important but underexposed would be run through a Leafax prior to publication. The system was bulky, even though it was portable. It was also cumbersome to operate and according to my notes, had a total of 18 steps needed to scan an image and transmit it. It was a quantum leap in quality, but the transmission speeds were still quite slow, and most Leafax owners had a \u201cspooler\u201d that worked as a hard drive to save the scanned images to, so that multiple images could be transmitted in succession.<\/p>\n
\u201cHits\u201d in the image due to noise being introduced into the phone line for analog transmission also became a thing of the past because the image was scanned and saved to a digital file. Rather than the image itself being transmitted, the file of the scanned image was transmitted. And while this may seem like splitting hairs, there\u2019s really a significant difference.<\/p>\n
![\"AP](\"\/alc\/wp-content\/uploads\/alc_images\/article12375_4.jpg\")
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An example of the AP Leafax\/Laserphoto- This became the next generation of image from the AP. Note that the caption is made electronically and there\u2019s much more information available to the viewer of the print.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how to \u201cread\u201d an AP photo<\/b>:<\/p>\n
\u201cTAL109\u201d Stands for the 9th photo transmitted from Talladega. There is a differentiation between the AP images transmitted and those from the local newspaper, The Talladega Daily Home. AP photos always started with the number \u201c100\u201d and increased incrementally while the locally produced photos started with \u201c01\u201d. So, if the Daily Home shot this and transmitted it, it would read \u201cTAL01\u201d<\/p>\n
July 25th 1993 the date that the image was transmitted to member newspapers (which wasn\u2019t always the date that the photo was made).<\/p>\n
TALLADEGA, AL USA\u2014NASCAR is the dateline, or location where the image was made, the country the image was made in and a subject \u201cslug\u201d that allowed editors to review images by subject matter.<\/p>\n
(AP Photo\/ Mark Lent)<\/b> is the name of the publication or wire service that shot the image and the photographer.<\/p>\n
CREDIT<\/b>: AP by Mark Lent is a request for a mandatory credit line by member papers for that image. In some instances, the image would read \u201cMANDATORY CREDIT\u201d and \u201cOut\u201d specific publications, such as magazines or television. There were differing reasons for doing this, most often to protect the publishing rights of the publication who produced the image.<\/p>\n
SLUG<\/b>: Neil Bonnett is an additional slug used for persons of interest within the event. In this case, it was NASCAR driver Neil Bonnett\u2019s first race out of retirement.<\/p>\n
(SJN DFM) SJN<\/b> is the initials of the photo editor in Washington, D.C. who reviewed the image and DFM is the initials of the photographer who sent the image from the speedway to Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
APLEAFDESK<\/b>: Means that the image was generated using a Leafax and sent digitally to the national photo desk and retransmitted digitally to member newspapers via satellite, where it showed up on the \u201cpicturedesk\u201d computer at each members location.<\/p>\n
![\"Registration](\"\/alc\/wp-content\/uploads\/alc_images\/article12375_5.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Is a \u201cregistration mark<\/b>\u201d. Note that there are four within this image. This was used by the press department at each publication to line-up the Magenta, Yellow and Cyan printers (AP didn\u2019t transmit a \u201cBlack\u201d printer on Laserphotos). Each of these images was placed onto a different negative and had to overlap each other when printing in order to make the color register and look correct. While the marks were helpful, they were often too crude to ensure proper registration and technicians who were known as \u201ccolor strippers\u201d would drop the image negative onto the pressroom page negative and match the images up using a magnification loop.<\/p>\n
\u201cMagenta<\/b>\u201d is the designation for which printer that image was. Normally, full-color printing at newspapers is known as \u201cfour color printing\u201d and means that the image has a plate for Yellow, Magenta, Cyan and Black to make a full color image (Those images were also printed lightest ink to darkest ink as well and where the term \u201cCMYK\u201d comes from. The \u201cK\u201d for black actually stood for \u201cKarbon\u201d, a super-black ink in the early days of printing that was carbon-based.<\/p>\n
The gray scale on the image was also used by the press department at each newspaper to ensure that the full tonality of the image was being produced. Press departments would often use densitometers to measure the gray scale to ensure that the image was producing all of the needed tone information.<\/p>\n
By the mid 1990\u2019s most newspapers had the ability to receive photos from the Associated Press digitally by satellite, and editors could view, manipulate and publish these images without making a print of the image. Local images, though, were mostly being shot with traditional film cameras because the technology was still very expensive\u2014a good digital SLR was upwards of $10,000 and didn\u2019t have a quality level that matched film. Most newspapers compromised and shot film, then scanned it with Kodak and Polaroid film scanners on Macs. At that time, a PowerMac with 40MB of RAM, a 4MB, 24 bit \u201ctrue\u201d color graphics and an 80 MgHtz processor with a 1 GB hard drive would set you back about $6,000 and was a smokin\u2019 hot Photoshop 2.0 machine.<\/p>\n
![\"NIkon](\"\/alc\/wp-content\/uploads\/alc_images\/article12375_6.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
I\u2019d shot film for several years after this, but in 2002, I read an ad for the new Nikon D100 digital camera, an amazing 6.1MP SLR that was a mere $1,700. I had to have one, and when it was delivered, I felt as if I had the Holy Grail itself in my hands. It amazed me so much that I shot over 1,000 images with it the very first day I had it. I quickly learned though that I needed to shoot those images judiciously, because after shooting, I still had to edit and print\u2026 and going through 1,000 images takes a while!<\/p>\n
The mechanics of digital imaging in photojournalism have been hammered out, though, and what seemed almost science fiction in 1990 is now common for the working photojournalist, who can transmit \u201cfull frame\u201d images from camera to laptop while they\u2019re shooting. The laptop images can be automatically placed into a que and transmitted to the publication almost instantly via FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and the Internet. Within a minute of being shot, a photo editor can look at images and make decisions about photo play and coverage while the photographer continues to cover the event. Images can also be sent to the publication\u2019s web site, where they are automatically uploaded to a page that\u2019s created on-the-fly using ASPX and AJAX programming.<\/p>\n
Fast Forward<\/p>\n
In the past 20 years, the abilities of the working photojournalist have changed almost as much as the technology. What editors once considered a \u201clow-tech\u201d job has become one of the most technically demanding positions at any media outlet. The modern photojournalist must be an IT manager, writer, videographer, video and photo editor, webmaster, and computer repair technician\u2026and oh yeah, they have to be technically accomplished photographers, too. Since photographers often work alone and away from their offices, having all of these abilities becomes crucial because you can\u2019t send for the publication\u2019s IT staff 250 miles away when you\u2019re having issues with your laptop, Internet, or workflow.<\/p>\n
Educational requirements have changed as well. I was 16 years old and in high school when I started my first job as a photojournalist, and one of the editors snidely commented that \u201ctrained chimps\u201d could go out and \u201ctake pictures\u201d (rather than thoughtfully making them, which is the way I prefer to look at this. Even at 16, I found his ignorance for a profession that he worked so closely with amazing). Now, media companies require a minimum of a college degree and many prefer a graduate degree as well.<\/p>\n
Photographers used to major in photography or photojournalism and minor in history, government or political science. Now, they minor in programming, telecommunications and film (engineering track) or computer science.<\/p>\n
In spite of all these changes, the core of the profession has remained the same: to record the human condition as openly and honestly as you can. Photojournalism is more than megapixels and binary ones and zeros with digital signaling. It\u2019s a process of thought and emotion from people who are not only trained in all of those technical aspects, but are caring and involved documentarians who identify and capture the essence of their subject in many different types of media with many different situations on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
How has technology changed how you work? Share your story in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let\u2019s take a trip in the wayback machine and look at photojournalism technology of the not-too-distant past, and revel in the progress that has been made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341,"featured_media":20911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[639,17815],"tags":[376,1767,721],"class_list":["post-3226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to","category-news","tag-dslr-376","tag-focus-on-photojournalism-1767","tag-photojournalism-721"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n