The reporter and photographer David Gonzalez once had to ship his film rolls to The Times’s Manhattan office. But in 1999, he went digital.
In the In Times Past column, David W. Dunlap explores New York Times history through artifacts housed in the Museum of The Times.
Two notable events in David Gonzalez’s nearly 34-year career at The New York Times occurred in 1999. He was appointed the Central America-Caribbean bureau chief, principally covering Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador and Panama.
And he bought his first digital camera.
Widely known as a Times reporter and columnist, Mr. Gonzalez is also an accomplished photographer. He served for eight years as co-editor of The Times’s Lens photojournalism blog and is a founding member of the Seis del Sur collective of Puerto Rican and Nuyorican photographers in the Bronx. “The Dancers,” which he took in 1979, depicts an elegant couple swept away by salsa music, rapturously indifferent to the fact that they’re in the middle of a street in the South Bronx.
Mr. Gonzalez photographed his first assignments in Central America and the Caribbean on film. He had to ship undeveloped film rolls to The Times’s office in New York for processing, a cumbersome method that gave him no chance to review his work.
So he bought a digital Olympus C-2020 in 1999, later upgrading to an Olympus C-4040, which was 4-by-3-by-2 inches and weighed 15 ounces. “I couldn’t afford one of the early Nikon digitals,” Mr. Gonzalez recalled in a recent email. (A Nikon Coolpix 950 cost $999.) “I knew Olympus, and the price was right, about $800. Since correspondents were paid $100 per photo, it paid for itself quickly.”
With a digital camera, Mr. Gonzalez was immediately able to see what he’d photographed. He could also transmit his photos to New York with a modem that converted digital files into signals that traveled over telephone lines. Though much slower than a modern internet fiber-optic connection, this method was immensely faster than physical shipping.
Mr. Gonzalez used the C-4040 to photograph the visit of former President Jimmy Carter to Cuba in May 2002, a vigil Mass for the martyred Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero of El Salvador in March 2003, and a Three Kings Day celebration in Manhattan.
The battery compartment of his C-4040 is now broken and corroded. Otherwise, Mr. Gonzalez might have found an eager buyer among Gen Z influencers who prize digital cameras older than they are.
On retiring from The Times last month, Mr. Gonzalez gave the C-4040 to the Museum at The Times. He also offered this reassurance: “I still have lots to say and show.”
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
