Photojournalism

As a profession, photojournalism is dedicated to telling a story with pictures. The term was coined by Cliff Edom, a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, who taught the first class in photojournalism. Photojournalism was born in the mid-nineteenth century as the technologies of cameras and photo-processing advanced and photography could be used to visually record the realities of war and important events as they happened. Certain iconic photographs have become cultural symbols, such as Dorothea Lange’s "Migrant Mother" (1936), which depicts a destitute mother and her children during the Great Depression; "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" (1945) by Joe Rosenthal; or the many recognizable pictures of the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001. Photojournalists have frequently become crusaders, launching campaigns that have led to historic social changes. Traditionally, photojournalists have been trained in both journalism and the use of camera techniques, but the digital revolution has produced what has come to be known as the citizen photojournalist, as new technology allows anyone with a smart phone or camera-enabled mobile device to take pictures as events occur.

Brief History

In 1851 Scott Archer of Britain developed the process of wet-plate photography, which allowed for the production multiple copies of a single photograph. Subsequently, British photographers Roger Fenton and William Simpson broke new ground by photographing the Crimean War (1853–56). In the United States, photojournalism was born during the Civil War when General George McClellan named Captain Alexander Gardner as his official photographer. Gardner’s partner, Matthew Brady, with whom he owned a portrait studio, received permission from President Abraham Lincoln to take battlefield photographs. Brady dispatched Alexander Gardner and James Gibson to Maryland to photograph the war. The two captured the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862. That battle was the bloodiest day Americans had ever experienced. When it was over, thousands of men lay dead on the battlefield, and the actual devastation was depicted in photographs rather than in paintings or drawings.

Despite the use of photography in warfare, most newspapers continued to use either illustrations or woodgrains to accompany stories. Between 1880 and 1897, however, photography continued to evolve and the first half-tone photograph was printed in the New York Daily Graphic on March 4, 1880. By the turn of the twentieth century, the process of half-tone reproduction was widely used, and newspaper publishers were able to accompany all news stories with photographs. The introduction of flash powder in 1887 improved the quality of photographs used by photojournalists

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the work of journalists who became known as "muckrakers" was instrumental in initiating many of the reforms of the Progressive Era. Jacob Riis used photojournalism to portray the realities of urban poverty in 1890 in How the Other Half Lives. Lewis Hine employed photojournalism to illustrate the need for reforms in areas such as child labor and immigration policy. In 1906 author Upton Sinclair included photographs of Chicago’s meatpacking plants in his novel The Jungle, which led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration and to new laws on food and drug production and worker safety.

Photography became increasingly important in defining the significance of major events. For example, in 1876 the Brooklyn Theater in New York caught fire, causing the deaths of 297 people. News stories on the about the even were accompanied by a single illustration, and little was done to make theaters safer. In 1911 the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire. Supervisors had locked doors to keep workers from leaving the building without permission, and 146 women were killed. By that time, new technologies allowed new stories to be illustrated with actual photographs. The horrors of the Triangle Factory Fire, starkly depicted in photographs, led to changes in state fire and safety laws.

The 1920s and 1930s are considered the golden age of photojournalism due in large part to the introduction of the Leica camera, thirty-five millimeter film, and flash bulbs. As the field continued to evolve, the names of some photojournalists became internationally known. War correspondent Robert Capa (1913–1954) used his camera to capture the realities of five wars: the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II, the Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War. Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898–1995) photographed everyone from statesmen like Winston Churchill and John Kennedy to celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Sophia Loren. Margaret Bourke-White (1904–42) started the first photography lab at Life magazine. She became known for her ability to be in the right place at the right time, and her famous photographs included one taken of Mohandas Gandhi only hours before his assassination on January 30, 1948. Bourke-White had also been on hand to photograph the Battle of Moscow in 1941. W. Eugene Smith (1918–78) established his reputation by photographing World War II by sea, land, and air. His experiences led him into becoming a fierce proponent of social justice. Photography has continued to be an important component of journalism ever since.

Overview

In the 1960s, the field of photojournalism expanded to include the citizen photojournalist who just happened to be present with a camera when a major event took place. The first of the citizen photojournalists was Abraham Zapruder, an amateur photographer who was filming President John Kennedy’s visit to Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Zapruder captured events of the day that were later used in the investigation of the president’s assassination. A similar opportunity occurred in 1991 when a bystander filmed the savage beating of Rodney King by police officers in Los Angeles, turning a public spotlight on police brutality and the racism that continues to be a major problem in many police departments.

In the twenty-first century, anyone with a smartphone or other mobile device with a camera is able to take spontaneous photographs of ongoing events. The emergence of the citizen photojournalist has had a devastating impact on the field of photojournalism, as has the decline of newspapers and print magazines. Because of the digital revolution, roughly half of the adult population of the United States creates their own photographs and videos and posts them on the Internet via social media, personal and group websites, and YouTube. Citizen photojournalists have been instrumental in capturing real-life events, particularly since 2014 when many bystanders have captured the unnecessary deaths of a number of young black males at the hands of white police officers. The downside of the ubiquity of amateur photography is that the likelihood of faked photographs has also increased significantly since there are no professional standards governing the field.

The Great Recession of 2007–2009 also played havoc with the profession of photojournalism, and many news-reporting venues have abolished entire departments, expecting reporters with smart phones to fill the gap. Venues that have abolished photojournalism departments include such giants in the field as CNN, Sports Illustrated, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In other cases, photojournalists have experienced pay cuts and reduced hours. Such actions have led to the frequently expressed fear that professional photojournalism may be on its way to becoming obsolete.

Bibliography

Berger, Martin A. Freedom Now!: Forgotten Photographs of the Civil Rights Struggle. Berkeley: U of California P, 2013. Print.

Guerrero Garcia, Virginia and Bella Palomo. "The Crisis of Photojournalism: Rethinking the Profession in a Participatory Media Ecosystem." Communication and Society 28.4 (2015): 33–48. Print.

Hariman, Robert. No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007. Print.

Harris, John M. "Truthful as the Record of Heaven." Southern Cultures 19.3 (2013): 79–94. Print.

Jensen, Robin E., Erin F. Doss, and Rebecca Ivic. "Metaphorical Invention in Early Photojournalism: New York Times Coverage of the 1876 Brooklyn Theater Fire and the 1911 Shirtwaist Factory Fire." Critical Studies in Media Communication 28.4 (2011): 334–352. Print.

Kamber, Michael. Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq. Austin: U of Texas P, 2013. Print.

Langton, Loup. Photojournalism and Today’s News: Creating Visual Reality. Malden: Wiley, 2009. Print.

Lucaites, John Louis and Robert Hariman. "Visual Rhetoric, Photojournalism, and Democratic Public Culture. Rhetoric Review 20.1/2 (2001): 37–43. Print.