Running head: PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
Photojournalism, Technology, and Reproduction:
Study of the Technological Methods and Application Surrounding Photojournalistic Production
Jamil E. Wilkins
New Jersey Institute of Technology
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
|2
ABSTRACT
With each passing day, everyday people are becoming photojournalists and being influenced by
the art form as a result of the technologies of the 21st century, and they may not realize it or even
know why. The study explores the social and cultural impact of technology on photography
between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries and how that impact is currently being
reflected within photojournalistic practices. Through an analytic model of imbricate variables,
the study is driven by the common theme of visual rhetoric to connect the social, cultural,
emotional, and mnemonic aspects of the impact. Ultimately, by analyzing the brief history of art,
interpreting the technical reproduction of art, addressing the connection of reproduction with
photojournalism, and identifying how this connection relates to social media, the study will
determine if the technological, social, and cultural evolution of society is affecting the identity of
photojournalism in a way that transformed photography; thus, uncovering its persuasion on our
everyday lives, outlook, and activity.
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
|3
INTRODUCTION
French painter Paul Delaroche’s response upon seeing a daguerreotype for the first time in 1839
was a declaration that painting from that day on would be dead. Painting, however, was able to
survive Delaroche’s notice as well as the journey through time, serving as a competitor with
distinctive subjectivity to the objective nature of photography. So, not only did the art form of
painting survive the cultural and social changes brought on by the spark of photographic images,
but it became more accessible through a means to nurture that technology. Photography in its
early stage was a technical means supported through art to provide civilization with a method for
better relating to life, society, and the environment. To better comprehend photojournalism is to
identity the subjective nature of oil painting and the objective nature of photography.
The study examines the technological changes that gave rise to new methods for
incorporating art into the world along with redefining photography’s agenda and purpose.
Through technical reproduction paintings and photography had evolved from an art form into an
instrument for influencing and transforming society across time and space. Around the same
time, between 1880 and 1897, photography was compromised by a verbal mediation to introduce
the practice of illustrating news stories with photographs that we know as photojournalism.
Photojournalism, a tool representing more than a snapshot, highlighted a unique aspect of society
that made it seem invulnerable to the impact of reproduction methods. Online culture would soon
prove to change that. A powerful medium, indeed; but when this new medium triumphed over its
predecessor in a given function, that did not mean photography shriveled up and died (Levinson,
1997, p. 48). Just as time and necessity allowed photography to give birth to photojournalism the
offspring of technology and democratic culture produced documentary photography.
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
|4
Because photojournalism intrinsically appears to have been unscathed by the spell of technical
reproduction, the study will examine how the technological methods and their application
surrounding the (re)production of art between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries affected
the way modern day viewers see and composers use photojournalism of today.
What’s being looked at in this study is the history and development of oil painting and
photography to understand the makeup of photojournalism, the cultural and social changes
brought on by oil painting and photography through technical reproduction, the results of
technical reproduction as they relate to photojournalistic practices from the beginning of the 21st
century to today, and the application, effectiveness, and consequences of photojournalism in
social media that relate to reproduction methods.
I -- BEHIND THE SCENES
To better comprehend the identity of photojournalism we must (1) uncover the pictorial birth of
its existence, (2) observe the medium in its purest form of our time, and (3) separate that form
into the subjective and objective personalities that are familiar to us through oil painting and
photography [specifically analogue].
Pictorial birth
Levinson (1997) speaks of photographs appearing three hundred years after the wellestablishment of print to serve as a societal corrective. The so-called corrective is the connection
between comprehension and interpretation of the realistic representations of the visual world that
date back to prehistoric communication. For example, along the lines of primitive reproduction –
because they can be drawn more quickly, by more people, to represent more things – is initially
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
|5
communicating with quickly-drawn stick figures and symbols of aspects surrounding human
existence (e.g., landscapes and animals). Think of how these pictographs evolved into
hieroglyphics and then the alphabet. Pictography, a form of writing deriving from pictogram, a
graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept to convey its meaning through its pictorial
resemblance to a physical object, carries with it both verbal and visual properties (p. 38). My
findings have shown me that the verbal evolution of pictograms, or pictographs, brought about
the power of the word and the visual evolution gave rise to the visual rhetoric. Another way of
looking at this process is imagining pictographs separating into words and images; the words
eventually forming into journalism and the images into photography, respectively advancing to
eventually reform into its evolved state. I’ll just focus on the visual aspect for this study.
What is Photojournalism?
Photojournalism, a branch of photography, is a form of journalism that creates news story with
or through the use of images. Photojournalism in its simplest meaning is the act of a
photographer using a camera to capture the “verb” of the subject.
This example of photojournalism known as
“Migrant Mother” depicts 32-year-old Florence
Owens Thompson and her children enduring the
impact of the Great Depression. The medium as a
visual rhetoric (which will be discussed later in the
study) shows the subjects as an icon of resilience in
the face of adversity. More importantly, it is
understood to be a representation of a historically
significant event and is an object of strong emotional
identification (Hariman and Lucaites).
Photojournalism, as objective, reveals what is
happening with no needed justification; as subjective,
permits the viewer’s interpretation of what they
believe is happening based on their individual
connection with the subject’s response to the
situation.
Migrant Mother, 1936
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
|6
Subjective and Objective Personalities
Although the study is about photojournalism, I want to briefly introduce oil painting to help
explain the subjectivity that exists within photojournalism. The difference between oil painting
and photography seems obvious, right? One is composed using brushes and strokes while the
other utilizes light and shutter to focus on a subject. A viewer of either medium may pick up a
sample and be fully conscious of what’s being captured through the retinas but completely
oblivious to what’s being seen.
Photojournalism reintroduced the subjectivity that painting possesses but photography lacks.
Painting requires the viewer to trust the artist even if they’re unsure if the image is true.
Conversely, the objectivity of the photograph, mirrors of the world and anyone who looks at
them, is more trustworthy because it has a static personality that makes it respond the same way
every time, making the pointer more dependent on the light and the camera. Despite the art forms
being objective or subjective in presentation, the means by which they were produced is an
inevitable projection of human subjectivity. “Whereas the artist’s subjective experience informs
every aspect of the painting process, the photographer’s subjective input ends with the decision
of where to point the camera.” (p. 40). As mentioned in the example of “Migrant Mother,”
photojournalism makes both an objective and subjective statement: the former revealing what is
happening with no needed justification and latter permitting the viewer’s interpretation of what
they believe is happening based on their individual connection with the subject’s response to the
situation.
Benjamin (1936) sees photographs as evidence for historical occurrences, acquiring a hidden
political significance, the portrait not only serving as the cult of remembrance of loved ones but
focal point in which the aura emanates in the expression of a human face (p. 226). Benjamin
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
|7
goes on to describe the concept of aura in reference to historical events such the Great
Depression. The aura is the essence of an object, used to explain the “desire of contemporary
masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent
toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction” (p. 223-24).
The power of an iconic photograph such as “Migrant Mother,” according to Berger (1972) is that
instead of looking at one thing we are always looking at the relation between things and
ourselves. For Berger, ‘An image is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced. It is an
appearance…which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its
appearance…’ (p. 9). What gives photojournalism such potency is the way we see it and how so
is affected by what we know or what we believe (p. 8). The level of subjectivity, as seen in
painting for example, is inherited by the photojournalist and in its way projects a direct judgment
of the subject. The image of Florence Owens Thompson and her children is working upon you
because you accept the way Dorothea Lange saw her sitters. However, this acceptance is based
on your own observation of people, gestures, and faces, made possible because of the social
relations and moral values that live within our society; giving the art its psychological and social
urgency. Berger goes as far as say that we are in return captured by the moment and drawn into
the image itself as though we can or do know the people portrayed (p. 14).
Have you ever looked at a painting and had the feeling the eyes were watching or moving with
you? This is a form of “seduction” (as shown below) that Berger describes is using the subject’s
penetrating characteristics into making us believe we know the personality traits and habits of the
men and men and women portrayed. The following two paintings done by Frans Hals in 1666
considers the compositional unity, emotion, and projected appearances of lived experience as the
‘seducer’ of the piece rather than painter’s skill (12-14).
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
Regents of the Old Men’s Alms House, 1580-1666
Regents of the Old Men’s Alms House, 1580-1666
|8
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
|9
Tedder (2010) views professional photos of today as capturing the soul rather the personality…
“in much the same way that a statue or oil painting captures the famed of the past…or if not the
soul, then certainly the ‘energy’ of the person.” The following is an example of Lorna Tedder’s
photographic experiments regarding her experience with the human aura. She argues how this
experiment changed her view of social media space—which will be explored later in the study.
Tedder Study 1
Ruby noticed a photo in my home of another old friend of mine. It was an old photo, taken at a time
when he was still married to his first wife, and he appeared quite happy and all-smiles in this great
candid shot at the beach. There was always something about the photo that bothered me, but I
could never put my finger on it. She commented on some things going on in his life at the time the
photo was taken, things she couldn’t have known, but the photo felt that way in spite of the smiles.
According to Ruby, the energy of the person (not to be confused with personality) is something that
she can feel in a picture. Couldn’t I feel it, too, to some degree? She wanted to know. The short
answer was yes. I could look at the picture with all the smiles and fun and there was just
something…off…about it. There was sadness there, a sense of loss. Always had been. There were
problems in his marriage at the time. But I’d never really thought about it. When I relaxed and let
my mind wander, I could almost sense his energy in the photograph. There was a certain sadness
in the eyes, in spite of the smile. I think anyone who looked closely enough would have spotted it.
“Do you have other photos of him?” Ruby asked. When I told her I didn’t have any recent ones,
she suggested we search for his image on Google. We found it. I tested her belief that I, too, could
feel his soul in this picture. He was smirking in this one but there was a heaviness around it. He
was smiling but his eyes weren’t. I didn’t know what had happened to him, but one look and I
could tell he was in trouble—even if it hadn’t been a mug shot. We found another photo of him
online. Not a professional photographer’s work, but a decent photo. He looked nice, dressed up,
professional. But there was a deep feeling of darkness and oppression in this photograph. He still
looked much the same as when he’d been a close friend, but looking at his picture, I didn’t even
recognize him. I felt no connection at all. It was as if I were looking at a stranger.
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 10
Tedder Study 2
Ruby suggested I check out other photos to see if I could discern the state of the soul of
someone I hadn’t seen in a long time and didn’t have a current history on. In a way, it
was fun because I got the hang of it quickly, yet it was too often very sad and I stopped
after two or three tries.
I looked up several friends from the past and, regardless of the smiles, either their
traumas or their hardness showed through the eyes. Even if they were the picture of
health, the feeling of oppression was still there. These were clearest in quickly snapped
camera phone photos and especially in webcams pics. Some of these people had
changed so much that I felt no connection of friendship to them at all anymore. They
looked much as I remembered but they felt like strangers. I decided not to reach out to
re-acquaint myself. As an empath, I just felt too sad whenever I looked at their images.
There was one, though, that struck me differently. I had not seen the woman in years,
but she looked 10 years younger than the last time. Back then, she’d been married to
an alcoholic who abused her regularly. In her new Facebook picture, she was laughing
in the rain, drenched by a nearby car’s pounding through a puddle, but literally
dancing. Even if the photo had been of only her face, her smile was magnificent. It
went all the way up into her eyes and lit up the screen. Absolute joy radiated from the
photo. When I reached out to her, I found out she’d left her husband, gone through
counseling, started a new life, and was enjoying every minute of what the world has to
offer.
According to Tedder, “Some photos capture the appearance. Others, the personality. The ones
that capture the soul, though, can tell a sensitive person exactly how you’re doing and how life’s
treating you.” (i.e., the Great Depression) What I find to be bone chilling about these
experiments isn’t the talk about souls being reflected through the lens but more so our
perspective on the way many may view and respond to the world around them and
subconsciously react accordingly. Berger (1972) points out that we choose to look at the things
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 11
we see in order to bring into arm’s length the essence of the subject (p. 8). The aura of the
subject and the aura of the medium suggest a different meaning in regards to the unique
phenomenon of distance (Benjamin, 1936, p. 222). Photojournalism, however subjective it may
be, is still a product of mechanical—and eventually digital—reproduction. Photojournalism,
although able to emulate the subjective personality of oil painting, does not possess the same
artistic authority. Both Berger and Benjamin argue that the evolution of creation brought about
more developed communication techniques—such as mechanical reproduction—that diminishes
the authority and authenticity of the work of art, guiding the principle behind the political
aesthetic.
II -- REPRODUCING CHANGES
To say that the authority and authenticity of art is awash in a sea of endless subjective images
and noise bathed in an overwhelming repository of information would be putting things lightly
when set beside the views of Berger and Benjamin. Art today is seen differently from that of the
past, not because of the things being composed but from the way we perceive them based on the
composition method (Berger, 1972, p. 16). The lens of photography, even the movie camera,
provide the user with constraints, stripping them of the possibility of relatively viewing and
interpreting reality based on their position in time and space (p. 18). Berger’s illustration of the
len’s eye is referenced through the voice of Soviet film director Dziga Vertov, based on the 1929
film Man with a Movie Camera, stating that:
“I’m an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I
free myself for today and forever from human immobility. I'm in constant movement. I approach
and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horse's mouth. I fall
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 12
and rise with the falling and rising bodies. This is I, the machine, maneuvering in the chaotic
movements, recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations. Freed
from the boundaries of time and space, I co-ordinate any and all points of the universe, wherever
I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I
explain in a new way the world unknown to you.” (p. 17)
A painting, for example, in a Renaissance church is an integral part of the building’s memory,
having the feelings of the artist and the images on the wall record it as the interior life. The
painting no longer residing only in that church, but instead on computer or television screens,
changes the meaning of the original design and is lost in the multitude of fragmented meanings
(19). I’ve experienced this level of diversified interpretation when I viewed Diego Rodríguez de
Silva y Velázquez’s self-portrait online and in person at the New York City Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Not only is the art work a record of how the painter viewed the image, but it
now removed from being a unique composition to just being the original of a reproduction that
can be obtained anywhere (p. 10, 21). Now we’re at the point where art is a language of images,
either being modified or taken out of context when applied and lacking any authoritative stance
(p. 24). The meaning along with an accurate link to history is beginning to fade away [revisited
later in the study]. To Berger, ‘A people or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less
free to choose and to act as a people or class than on that has been able to situate itself in history.
This is why…the entire art of the past has now become a political issue” (p. 33).
The fact that art is being reproduced isn’t so much a concern as the way it’s occurring. That’s
because, according to Benjamin (1936) a work of art, or any manmade artifact, has always been
and continues to have the potential of being reproducible. Historically, it advanced intermittently
and in leaps at long intervals, but with accelerated intensity (p. 218). The full assessment of
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 13
pictorial reproduction considers more than the lithographical metal plate that combines inkabsorbent and ink-repellent vehicles, the electro-mechanical device of photography, or the
computer-mediated immediacy of digital exchange and interaction. The principle behind
pictorial reproduction is that it captures the essence of everyday life that we are unable to
preserve on our own and bookmarks its significant presence in space and time, its unique
existence at the place where it happens to be (p. 220). According to Hariman and Lucaites (2001)
on behalf of Zelizer, this status of iconicity is what marks fundamental relationships between the
“practice of photojournalism, operating as a political aesthetic, and twentieth-century American
democratic public culture to provide crucial, emotional, and mnemonic resources for animating
the collective identity and action necessary to a liberal-democratic politics” (p. 38). Look at it as
a series of crime scenes to provide evidence of the civic identities that have developed as key
features in political culture (Benjamin, p. 226).
Imagine being a photographer in the first decade of photography and having frequent subjects of
deceased children because paying an expensive fee to have them sit for a painter while alive was
challenging. In fact, imagine being a grief-stricken parent whose child recently died from
tuberculosis and would rather have a lasting recollection over memories as your own death
awaits you with every passing year (Levinson, 1997, p. 44; Van Dijck, 2008, p. 60). In this case,
despite photographs being standard evidence for historical occurrences, the aura emanating from
the tragedy is rescued from its corruption in its time; although, acquiring a hidden political
significance in photojournalistic practice (Levinson, p. 44). Revisiting Dorotha Lange’s 1936
photograph of “Migrant Mother,” we get a glimpse of 32-year-old Florence Owens Thompson’s
victimization and strength as she displays this iconic attribute to the viewer while coddling two
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 14
of her seven children during the height of the Great Depression. Hariman and Luciates’s (2001)
analysis of this visual rhetoric is that:
“The photograph activates the tension between individual worth and
collective identity at a moment of severe economic crisis by representing a
common fear that transcends class and gender and by defining the viewer as
one who can marshal collective resources to combat fear localized by class,
gender, and family relations. It allows one to acknowledge paralyzing fear at
the same time that it triggers an impulse to do something about it. This formal
design reveals an implicit movement from the aestheticization of poverty to a
rhetorical engagement with the audience, from a compelling portrait to
compelling action by the audience on behalf of the class of subjects depicted.
The problem of poverty will not be solved by helping only the migrant mother,
but any state action is unlikely to gain support if it cannot be assented to by
citizens habituated to see themselves as individuals first and last.”(p. 38)
From studying Hariman and Luciates I have found that a photograph is worthy of iconic
articulation when the image is (1) produced in print media, electronic, or digital media, (2)
recognized by everyone within a public culture, (3) understood to be a representation of a
historically significant events, (4) an object of strong emotional identification or response, and
(5) regularly reproduced or copied across a range of media, genres, and topics. A portrait of an
absent or dead loved one would serve as a recollection that a parent’s children, and their
children, and their children in turn would be able to regard (p. 37).
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 15
As Van Dijck (2008, p. 59) argues that the changing function of photography is part of a
complex technological, social and cultural transformation, Portewig (2004) points out how
technical advances, from the camera to computer, have paved the way for a visual culture – that
according to W.J.T. Mitchell claims is the ‘the fantasy of a pictorial turn, of a culture totally
dominated by images… a real technical possibility on a global scale’ – establishing a pictorial
turn that has extended to political and cultural contexts (p. 31).
My findings show that the cultural, political, and social changes are being reflected in the way
photojournalism has developed into a more pronounced medium [digital reproduction] as well as
a popular practice among society [computer-mediated communication through personal
electronic devices].
III – ECHOS OF TIME
Davis (1995) believes that “the work of art in the age of digital reproduction is physically and
formally chameleon.” The study gives me the impression that the art form of photojournalism as
well as the art is struggling with the unclear conceptual distinction between original and
reproduction as a result of—not just in—media based in film, electronics, or
telecommunications. This change is even making its way into the deepest regions of our body,
mind, and spirit (p. 381). The same could be said for photojournalism as it moves from being a
separate entity of photography based on its storytelling attribute to being counted as an imitation
of documentary photography [to be further addressed in the study as photo-documentary].
Kratochvil and Persson (2001) make the claim that photojournalism isn’t as fully subjective as
the identical medium photo-documentary. The principle behind photography is that it captures
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 16
the moments in time. Photojournalism is expected to acquire the essence behind ‘what is’ as it
relates to events that can historically, politically, culturally, or socially impact society. Photodocumentaries hold a different level of subjectivity in that they “reveal the infinite number of
situations, actions and results over a period in time…they reveal life.” The images of
photojournalism show frozen instants that are likely to be taken out of context and transformed
by the media as what we deem to be true (p. 1). Berger (1972) takes this and gives reason to the
way people view images presented as works of art based on learnt assumptions such as ‘Beauty,’
‘Truth,’ ‘Genius,’ ‘Civilization,’ etc. Assumptions, however, that are no longer related to the
way the world is but instead obscure the “truth” of the past (p. 11). Photojournalism, however,
does do its job in leaving the viewer with a biased view. Kratochvil and Persson use the example
of a Palestinian being shot in the next instant and whether or not he’ll be made into a nationalist
or terrorist based on one photo.
IV -- THE GRAY AREA
Is immediacy the new subjectivity?
It’s simple. A riot breaks out in streets of New York City. A nearby neighborhood continues to
suffer from the effects of Hurricane Sandy. The Darién Gap is littered with bloodied bodies and
dismembered libs as travelers make their way from Panama to Colombia. Pull out your phone,
snap a shot, and post it to Twitter. In fact, you may not have to because chances are someone has
already done so, and many others, thousands even, have already retweeted the occurrences and
shared them across multiple social media platforms, such as Facebook , Tumblr or Instagram.
Along with photography, the age of mechanical reproduction also introduced recording
processes. Events and public spaces of today are not only commonly known to have surveillance
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 17
technology, but are likely to be digital capturing capabilities. Recording technology aside, there’s
a greater chance that the majority of people occupying a single space hold within their pockets or
bags the key to their social freedom in the event a crisis occurs. Photojournalists now officially
have extra eyes in conflict zones; the people become photojournalists, creating their own story
through their personal lenses (Keller, 2001). But are they telling it the right way?
Dorothea Lange, when describing to Popular Photography her experience with Florence Owens
Thompson in the pea-pickers camp, mentioned: “I saw and approached the hungry and desperate
mother, as if drawn by a magnet.” Lange, although ornery in obeying her instinct to go home,
drove to the camp to meet the mother and seven children who were on the brink of starvation.
The woman figured the picture might help her, as they did when they were published in a San
Francisco newspaper, alerting the government to react with a delivery of 20,000 lbs. of food
(Lange, 1960).
Photojournalism, as it reaches the age of new media, reverses the ideology of the
“individualized aggregate” that allows us to see the impact of the Great Depression of America
through the individual eyes of Florence Owns Thompson. The victims are now their own
‘saviors’ and the iconic prowess of visual rhetoric becomes a public spectacle as opposed to a
political need for attention and action. The objectivity exists but the subjective element has been
distorted, resulting in the aura of the image to become irrelevant because the essence of the art’s
personality has been contaminated by the need to distribute the information. Photojournalism
today is different from what it once was because it now depends on speed. The norm for
photojournalists is to produce instantaneous reports of world events, sports, etc., which in return
has changed the content quality of what we see and how life is portrayed (Kratochvil and
Persson, 2001). This need for immediacy may be advantageous in pointing journalists towards
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 18
potential leads or awarding photojournalistic omnipotence, but that is also the reason proper
context and attribution have the potential of being lost in the space between the media in which
they are shared. This makes the value of content questionable (Keller, 2011). Nathalie
Applewhite, managing director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, an independent
organization that sponsors reporting on global affairs, in her interview with The Atlantic’s Jared
Keller argued that a crisis, such as earthquake s and floods, isn’t overlooked as immediate but the
organization ‘s perspective is more systematic. Systematic crises would include what happens
before, after, and during the underlying causes [similar to a photo documentary essay]. The role
of the viewer changes from being the interpreter of a national disaster to collectively, but
secretly, choosing if the information is relevant. How long before the next news story is
delivered to their laptops, smart phones, and tablets? “New media is very significant in
immediacy, but not totally in long term. It doesn’t matter if there are a thousand cameras, it’s the
storytelling that’s important,” said Nathalie.
Pictorial Turn
At this point I’m questioning if the rhetoric presented in photojournalism is now being casted
aside from serving as a record for information to being swallowed by the sea that endlessly
consumes that information.
Exhibited throughout modern day society is various relationships between people and visual
rhetoric, orchestrated by reproduction methods and computer mediated technology. People are
being impacted by the influence of the image, the visual rhetoric, on a personal and professional
scale, acting as professional photographers, unofficial photojournalist, or editors of their past.
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 19
We have at our disposal an endless number of digital devices to capture everyday occurrences
and a wide arena of social media platforms to disseminate thoughts. Moving from analogue to
digital photography changed the user’s intension for capturing images, especially when the
subjects began to grow as the primary user. Additionally, digital technologies, in permitting
multiple users to simultaneously capture trivial and significant events, gives the impression that
the essence of the art has been corrupted (Van Dijck, 2008, p. 59). Photography’s most potent
influence is its ability to give us space over a period of time, reminding us of former appearances
and helping us to remember how we were. This invitation of self-reflection is a gesture to
remodel our self-image or reassess our past lives and reflect on what has been as well as what is
and what will be. The chance to sit down with your grandchild and tell stories has now lost its
meaning when the digital realm encourages image alteration and instant distribution. We capture
moments in our mind and then produce autobiographical evidence through photographs, but the
authority is vacant (p. 64). The early days of photography could already foreshadow the social
uses of this medium as it continues to serve as an instrument of communication and as a means
to share experience (p. 58).
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 20
CONCLUSION
Assumptions of the truth no longer exist in this world because the way each individual views it is
relative to how they each respond to the surrounding influences (Berger, 1972, p. 11). Art,
whether it be painting, still photography, photojournalism, or documentary photography, is a
means to record information and share experiences, joyful, tragic or otherwise. The mechanical
and digital eyes being freed from the boundaries of time and space permit us to situate ourselves
in products that rely on the assumptions of truth to obscure the past and present. Since the way
we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe, a suitable approach to clarifying
reality and pulling it away from false illusion it to be the composer. The means by which to go
about composing a work of art will likely change as you choose to see the world around you and
understand its true existence and meaning, because the mirrored image is more in your
perspective than it is through the lens.
PHOTOJOURNALISM, TECHNOLOGY, AND REPRODUCTION
| 21
SOURCES
Benjamin, W. (1936). “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Illuminations,
217-252.
Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting.
Douglas, D. (1991-95). “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving
Thesis: 1991-1995).” Leonardo, 28(5), 381-386.
Hariman, R. & Lucaites, J. (2001). “Visual Rhetoric, Photojournalism, and Democratic Public
Culture.” Rhetoric Review, 20(1,2), 37-42.
Keller, J. (2011, 4 April). Photojournalism in the Age of New Media. The Atlantic. Retrieved
from http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/04/photojournalism-in-the-age-ofnew-media/73083/?single_page=true
Kratochvil A. & Persson, M. (2001). “Photojournalism and Documentary Photography: They are
identical mediums, sending different messages.” [Web log message]. Retrieved from
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=101591
Lange, D. (1960, February). "The Assignment I'll Never Forget: Migrant Mother," Popular
Photography.
Levinson, P. (1997). The Soft Edge: A natural history and future of the information revolution.
London: Routledge
Tedder, L. (2013, 25 March). Capturing Souls in Photographs. [Web log message]. Retrieved
from http://www.thespiritualeclectic.com/2010/02/05/capturing-souls-in-photographs/
Portewig, T. (2004). “Making Sense of the Visual in Technical Communication: A Visual
Literacy Approach to Pedagogy.” Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 34(1 &2),
31-42.
Van Dijck, J. (2008). “Digital Photography: Communication, Identity, Memory.” Visual
Communication.7, 57-76.