Photojournalism is dead
Wednesday, 16. September 2009, 19:03:44
Last week I was in Perpignan (France) for the world's largest festival of photojournalism, Visa pour l'image 09. Many world class photographers came (Steve McCurry, Eugene Richards or Stanley Greene to name just a few). And the whole time there was a perpetuating theme; photojournalism is dead.
I can tell you from my experience, that most news papers in Slovenia have ever-smaller budget for photography. Especially for the high-end journalistic photos (which are not to be mistaken for snapshots). They just don't pay! I for one covered Elton John in Croatia entirely pro bono and perhaps for my own amusement and prestige. This happens all the time.
There are many reasons why. I am not experienced enough for a deep analysis, but I can give you a few.
Of course there is financial crisis, but that might just as well be an excuse.
Then there is the availability of the tools; photo cameras. Anyone can buy a decent SLR and that creates an illusion that anyone can make photos... Well, we can all buy a basketball, but can we play like Jordan???
This fact has two major consequences; I greet the first and despise the second.
Firstly we have an abundant creativity of the amateurs. You can see that on Flickr. Millions of photos are uploaded every day. With such a low cost of failure, people experiment more and we found ways of expression that were unimaginable just a decade ago. I watch Flickr and Vimeo very closely, and I continue to be amazed every day. This is great, but it creates a pressure for the professionals not only to become even better and better, but also to grasp the new digital paradigm of creativity. It is difficult for an 50 year old pro (who shot prohibitively expensive Fuji Velvia for most of his life) to start thinking like a 15 year old kid who has nothing to loose. Especially the older generation has many problems now and most of them are paradigmatic. Their skill is not in question, but they have to change the way they think if they want to survive. I believe that is good in the long term. Every revolution has its sacrifices.
But secondly, every journalist (writing journalist) can now have a small camera and press the shutter while not taking notes. And that is profoundly WRONG! These people have NO TRAINING and in general even no talent for visual communication. They are great with words, but they don't know a diddly-squat about visual narrative. As a consequence, newspapers are full of snapshots in the worst possible meaning of that word. In the best case, photos published by some more local daily papers are average, but more often they are terrible.
I get it. Papers have to make cuts. But papers must also realize, that VISUALS SELL (not only photography, but also design)! Editors (again, most of them trained with words) have very high standards and respect for verbal part of the media. They consider it underestimating to publish a crapy text with grammar errors. And that is right, we must have high standards for the written word, but we also must have high standards for the imagery. Pictures can be compelling beyond explanation and together with words they can create a story that is a lot more powerful than words or pictures alone. What bothers me is not just the low quality of visuals, it is the imbalance of those two.
So for now we are in a state of crisis. The old model is still around, the new one is not quite invented yet. How to make it in the future? Will photographers all have to go freelance? I have no idea.
My clients often ask me how much do I charge for a picture. Sometimes they even ask me how much I charge for an hour of work. I can hardly give them an answer to that. Pictures are worthless in physical terms. Once you buy a camera and disk storage it costs exactly nothing to produce a picture. My hour of work might be difficult to calculate because there is a difference if I work in studio or outside in rain where bullets fly around.
But I do know what my quality is. I know how much I invested in my knowledge, AND THAT IS WHAT I CHARGE. "But how many photos will you take at our wedding," they ask. "As much as I have to," i reply. How many hours will I spend in post-production? As many as I have to in order to guarantee a good result!
So the paradigm has to change, some will die, some will rise, but that's life, isn't it?
I can tell you from my experience, that most news papers in Slovenia have ever-smaller budget for photography. Especially for the high-end journalistic photos (which are not to be mistaken for snapshots). They just don't pay! I for one covered Elton John in Croatia entirely pro bono and perhaps for my own amusement and prestige. This happens all the time.
There are many reasons why. I am not experienced enough for a deep analysis, but I can give you a few.
Of course there is financial crisis, but that might just as well be an excuse.
Then there is the availability of the tools; photo cameras. Anyone can buy a decent SLR and that creates an illusion that anyone can make photos... Well, we can all buy a basketball, but can we play like Jordan???
This fact has two major consequences; I greet the first and despise the second.
Firstly we have an abundant creativity of the amateurs. You can see that on Flickr. Millions of photos are uploaded every day. With such a low cost of failure, people experiment more and we found ways of expression that were unimaginable just a decade ago. I watch Flickr and Vimeo very closely, and I continue to be amazed every day. This is great, but it creates a pressure for the professionals not only to become even better and better, but also to grasp the new digital paradigm of creativity. It is difficult for an 50 year old pro (who shot prohibitively expensive Fuji Velvia for most of his life) to start thinking like a 15 year old kid who has nothing to loose. Especially the older generation has many problems now and most of them are paradigmatic. Their skill is not in question, but they have to change the way they think if they want to survive. I believe that is good in the long term. Every revolution has its sacrifices.
But secondly, every journalist (writing journalist) can now have a small camera and press the shutter while not taking notes. And that is profoundly WRONG! These people have NO TRAINING and in general even no talent for visual communication. They are great with words, but they don't know a diddly-squat about visual narrative. As a consequence, newspapers are full of snapshots in the worst possible meaning of that word. In the best case, photos published by some more local daily papers are average, but more often they are terrible.
I get it. Papers have to make cuts. But papers must also realize, that VISUALS SELL (not only photography, but also design)! Editors (again, most of them trained with words) have very high standards and respect for verbal part of the media. They consider it underestimating to publish a crapy text with grammar errors. And that is right, we must have high standards for the written word, but we also must have high standards for the imagery. Pictures can be compelling beyond explanation and together with words they can create a story that is a lot more powerful than words or pictures alone. What bothers me is not just the low quality of visuals, it is the imbalance of those two.
So for now we are in a state of crisis. The old model is still around, the new one is not quite invented yet. How to make it in the future? Will photographers all have to go freelance? I have no idea.
My clients often ask me how much do I charge for a picture. Sometimes they even ask me how much I charge for an hour of work. I can hardly give them an answer to that. Pictures are worthless in physical terms. Once you buy a camera and disk storage it costs exactly nothing to produce a picture. My hour of work might be difficult to calculate because there is a difference if I work in studio or outside in rain where bullets fly around.
But I do know what my quality is. I know how much I invested in my knowledge, AND THAT IS WHAT I CHARGE. "But how many photos will you take at our wedding," they ask. "As much as I have to," i reply. How many hours will I spend in post-production? As many as I have to in order to guarantee a good result!
So the paradigm has to change, some will die, some will rise, but that's life, isn't it?
WIDGETIZE
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