There has been an obvious
change in the way in which photos are being transmitted from the early days of
photography to today's day. To think of how quick things can be done now is
amazing. When I first did my research on photogravure I spoke of the great deal
of time it took to print just one photo. Photogravure was a beautiful way of
printing images, but as the technological advances continued it became much
easier than that and much easier to transmit the photos all together.
The ability to send photos just as
they are taken is so fast in today’s world. The ease that the process of
wireless transmission has given photojournalists is amazing. In the Dallas News
article, they stated, “transmission times were painfully long.” They also
stated, “one color photo took a minimum of twenty six minutes to transmit.Sending internationally took twice as long, sometimes up to an hour per photo.”
Now could you really imagine waiting that long to transmit just one image? Well
they then came up with the Dixel, which transmitted a color photo within two to
three minutes. There was just one thing, “it was a travel nightmare, sofragile.” So yes, it was faster but also much more prone to breaking. Now with wire services photojournalists are
able to send photos almost instantly with their cameras and they are also able
to use their phone to take images and upload them instantly.
If
you imagine back in the beginning days
with no wireless transmission photojournalists needed to carry everything with
them. Before they needed to have a full van with their gear, then they needed a
strong back to carry everything, and now they simply need their camera
connected to a wireless transmission. The work it took to transmit photos
before wireless transmissions was incredible and we have to really admire the
work of photojournalist in that time. Even thinking of Robert Capa’s photos
being destroyed by the lab technician, if those photos were taking today it is
highly unlikely that that would have happened. The Magnificent Eleven article
stated, “a darkroom technician in haste, dried the film to quickly and theexcess heat melted the emulsion on all but ten of the frames.” Since photojournalist
no longer use dark rooms and with the wireless transmitters this would have
never happened, in fact we would have seen the images almost instantly today.
This shift to wireless transmission
has been beneficial to photojournalists for sure in making their jobs faster,
but is everything about it good? According to Porfessor Nordell, “withtechnology there’s amazing advances, but also there’s similar perils.” I agree
with this statement one hundred percent because though technology has helped
ease the jobs of photojournalists tremendously it has also put them in
dangerous situations. In the Syrian article they speak of photojournalist,
Marie Colvin who died when the Syrian government forces attacked the media
center she was working from. They stated, “Syria’s government has shownthemselves remarkably uninterested in whether an individual is a journalist ora rebel.” This puts photojournalist in great danger when using these wireless
transmitters because it means the government can track them down and kill them
as they did with Marie Colvin. So, I end this with is a photojournalists safety
worth the easy advances?
Photo by: Tiffany Mueller
Photo by RK Goth
Image Source: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/55127414
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