Photojournalism Dead? It's Just Changing With the Times
In the next 50 pages Nieman Reports take stock of photojournalism today. While problems are noted, the report is positive. The articles and the photo essays by 10 Nieman Fellows demonstrate the special value of pictures to news. As noted photographer Edward Steichen summed it up at the dinner celebrating his 90th birthday in 1969: “The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself. And that is no mean function.”
It was about 1:30 a.m. on a day in 1982 when I awoke to a second alarm of a fire on Newbury Street in Boston’s Back Bay. I was racing to the scene when another call came over one of my scanners about a jumper on Longwood Avenue outside the Harvard Medical School. I decided to check that out first.
The fire department and police were just arriving as I got there. A young woman stood on a wall about 15 feet above the sidewalk—not very high but high enough to hurt her if she leaped headfirst. There was a lot of street light so I really did not need my strobe, and I did not want to use it anyway as I am always afraid that the flash could startle the person into jumping.
This situation went on for about a half hour with negotiators trying to talk the woman down. Finally the rescuers moved in with hand ladders and a blanket to catch her in. One firefighter was walking across a wall trying to sneak up on her.
Several other photographers showed up as this was happening and started to take flash pictures. I then began to use my strobe. As the woman kept moving away from the rescuers she began to lose her footing.
I hoped to get her in mid-air. I waited for her to fall off the structure. The timing was perfect and I took the shot as her arms and legs were floundering in the air. Excited, I drove to The Herald. I could not wait to tell my girl friend, now my wife, and called to tell her why I wasn’t home and what a great picture I had taken. She mumbled something and hung up. I emptied out the developer, put the tank in the hypo and waited. It was going to be great. I even let the negatives completely wash without looking at them first.
Then the big moment arrived. I looked at the negatives. The strobe had not recycled fast enough, and I missed the picture of her in mid-air. I had her on the wall and then in the blanket but nothing in between. She was not hurt.
That whole day I was sick. I was sure the UPI photographer who was there or worse, The Boston Globe photographer, had gotten the picture. It was almost midnight Saturday before I found out no one had gotten the picture. Was I relieved. I hate to be beat.
The lesson: you do not have the picture until you see the developed negative.
The fire department and police were just arriving as I got there. A young woman stood on a wall about 15 feet above the sidewalk—not very high but high enough to hurt her if she leaped headfirst. There was a lot of street light so I really did not need my strobe, and I did not want to use it anyway as I am always afraid that the flash could startle the person into jumping.
This situation went on for about a half hour with negotiators trying to talk the woman down. Finally the rescuers moved in with hand ladders and a blanket to catch her in. One firefighter was walking across a wall trying to sneak up on her.
Several other photographers showed up as this was happening and started to take flash pictures. I then began to use my strobe. As the woman kept moving away from the rescuers she began to lose her footing.
I hoped to get her in mid-air. I waited for her to fall off the structure. The timing was perfect and I took the shot as her arms and legs were floundering in the air. Excited, I drove to The Herald. I could not wait to tell my girl friend, now my wife, and called to tell her why I wasn’t home and what a great picture I had taken. She mumbled something and hung up. I emptied out the developer, put the tank in the hypo and waited. It was going to be great. I even let the negatives completely wash without looking at them first.
Then the big moment arrived. I looked at the negatives. The strobe had not recycled fast enough, and I missed the picture of her in mid-air. I had her on the wall and then in the blanket but nothing in between. She was not hurt.
That whole day I was sick. I was sure the UPI photographer who was there or worse, The Boston Globe photographer, had gotten the picture. It was almost midnight Saturday before I found out no one had gotten the picture. Was I relieved. I hate to be beat.
The lesson: you do not have the picture until you see the developed negative.
