E-Media Tidbits

Throughout last autumn, I disagreed with postings by my compatriot here, Steve Outing, that consumer use of camera phones and digital cameras could revolutionize photojournalism. Yet, I now think he may be right and I was wrong. An Associated Press story today reports that the most shocking or memorable photographs of the American-Iraqi war were taken not by professional photographers but by individual soldiers or government contractors and were distributed worldwide with an ease that never existed in the days of just film cameras and professional photo satellite networks.

Keith Jenkins, photo editor of the Washington Post Magazine, told the AP, "With the technology now, the amateur photographer is as capable as a professional journalist and is operating with the same tools: digital camera, laptop, and an Internet connection." Added Peter Howe, the former director of photography for Life magazine and curator of an exhibit on the Iraq war now running at the International Center of Photography in New York, "The iconic images coming out of this war may be the amateur photographs of Iraqi prisoners." And Seattle Times photo editor Barry Fitzsimmons noted that the photos of caskets of U.S. war dead were forwarded to him from a friend who received them by e-mail from the civilian contractor whose digital camera snapped the photos (who Fitzsimmons contacted before publication). "Look at what this picture has done," Fitzsimmons said. "It's internationally known. It may make a lot of changes in how things are done in the military, in terms of dealing with the media."