Can photojournalism survive in the age of digital media - Essay Example

Can photojournalism survive in the age of digital media In the words of Ansel Adams, an American photographer, "Photography, as a powerful medium ofexpression and communications, offers an infinite variety of perception, interpretation and execution." There is absolutely no denying the fact that words can tell us the facts but photos can do much more than that. The emotional impact created by a photo is much stronger than words and that's why they say that a picture can speak a thousand words. Photojournalism is a way to capture those moments that may communicate with the viewers in the most effective way. "The roots of photojournalism can be traced to the beginning of humankind-to that time when seeing clearly could literally mean the difference between life and death" [7]. It implies the fact that the concept of visual story telling has always been there and innumerable people have always been interested in these stories. However, by definition, photojournalism is a form of journalism in which photographs play a more important role than the accompanying text [1]. What it means is that though text is also accompanied with the pictures but the major emphasis will always be on photographs. The duty of a journalist is to tell stories, whereas, a photographer has to take pictures on important occasions. A photojournalist is a combination of both. But, just like print journalism, there's a large variety of what people can do. There are people who spend an afternoon at the scene of a bank robbery, and there are people who spend a few months undercover, working menial jobs to see if you can get by if your job is with Walmart or Target [2]. So, there can be some variations in what different photojournalists actually focus on. However, the fact remains that all types of photos can create a great impact on the lives of people. In fact, along with influencing the life of a viewer, photographs also affect the life of a photographer and photojournalist. For instance, a very famous photo was taken by Kevin Carter showing a young Sudanese child dying while a vulture standing close to the child, waiting. Though Kevin won a Pulitzer Prize for capturing this moment but he was also criticized for not saving the child. After this entire incident, Kevin Carter moved to Africa and committed suicide. Though several reasons could be held responsible for his suicide but the photograph was surely one of them. That is to show you that photographs can actually change the entire way of thinking and reacting to a particular situation. Though photojournalism remains to be a strong medium of combining images with text to thoroughly explore a specific subject but there are certain things that are actually proving to be a threat to its existence. It is actually because of all those threats that people are compelled to think as if photojournalism can survive in the age of digital media or not. This essay is all about delving more into the details to uncover the future of photojournalism. Basically, this essay talks about those implications that are to be faced by photojournalists because of the advancement in world of digital media. The approach herein is to find those problems to make a conclusion that the need to have professional photojournalists is still as powerful as it was in past. Survival of photojournalism in the age of digital media: While contemplating on the threats associated with the photojournalism, it is not hard to comprehend that the availability of digital cameras is the single most important reason behind the downfall of photojournalism. It is so because only professional photojournalists were supposed to cover certain news stories but things are no longer the same as now there is a big supply of amateur photojournalists. It is due to these circumstances that lots of photojournalists have complained about newspapers for not hiring professional photographers for the job. In fact, there are some cases where photojournalists have been fired to reapply for the same job only to make them work for lower remunerations. In the words of Horst Fass from Associated Press, "what I think is in danger is the news photographer. When I started, I wanted to be a news photographer, a journalist. I had no idea how to take pictures for advertising or weddings. Today it seems that a man who makes his living taking pictures can't earn his money from news photography - it just doesn't pay enough". Actually, you can find a lot of people becoming amateur journalists just because of the easy availability of digital cameras and mobile phone cameras. Today, professional photographic storytellers are competing with the millions--strong army of amateur photographers whose work is housed on Flickr, which editors cull for cheap or free images, and the rise of amateur-supplied agencies, including iStockphoto--owned by the largest stock agency of them all, Getty Images. There are also outlets that claim to separate the digital wheat from the chaff, like PhotoShelter, a "global stock marketplace," or the IRa Magazine, which threshes out a few hundred images submitted by Web amateurs and publishes them on paper [5]. Though this wave of digital cameras has increased the number of amateur photographer but it has also helped professional photographers in some ways. For instance, professional photojournalists can now take as many pictures as possible without even spending hours in darkrooms to develop photographs. But, at the end of the day that's not the right way of handling the entire process of photojournalism. Since a digital camera allows taking several pictures within a few seconds, the quality of picture and the moment is not the focus of photographer and that's what most amateur photojournalists are doing today. Although it is hurting photojournalism but when it comes to quality, it is easy to see professional photojournalists having an upper hand. To become a real photojournalist, you don't need a quality digital camera but an expert eye and hours to create a series of impressive snapshots. As photography demands sheer amount of patience, amateur photographers are just unable to produce quality work and that's why the true photojournalism can still survive. Apart from digital cameras, the introduction of television is another reason why the existence of photojournalism is supposed to be under serious jeopardy. Moving images are now more in demand as that's what most people love to see. Although the threat is too big to handle with ease but the good thing is that photojournalism has always responded in a great way by reinventing itself. The biggest thing in this regard is the professionalism of photojournalist in capturing such images which may attract more people even in this age of digital media. This can be done by giving a quality and thoughtful picture to target audience with the time to contemplate in order to find a right meaning. That's where still images have slight edge over the moving images as people tend to remember still images for longer period of time. It is not possible with television or moving images and that's why photojournalism is still managing to keep up with the modern day changes. Another thing hurting photojournalism is the unavailability of a space in magazines. When you will delve more into the details pertaining to this particular fact, you will see that more magazines are published today but they don't encourage photojournalists to submit their work. It is so because most magazines are only concerned with their profit margin and that's why they stuff their magazine with celebrity pictures. Though it is a fact that photojournalists have always been looking for magazines to publish their work but now a photojournalist no longer looks to magazines for support. There were signs of what was to come as early as the 1950s, when W Eugene Smith's battles with Life over its treatment of his work led him to seek magazines outside the mainstream in order to get his work published. His Pittsburgh essay, the culmination of over two years of photographing the city was published in Popular Photography. Smith's experience foreshadows the development of documentary photography outside the press. In the early 1980s, Eugene Richards found that no magazine would publish his harrowing personal account of his wife's struggle with breast cancer until he approached American Photographer [3]. So, you can see that though you can see magazines to not buy photojournalistic images by paying a reasonable amount of money but photo journalists are able to find other mediums to survive in this world of cutthroat competition. Here, it is also crucial to mention that the increase in amateur photographers and digital cameras is not bad in all situations. In fact, the use of technology has helped amateurs to capture some of the terrific moments that can not be caught otherwise. For instance, photographs from Abu Ghraib were taken by the US soldiers. But, it is also a reality that amateur photographers just can not fulfill the demands of a particular situation before clicking the button. If you will check the picture of a Serbian paramilitary commando with the bodies of just executed Muslim civilians during the first battle in Bosnia, Bilijenia (1992) or a picture of Muslim and Croatian prisoners of war, Manjaca (1992) or a photograph where a child cries at his father's funeral, Croatia (1991), you will realize what a professional photographer can do with his camera [6]. That's the point where amateur photographers can do nothing. But, with the increase in number of amateur photographers and possibility of tampering with the images by making use of computer it has become difficult to make people believe in your work. That's one of the problems being faced by professional photojournalists in today's age of digital media. There was a time when readers believe every still image they see. It is only because of the knowledge of the fact that no tampering can be done with these images. That was the era of analogue photographs. Digital photographs have changed things for good and have contributed a lot in making people skeptical about the authenticity of every photograph. Also, credibility is damaged every time a reputable news organization is caught lying to the public and one of the most blatant and widely recognized cases was the computer enhancement of the TIME Magazine cover photo of O. J. Simpson. TIME took the mug shot of Simpson when he was arrested and changed it before using it on their cover. They would not have been caught if NEWSWEEK had not used the same photo on their cover photo just as it had come from the police. The two covers showed up on the news stands next to each other and the public could see something was wrong. TIME darkened the handout photo creating a five o'clock shadow and a more sinister look. They darkened the top of the photo and made the police lineup numbers smaller [4]. With these types of incidents it becomes difficult for people to trust any of the images. Manipulation with the grammar of photography was not possible in past when nothing was digital and that's was the time when photojournalism was at its very best. With the blessings of this digital age, it has now become possible for people to record life not in the way as it happens but in the way they want it to happen. Now, it is because of this mistrust that there is a demand building up for professional photojournalists who know about the duties and the ethics to work in this field. But, one thing is for sure that the future of photojournalism is bright but a future photojournalist will have to have a good command over other relevant concepts including computerized pagination processes, web designing and more. Conclusion: After going through the aforementioned details, it becomes quite obvious that people proclaiming the death of photojournalism are not justified in saying so. Though there is no doubt about the fact that the methods of taking photographs and the way of gathering and distributing information has changed a lot but photojournalism can still survive just by making fine adjustments. Also, it is worth mentioning that it is only because of survival that today the photographer looks to other sources of funding for support - book-publishing, galleries (as the boundaries between art and journalism blur) and grants (photographers' proposal-writing now has to be as good as their photography). Moreover, the availability of lots of websites is another good option for these professional photojournalists to showcase their work along with making some money out of it. In fact, there are lots of photojournalists who have already started to take internet as a way to express themselves. To get a glimpse of it, just type in the word "photojournalism" in Google, the most popular search engine, you will be amazed to see that there are millions of sites related to photojournalism, containing all sorts of photojournalistic images. What it means is that photojournalism is still as ubiquitous as it was in past. Also, this example actually makes it clear that there are some benefits of digital technologies to photojournalism and if used in the right way, photojournalism can still thrive in a better way. What it means is that instead of cursing new technology, it is important for photojournalist to make use of it in the optimum way. A digital camera in the hands of a professional photojournalist can work wonders as he can not only capture some of the extraordinary moments but can also send images anywhere in the world in not more than a few seconds. But, it is another reality that demand in future will be higher for those photojournalists who may have experience and knowledge of audio, video, writing, design and of course, the basic digital camera skills. What it implies is that photojournalism is no longer 2D but it has now moved to 3D and 4D. This world is all about the survival of the fittest. If photojournalists want to live to tell the tale, they must hone their communication skills along with keeping up with the changing trends and technology. Surely, photojournalism and technology can go alongside and that's what should always be kept into perspective. The bottom line is that as an art of visual story telling, you are not going to see an end of photojournalism. In fact, from an aesthetic and stylistic perspective things were never so good for photojournalism especially considering the fact that there are thousands of academies offering photojournalism education only to encourage people to opt for this career. For photojournalism as an occupation, there are some challenges for photojournalists to deal with but they can make slight changes to their working process to make a living out of it. That's the reason why it is said that photojournalism can still survive in the age of digital media. 1. "Photo Journalism Definition". MSN Encarta. http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861725788/photojournalism.html 2. "What is photojournalism anyway" "What is photojournalism anyway" Conscientious-Jrg Colberg's weblog about fine-art photography. Oct 30, 2008. http://www.jmcolberg.com/weblog/2008/10/what_is_photojournalism_anyway.html 3. "The Seeing Eye: photojournalism in a digital age photography". Bint Photobooks on Internet. Nov 9, 2008. http://bintphotobooks.blogspot.com/2008/11/seeing-eye-photojournalism-in.html 4. Long, John. "Ethics in the Age of Digital Photography". National Press Photographers Association. Sep, 1999. http://www.nppa.org/professional_development/self-training_resources/eadp_report/eadptxt.html 5. Quart, Alissa. "Flickring out: what will become of photojournalism in an age of bytes and amateurs(IN MEDIA RES)." Columbia Journalism Review. Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism. 2008. HighBeam Research. 26 Apr. 2009 . 6. The power of pictures: photojournalism in the digital age. April 24, 2001. The Freedom Forum European Centre 7. Newton, Julianne H. (2001) The Burden of Visual Truth: the role of photojournalism in mediating reality Erlbaum , Mahwah, NJ Read More