The Cameras of 9/11

I'm not sure if this belongs in the philosophy forum or not, but I'm not really interested in the technical

nitty-gritty, more the way that digital images have shaped and reflected the news. For a very long time news

photographs were taken with film cameras, and I assume that this practice died off by the turn of the century,

but I am interested in exactly when, and what impact it had; not so much on the workflow, but on the way that we

relate to images.

 

I am writing a lengthy article for my blog about the pre-history of 35mm-format digital SLRs. The early models

were co-produced with Kodak and either Nikon or Canon, and were aimed at press photographers. They went on sale

during the early-to-mid 1990s were generally surpassed by home-grown Nikon and Canon SLRs during the first years

of the twenty-first century. The Kodak DCS models post-dated Tiananmen Square and the first Gulf War, and

pre-dated 11 September 2001. What iconic images were shot with them?

 

These years, roughly from 1994-2000, coincided with a period of relative world peace, at least in the United

States and Western Europe. There was of course the Rwandan massacre, but I do not think of that as a photographic

war; I have a visual memory of Vietnam, even though I was born several years after the US pulled out, but I do

not have a visual memory of Rwanda. Yugoslavia was ripping itself apart, but I think of that war as a video war.

When I think of the war in the Balkans, I do not think of still photographs, I think of video footage. Of Martin

Bell being hit by shrapnel, and those people on the bridge being sniped.

 

The visual record of September 11 seems to be a mish-mash of amateur and professional footage, digital and film,

35mm and APS. I assume the standard press camera of the time would have been the Nikon D1 or D1X, with perhaps

the later, integrated Kodak DCS 620/720 models.

 

This press photographer was carrying a D30 and two EOS-1 film SLRs when he was killed:

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0111/biggart_intro.htm

 

I'm not really sure what point I'm working up to with this. I was trying to place the early Kodak DCS cameras

into their social context; nowadays they are shadows, they are not famous or feted as with other cameras. Their

brief heyday seems to have fallen in between two Olympic games, as well:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0009/00091501digicamolympics.asp

I first shot with a Kodak DCS camera at the 1992 Republican convention. It was the model built around a Nikon N90s. Thje 600mm f/4 I was using suddenly became an 1800mm f/4 when considering the angle of view, depth field remained that of a 600mm f/4 of course. I wish I still had those photos.

 

At a couple of executio nwatches i nthe late 1990s in Huntsville Texas I saw a few photogrpahers shooting digitall yand using nikon 15mm as their standard lens.

 

http;//www.robgalbraith.com has a pretty good digital timeline on his site.

 

James Nachtwey shot the World Trade Centers attack with 35mm cameras.

the older 35mm film cameras that we value and pay a lot of money for these days have taken on the cult status after a significant period of time had passed. 9/11 still feels like yesterday to me. it is too recent. perhaps in seventy of eighty years the cameras that took pictures of this momentous event would become a novelty item.

The Kodak DCS series was used by NASA on all of the Shuttle missions.

 

"The visual record of September 11 seems to be a mish-mash of amateur and professional footage..."

 

Are you referencing the event itself, or the aftermath, or documenting the site itself?

 

For pure documentation, Joel Meyerowitz produced the most in-depth series:

 

http://www.phaidon.com/aftermath/image1.html

In 2001 a large amount of news photography would still have been via film scanned on a film scanner. News photography has a tendency to get cropped to fit the page. First generation digital SLR's where EXTREMELY expensive. Early DSLR's didn't have enough megapixels for much cropping. The common kit of the day involved two film SLRs with some variation on 18-35, 28-70 and 70-200 lenses. Digital would have been used, most often for breaking news. Sports might have been shot with digital or it might have been shot with scanned negative (Fuji NPZ-800) depending on the situation. Now if you don't mind I'm going to go cry at the thought of anyone getting caught in an explosion big enough to do that to somebodies gear.

Also you might want to try: http://www.nppa.org/

A few tidbits:

 

In 1996 I was working at Kodak on improve films for photojournalists. We visited NY on a trade awareness trip. The AP expected to be 98% digital within a year. The Daily News had a very slick (for its day) digital image archiving and editing system. the NY Times and Time-Life were still primarily film based at the time.

 

The DCS 460 was the first 6 MP digital camera. I captured some excellent images with mine. Major limitations were the speed (officially ISO 80, but ISO 64 with mine) and the slow write speed. You could shoot a "burst" of 2 images and then wait for about 30 seconds for them to be written to the memory card.

Here's something you may want to research. Canon and the Associated Press got together and created like a 1 megapixel DSLR, only for news organization use, in like 1997 or 1998. I believe it had an actual hard drive inside it. If you need more information for your research, write me.

Did anyone actually look at the gallery? Some of those images looking up at the burning towers are downright frightening.

 

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0111/biggart01.htm

Yes, I sure did...I was horrified, stricken, and riveted all at once. Those galleries...and look at all of them, not only that of the photographer who was killed...bring everything back, just like it was yesterday, 5 years later.