Early in the history of photography it was recognized that an image had immense propaganda value and its wider distribution could be used either to support or detract from an issue. Photography because of the commonly held, but mistaken, belief that the "camera doesn't lie" has the ability to provide an immediate and emotional response in a way that text can not. Images of starving children and war shattered towns have become the mainstays of charities and picture editors.

• Earliest examples of photo reportage
   
  Photographers: [News events] Platt D. Babbitt, George N. Barnard, William Kilburn, Alois Löcherer, James Mudd, M. Thibault [Crimean War] Roger Fenton, James Robertson [American Civil War] Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, Timothy O’Sullivan
• Early social commentary
   
  Photographers: [European urban development] Thomas Annan, Archibald Burns, Charles Marville [American social squalor] Lewis Hine, Jacob Riis
• The technologies that allowed photojournalism to flourish
   
  The picture magazines of the 1930's flourished because of a number of technological innovations that had come to maturity. The development of halftone printing by Frederic Ives (1856-1937) allowed photographs to be printed effectively with an acceptable tonal range and at a reduced cost as engraving plates were no longer required. Developed in the late 19th century the halftone process spread rapidly. 'The New York Daily Graphic' published what is thought to be the first halftone in a newspaper on 4 March 1880 of a run down shantytown. 'National Geographic' published its first halftone in 1903 of a woman in a rice field in the Philippines.
   
  In the 1948 film 'Call Northside 777' P.J. McNeal, a reporter for the Chicago Times (played by Jimmy Stewart), clears an innocent man by getting a FAX copy of a photo from another city - in reality this had been possible over 40 years earlier. In 1907 Dr Arthur Korn had a commercial system for sending picture facsimiles between London, Paris and Berlin, in 1921 Western Union began its wire photo service and in 1922 RCA provided the first transatlantic facsimile service that sent photos across the Atlantic in six minutes. All the major telephone and telegraph companies (AT&T, RCA and Western Union) were actively developing "high-speed" fax systems. In 1922 Dr Arthur Korn's facsimile system was used to transmit, by radio, a photograph of Pope Pius XI from Rome to Maine, USA. The picture is published the same day in the 'New York World' newspaper. Up to this moment transcontinental news pictures had to be carried by ship.
   
  By the 1920's the three essential technologies for photojournalism were reaching maturity:
  • Light weight 35mm cameras with fast lenses
  • A means of transmitting photographs directly to newspapers
  • A way of mass printing high quality photographs
• Weimar Germany (1919-1933)
   
  Photographers: [AIZ] John Heartfield, Hannah Höch [Others] Alfred Eisenstaedt, Felix H. Man, Martin Munkacsi, Dr. Erich Salomon
• Rise of the photographic magazine
   
  Photographers: [Russia] Boris Ignatovich, Gustav Klutsis, El Lissitzky, Georgii Petrusov, Alexander Rodchenko, Sergei Senkin, Arkadii Shishkin [Switzerland] Werner Bischof, Emil Mettler, Paul Senn, Emil Schulthess, Hans Staub [UK] Bert Hardy, Tim Gidal, Thurston Hopkins, Felix H. Man, Humphrey Spender (Lensman), Kurt Hutton, Grace Robertson
• The Great Depression
   
  Photographers: Esther Bubley, Paul Carter, John Collier Jr., Marjorie Collins, Jack Delano, Walker Evans, Theodor Jung, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, Edwin Rosskam, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Arthur Siegal, John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott
• Working conditions of the 1930‘s
   
  Photographers: Bill Brandt, Humphrey Spender
• The photo-essay
   
  Photographers: [France] Henri Cartier-Bresson [UK] Bert Hardy, Thurston Hopkins, Felix H. Man, Humphrey Spender (Lensman), Grace Robertson [USA] Margaret Bourke-White, Cornell Capa, Robert Capa, Andreas Feininger, Dorothea Lange, Carl Mydans, Gordon Parks, W. Eugene Smith
• The decline of the photo magazines
   
  LIFE and the other picture magazines celebrated the human spirit during the Second World War (1939-1945) and when the war ended there was an optimistic period in the USA and Europe of unbridled consumerism and a general belief that things could only get better. The magazines celebrated humanism and the sense that anything was possible. Even if they showed poverty and hunger it was with an underlying message that by exposing it to public scrutiny things would improve.
   
  During the sixties there was a growing realization that this view was naive and politically things were not necessarily going to get better. The menace of the Cold War had shown that in the Korean War (1950-1953) fighting could end in a stalemate but there was still a chance that good would overcome. The sense that American could change the world in a positive way was tarnished but still there. In the sixties and early seventies the Vietnam War (1961-1975) shook that ideal and the civil rights issues threw the nation into upheaval - the sense that there was going to be a better world was thrown into question and the photographic magazines found it difficult to exist as the world grew more cynical. Obtaining advertising revenue for the magazines became increasingly difficult as the trend moved to the more positive lifestyle magazines - here pictures of famous people and domestic abundance could attract ad revenue. 'Picture Post' in the UK published its last issue on 1 June 1957 using the same cover image of two leaping ladies that it had when it started on 1 October 1938. LIFE in the USA hung on through the 1960‘s and published its final issue on 29 December 1972.

It is appreciated that this section does not cover the rise of the photo agencies, the founding of Magnum, or the powerful image libraries such as Getty Images and Corbis but that will be remedied as the site evolves. If you have any helpful information please contact me at alan@luminous-lint.com.