Technical Aspects of Modern Photojournalism

According to Jim McNay, Brooks Institute of Photography, NPPA Past President,

"Contemporary photojournalism, whether done with the traditional still camera or the more modern multimedia tools of computer and video camera, is still one of the more interesting “I-don’t-work-in-an-office” jobs aspiring visual storytellers can pursue. This profession also allows one to work from almost anywhere, whether that be one’s hometown, one’s own country, or from any particular location in the world. If photographers can get to the stories and content they want to cover, they can do this work from anywhere."

In the past photojournalism took a different toll. The first camera was invented by by Charles and Vincent Chevalier in Paris, which consisted of a wooden box that could not capture permanent pictures. Later with the discovery of silver salts by Johann Heinrich Schulze, pictures were able to be captured permanently.

The first camera looked like this:

It was primiarly a wooden box that had a sliding cover. It limited the capabilities of a photojournalist to capture quality pictures.

Later with new inventions for the cameras, like dry plates and optical lens with flash, photojournalism was able to improve significantly.

Now with the invention of digital cameras, photojournalism is able to exceed it's limits.

Such smaller, lighter and more efficient cameras have greatly impacted the roles of photojournalists. The ability to store images on a memory card as oppose to film allows the photojournalist to capture an abundance of images without being limited. Photojournalists are now equipped with the freedom to store a lot of pictures onto the memory cards.

With technological advancements, there are also a lot of programs that aid in the editing of photos. With photographs, photojournalists are recommend to add captions in order to better explain their photos. Programs within the Adobe Design Premium package consists of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe InDesign, and Adobe Bridge, which all can aid photojournalist in editing their photos.

With a group of images from Renee Byer, a 2007 Pulitzer Prize Winner, I was able to construct a multi-image newspaper layout using Adobe InDesign.
Also with use of the same program, I was able to form a layout for another 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner, Carolyn Cole.