Photojournalism and Innovations of the Digital Age

 Innovation is inevitable, and the field of photojournalism is no exception.

The advancements in general photography made in the pre-digital age were mainly characterized by making the camera sleeker, the process to develop pictures less cumbersome, and expanding the range of subjects a camera was able to capture. What this meant for the field of photojournalism specifically was that the ability to be at least a citizen photojournalist was increasingly accessible, and all photojournalists enjoyed the benefits of more streamlined equipment with expanded abilities that allowed them to cover more dynamic events.

However, this is not to imply that innovation in this field stopped once it moved to the digital age. If anything, it merely shifted because there was another element to contend with: computers.

Uploading photographs to a computer through various methods is a more modern focus for camera innovation compared to the advancements in the pre-digital age, but given the high degree of integration of computers into daily life, developments in this area have only become more relevant.

And no piece of technology better encapsulates this than WiFi enabled DSLR cameras.

But what even is a WiFi enabled DSLR camera? Let's break it down first.

"WiFi enabled" is fairly obvious. It means that the piece of technology in question has the ability to connect to WiFi and by extension other WiFi-connected technology. Simple enough.

Now for the other half. The "DSLR" in DSLR camera stands for "digital single-lens reflex". According to an article on Adobe about the DSLR camera, it is "...a camera that operates with a fixed, digital sensor... When light enters the camera lens of a digital SLR camera, a photographer sees their subject in the optical viewfinder via a reflection of that light from a mirror inside the camera body. As the photographer snaps the photo, the mirror swings out of the way, and the light goes through to the digital image sensor to capture the photo on an SD card".

With that established, a WiFi enabled DSLR camera would be a DSLR camera that can connect to WiFi, most likely for the purposes of directly transferring images from the camera to another device. The main advantages of this as outlined by this CoolBlue article by Sanne is "...that you can transfer photos wirelessly to a smart device... you can safely store your photos outside your camera... If your memory card is about to get full, just transfer some photos to the Cloud... you use your phone as a remote control via the WiFi connection. On your phone's screen you can see what the camera sees". It should also be noted that WiFi enabled DSLRs also enjoy the advantages of just being a DSLR camera, such as better autofocus and effectiveness in dim lighting due to the larger sensor in the camera.

The addition of WiFi connectivity might seem like a relatively small innovation compared to such things like the leap from using plates for photography to roll film, but for photojournalists the addition of this feature is quite significant. Photojournalist Leon Nguyen in the video "Latest Updates With Photographic Technology and Photojournalism" specifically points out that this feature makes it "Quick and easy to send back some photos on the spot when you don't have time or space to process them on your computer". Obviously, it saves photojournalists the trouble of having to physically pull out the SD card from their camera or hunt down a computer with a cable that can transfer the images from the camera, which are not always available. As Professor Nordell points out in "Working in the Digital Age - Part 2", there is another advantage to having the ability to transmit images right off the camera with "...really time-sensitive things... for example, an event like the Olympics, where there's real high security. And so, if you're a photographer in a spot, once you're set up there, you can't leave essentially... if you have that wireless transmitter, you can just take the pictures... and the images are just heading right back to your editor". For photojournalists on a deadline, this would be invaluable because they can save time directly sending the photos to their editor instead of having to first go through the process of physically connecting the camera to their device to send it to their editors.

Photo by Madeline Jacyszn, 10/9/23

This photo is less about the subject and moreso to compare the process of using my phone to upload photos to my computer compared to the process of a WiFi enabled DSLR because my Android is the closest thing I have to demonstrate the convenience of it. While my phone has nowhere near the range nor quality of an actual DSLR, the ease of uploading this image to my Google Drive was simply a few taps away through the WiFi connection. Being able to do that on a camera makes it so much easier to upload images on the go much like how I can do it with my phone.

Photo by Madeline Jacyszn, 10/9/23

 This camera is not a DSLR with WiFi capabilities, but that is exactly why I brought it out. Compared to using a WiFi enabled DSLR, I would have to pull out the SD card that can be seen in this photo, connect it to my computer, and then upload all the images I want off the camera. Those are noticeable extra steps that have to be taken compared to being able to directly send the images to the computer off of the camera using WiFi.

At first glance, it would seem that WiFi enabled DSLRs and black and white roll film don't have much in common. After all, one is from the digital age and the other is from the pre-digital age. They're both intended to compliment two different pieces of technology, the Internet with WiFi enabled DSLRs and Kodak cameras with roll film. Also, despite roll film's advancements in making photography easier, it was still susceptible to certain mistakes like the one that nearly cost Robert Capa his photographs of D-Day, as recounted in the article "Photographer Robert Capa Risked It All to Capture D-Day - then Nearly All His Images Were Lost" by Haley Weiss: "[John G.] Morris, meanwhile, ordered the darkroom to develop Capa’s film immediately and quickly, leading a technician to make a panicked mistake. The door to the film-drying closet was left closed, cutting off ventilation and causing the film’s emulsion to melt and obscure nearly all of Capa’s photographs. The rolls were effectively blank, with the exception of 11 faint 35mm images..." Roll film still needed to be developed externally before any of the images could be seen, and this development process still left it vulnerable to being ruined if done incorrectly. WiFi enabled DSLRs simply don't have the same problem, as not only can the images be seen on the camera before any uploading or development, but if successfully uploaded to the Internet it is very easy to copy the images so they won't be ruined or lost. Also, a WiFi enabled DSLR doesn't need any part of it to be sent to another place for its images to be developed, it simply needs WiFi to send the images to a device.

 Despite this, some similarities can be discerned between WiFi enabled DSLRs and roll film. Both of them are advancements in the process of streamlining photo development (or uploading in the DSLR's case). Roll film having dedicated centers to develop it all at once while a new roll was sent out to be used meant that it was easier to keep up momentum with taking photographs as the other roll developed. It's similar with the WiFi enabled DSLR, but the photos are being sent out as they are taken as opposed to an entire roll. The nature of both also facilitates many images to be captured in a row as opposed to during the plate era where a whole new plate would need to be prepared for a new photograph. Reloading an SD card could also be perceived as a more streamlined version of reloading a roll of film, as demonstrated by Professor Nordell in "Working in the Digital Age - Part 1": "...you get to the end of the roll of film... you have to unroll because the film needs to get back into its spool. So I'm rolling it back in, I open up the camera, I take that roll of film out, I grab here, another roll of film. This roll of film goes in like so... Now, when you're shooting digital, you still have that opportunity of getting to the end of your card... but to change it... take the card out, come over here, grab this card... and just slide that card back in and I'm ready to shoot again". With the comparison of the process of loading a film camera as opposed to loading a digital camera, it could be said that film cameras were sort of the "wet collodion" to digital cameras. There's similarities in their processes, and indeed film allows for a lot of thing that using a camera with an SD card does, but simply on a lesser scale.