Photojournalism's Changing Face

I was convinced I wanted to be a photojournalist. The fascination with photography hit me when I was young. With nothing more than an "instamatic" camera I came to love the thrill of the darkroom. The camera and picture taking was almost secondary to watching the image emerge in the dark room. The smell that permeated my skin well after washing up, was my badge of pride. I was never an art photographer and in the early days simply wanted to document my life for myself. I rarely created the perfect black and white image, could spend hours looking through a window into a different time and place. While the technology was black and white, I could see colors, I could see stories, I was in effect traveling in my mind and the photograph was the catalyst.

By the time I went to college, I learned to love the art of taking a mediocre shot and manipulating it to improve its story telling ability. I got serious about my craft and ultimately became photo editor of the daily campus paper. The challenge was to come up with an interesting photo every single day. The stress and pressure was huge. If we actually had news on campus we could have used a photo of that, but more often than not the assignment was "find something pretty" which I always found easier said than done.

One time I was assigned to take a photo shoddy maintenance in the dorm. There was a smoke detector coming out of the wall. When I arrived with the reporter we saw it was indeed unconnected, but it was a horribly boring photo. So, we helped the smoke detector become a little more unattached. We got ratted out and were criticized for manufacturing news. Guilty as charge. It didn't happen again but all news is manufactured and all news photographs have always been manipulated.

Everything from taking the picture to how it gets manipulated in the dark room, helps improve the photo and enhance the story. But to those who think press photography is simply fact, you are wrong.

I went on in my pursuit of a photojournalist career working internships, for small weeklies and ultimately I worked in the dark room for the Associated Press during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. While the AP photographers got all the glory (probably imagined glory), it was the dark room rats that took the image the final mile before it appeared around the world (at least that was my perspective).

Most people would assume that photojournalism is the most factual element of news reporting. How could you add subjectivity to a photograph? Capture the image and print it in the paper--seemingly little room for opinion or bias. Not true. When you factor in selective editing, camera tricks and darkroom manipulation there has always been plenty of room to tell the photographic story you want to tell.

The most common technique in days of old was dodging and burning which added or subtracted light to influence or obscure aspects of the image. I recently looked at a book from the 1980s that cataloged 25 years of photographs from the Boston Globe, and I was reminded just how highly manipulated old school photography used to be. Fast forward to the computer age and the advent of photo editing software.

Today manipulation is much easier to do and to hide from the viewer. The burning and dodging from the last century are as dated as drawing with a chisel. I'm sure today's legitimate news agency have clear guidelines about what techniques can and cannot be used, but I see them just as a new tool to help tell the news story. I think it would be silly to demand news organizations to only publish photo-editing free photographs.

I recently worked with a photo shot from the top of the Empire State Building. I was up top as the sun set and a full moon rose over the Chrysler Building. Frankly it was a relatively ordinary shot until I started using the computer to tell the story. I manipulated the color, the cropping, I lightened some elements and darkened other. I turned up the color spigot to make the sunset even more obvious but I cursed the fact that the moon was too high in the sky to make it a good picture. Then I remembered. I had another shot of the moon taken over the San Francisco Bay. It was a much better moon shot. Why limit myself to a New York moon? So I dropped it in.

I'm glad I had my day as a photojournalist but rarely think twice about steering my career in a different direction. I still find myself staring at photographs and love the feeling I get transporting myself. I also like to read the paper especially for the pictures.

We live in a day when you shouldn't trust your own eyes. We live in a day when you should simply enjoy what your eyes see.

Example of altered press photo and the associated controversy. The LA Times states in their ethics policy that only minor digital adjustments are allowed unless the photo is labeled "photo illustration." Considering that the Wall St. Journal exclusively used illustrations for years, I don't have any problem with more photo illustrations.

October 23, 2009