Chapter Four-Working in the Digital Age

Photo by: Rishi Sanyal 

Modern day technology has without a doubt made everyday life much easier. A great example being the development of digital cameras. While digital cameras may have initially hindered the photo-taking process when they first came out, they have certainly been improved since. Now people have forgotten about the struggles that accompany pre-digital cameras. As Professor Nordell points out in his video Working in the Digital World-Part 1 “…there is always that moment-Is that film going to run out on me”. While you can still run out of space on a digital cameras SD card, it is much more unlikely because of the card’s storage capacity, and a card is much more convenient to change than the film of an older camera.

The development of the hybrid DSLRS was just one of the countless ground-breaking developments of the twenty-first century. This camera had a unique feature that was not present in other cameras at the time. As Professor Nordell states in his video Working in the Digital Age-Part 2 “Suddenly with one camera, you have the ability to do stills and video”. Not only is the camera used for still-life photography, but it could also capture videos as well, which was a huge development at the time.

These cameras are so significant in the world of photojournalism because they allow the photojournalist to be much more versatile when capturing actions. Whether they need to take a photograph or a video, they can reach for a single camera. Being that this camera is digital, the Photojournalist can also rest assured knowing that if they do run out of storage space they can simply just pop in a new SD card. So it is very unlikely that they will miss capturing that critical event. Comparing them to an older camera such as the twin lens reflux camera you can see some obvious advantages including the dimensions. The digital camera is much more convenient to carry around and ultimately just more convenient to use. A photojournalist would most likely prefer to carry the digital camera because of its ease so they do not miss the moment.

While digital photography is much more convenient and attainable for almost everyone, pre-digital photography was still extremely crucial during its time. An example of the significance being in CBS New’s article CBS News’s article Photography that Changed the Way We View War. The author stuns the readers with the line: “Such as the portrait found in the hands of a dead soldier after the Battle of Gettysburg”. This quotation shows the readers just how much of an impact photographs had on people back then, especially soldiers who held on tightly to photos of their loved ones.. Photojournalism is an ever-changing and fast-developing concept. All these developments can be credited to one man. As Professor Nordell states in his video Before there were Pixels-Part 1 “The birth of photojournalism, documenting news events, can be attributed to Matthew Brady”. Because of Brady, cameras such as the hybrid DSLRS and the twin lens reflex cameras exist today.

Photo by: Kevin Kadooka