#BOSTON HERALD PHOTODESK PORTABLE#

вЂњIt was a ridiculous machine but at the time it was like magic. With the exception of developing film, the Leafax eliminated darkroom work and printmaking for photographers and again cut the amount of time it took for the picture to travel from the camera to the news consumer.вЂќ Excerpt from TIME, вЂњCelebrating 80 Years of Associated PressвЂ™ Wirephoto AP photographers could take color or black-and-white negatives, scan them into the Leafax, tone, sharpen, crop and add captions, then send them through to the network.

#BOSTON HERALD PHOTODESK PORTABLE#

вЂњNegative scanning was the next push forward in the mid-80s with APвЂ™s procurement of the Leafax, a compact and portable picture transmitter held in a briefcase-sized case. By the late eighties, it was widely used by both wire and newspaper staff photographers. Depending on the quality of the phone line, it could take as little as thirty minutes to transmit a color image. It was developed by Boston-based Associated Press staff photographer David Tenenbaum in the mid-eighties. It allowed photographers to travel anywhere in the world and scan their negatives and transmit the images back to their newspapers over a standard phone line. The Leafax scanner/transmitter was the size of a briefcase and cost about $32,000.

Our coverage led to improved rail safety standards and random drug and alcohol testing of motormen and bus drivers.вЂќ -Nanine Hartzenbusch, excerpt from her testimonial. I was very proud to be part of the Newsday team that won the Pulitzer Prize in1992 in breaking news for our coverage of the Union Square Subway crash. Our visual team was a mix of men and women. From Reuters, I moved to New York City as a staff photographer for New York Newsday. I missed the daily challenge of newspaper photojournalism and began a job search that took me back to the street. We were hired to work the photo desk, shoot occasional assignments in DC and eventually receive a posting at a Reuters foreign bureauвЂќДЄfter several years on the desk at Reuters in DC, I realized a foreign posting was not going to happen for me. Colleen Combes joined us and we became a trio of women at Reuters. I made pictures of big stories like state visits, large protests, and quirky features. I had the dual role of photo editor and photographer. The other female hired by Reuters was Charlotte Massey. вЂњIn the summer of 1985, I moved to Washington DC, where I was one of the first women hired to work on the picture desk at Reuters.

Contract photographers called вЂњSuper StringersвЂќ 1988-89: Greta Pratt (New York), Tami Chappell (Atlanta), Rebecca Cook (Detroit), Sue Ogrocki (Chicago). Reuters starts in US, first female staff photojournalists: Charlotte Massey and Nanine Hartzenbusch. You photographed the reality of things as they were, not the way you preconceived them or would have liked them to be,вЂќ wrote founder of Black Star photo agency Howard Chapnick of Clifton Edom in Small Town America.

You didnвЂ™t organize, manipulate, or manage a photograph. Edom will be remembered as a man who brooked no pampering with the integrity of the journalistic photograph. Inspired by the gritty, content-rich photographs of the documentary photo unit of the pre-WWII Farm Security Administration, Edom promoted research, observation, and timing as the methods to make strong story-telling photographsвЂќ, reads the MPW website. вЂњEdom taught ethics and a вЂњlearning by doingвЂќ philosophy that was seen as the first teachings in photojournalism. Missouri Photo Workshop (MPW), Photographers and editors who taught during the early years: Margaret Bourke White, Vi Edom, Abigail Heyman, Margaret (Peggy) Sargent, Carolyn Patterson, Darlene (Pfister) Prois, Sarah Leen, Sandra Eisert, Melissa Farlow, Judy Griesedieck, Stormi Greener, Maggie Steber, Cheryl Magazine.

Boston herald photodesk