Romania, 1990: Beyond the headlines
In our world of digital photography and high speed Internet, photojournalists can quickly and easily send large numbers of high-res photos to the other side of the globe. Things weren’t always so convenient.
Thanks to some amazing events, in January 1990, my life changed in just one day and I became photographer correspondent of AFP for Romania. The most beautiful and creative years followed, a celebrating of the newfound freedom after the fall of the communist regime in Romania.
As a “news” photographer, I and the colleagues from Reuters and AP were “the wire” photographers – the first ones on the scene when news breaks. Our value was our speed, and speed also determined our content. Because the transmission of a single image took from 10 to 30 minutes, we were trained to take shots that summed up the event in just one single image rather than in a series of images that collectively told a story.
But in 1990, the transmission of a photo to the wire services wasn’t an easy job. After shoot the image on film, take an hour or so to process and dry the film, then go into the darkroom to edit and print the image, type the caption on a typewriter, attach the caption to the side of the image. The print was wrapped around the cylinder on the sending machine – an obsolete combination of a scanner and a fax machine. The machine had to be connected to a telephone device by means of plugs that were attached to the microphone terminals. The drum rotates while a scanning beam moves slowly across the photo, scanning one line at a time. It was needed 5-10 minutes per B&W image, 15-45 minutes for color, once each through red, green and blue filters. A single little “hit” in the telephone line and you had to start all over again, because there was no way to correct the image.
This is a selection of images made in 1990 as they were transmitted to AFP Desk in Paris. They are 18×24 prints, handmade in the makeshift darkroom of the InterContinental’s #220 room, the place where AFP are opened its first office in Romania.
Romania, 1990: Beyond the headlines
In our world of digital photography and high speed Internet, photojournalists can quickly and easily send large numbers of high-res photos to the other side of the globe. Things weren’t always so convenient.
Thanks to some amazing events, in January 1990, my life changed in just one day and I became photographer correspondent of AFP for Romania. The most beautiful and creative years followed, a celebrating of the newfound freedom after the fall of the communist regime in Romania.
As a “news” photographer, I and the colleagues from Reuters and AP were “the wire” photographers – the first ones on the scene when news breaks. Our value was our speed, and speed also determined our content. Because the transmission of a single image took from 10 to 30 minutes, we were trained to take shots that summed up the event in just one single image rather than in a series of images that collectively told a story.
But in 1990, the transmission of a photo to the wire services wasn’t an easy job. After shoot the image on film, take an hour or so to process and dry the film, then go into the darkroom to edit and print the image, type the caption on a typewriter, attach the caption to the side of the image. The print was wrapped around the cylinder on the sending machine – an obsolete combination of a scanner and a fax machine. The machine had to be connected to a telephone device by means of plugs that were attached to the microphone terminals. The drum rotates while a scanning beam moves slowly across the photo, scanning one line at a time. It was needed 5-10 minutes per B&W image, 15-45 minutes for color, once each through red, green and blue filters. A single little “hit” in the telephone line and you had to start all over again, because there was no way to correct the image.
This is a selection of images made in 1990 as they were transmitted to AFP Desk in Paris. They are 18×24 prints, handmade in the makeshift darkroom of the InterContinental’s #220 room, the place where AFP are opened its first office in Romania.
