New Technology Emphasizes Commitment to Core Principles

Can you recall the last time you shot a roll of color film? Most people probably can't.

Such has been the speed at which digital technology has taken over the photographic world. On any given day you can buy 8to 12-megapixel cameras for less than $200. That wasn't always the case.

The first truly workable digital camera for photojournalists, Kodak's NC2000, was released in early 1994. It cost $17,950 and had less than 2 megapixels of memory.

It was hard to know whether the NC2000 was actually taking pictures properly because it had no LCD for playing back the images it was supposedly recording and, of course, no spinning film rewind knob, nor any way -- or need -- to open the camera back.

In the midst of a digital world that now includes music, movies, and television, the Eastman Kodak Co. announced last month that it was ending the 74-year production of Kodachrome color reversal film, citing "declining demand." During its heyday, Kodachrome was produced in many different formats to suit various stilland motion-picture cameras.

Singer Paul Simon expanded on the virtues of a color world in 1973 with a song named after the film.

For many years it was the preferred film for professional color photography, especially for images intended for publication in print media, one of the most memorable being "Afghan Girl" by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry in 1985.

Ah, but today is a different world. Or is it? We know that simplicity rules, and that now includes "on demand." Why shoot a film that requires shipment off to a lab when you can instantly view your photo on the back of the camera and probably pop your memory card into a portable printer and have photos on the spot?

As with most change or progress, there is usually an associated cost. With automobiles, it was the demise of the horse and buggy and, to some extent, public transportation. With the telephone came the death of the telegraph.

Film may be only the first victim when it comes to digital photography. Integrity and trust may be the ultimate victims. With access to a technology available to almost anyone, along with a proliferation of social networking and file sharing, it's becoming more difficult to know who or what you can trust, especially when the mainstream media repeatedly gets caught breaking the rules and the public's trust.

Last Sunday, a picture essay in The New York Times Magazine and an accompanying slideshow on NYTimes.com, "Ruins of the Second Gilded Age," were found to include digital alterations.

The photos in the essay showed unfinished or unoccupied construction projects around the United States that came to a halt -- at least in part -- because of the financial crisis. They were taken by Edgar Martins, a 32-year-old freelance photographer.

By Tuesday, readers were calling the pictures into question. In response, The Times published an editors' note, noting that the introduction to the essay "said that the photographer, a freelancer based in Bedford, England, 'creates his images with long exposures but without digital manipulation.'"

"A reader, however, discovered on close examination that one of the pictures was digitally altered, apparently for aesthetic reasons. Editors later confronted the photographer and determined that most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show.

On The Times' photojournalism blog, in a review of the breakdown of the paper's standards, reporter David W. Dunlap said "digital technology permits so many interventions -- some acutely obvious, others so subtle that only computers can detect them -- that the line has blurred between manipulation and the kind of enhancement and editing that viewers customarily expect; like cropping, color correction, burning, and dodging."

Whether it's Mathew Brady, Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange, Eddie Adams, or

Richmond Times-Dispatch photographers, the tools may change, but the promise that comes with the job does not.

We have committed ourselves to present information in a fair and factual way. As we document the moments that weave together a community that is often stressed by war, depression, recession, crime, or the daily joys of life, that guiding principle steers our course.

Contact Director of Photography James Wallace at (804) 649-6541 or .