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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Is photojournalism a dying field?
Chuck Liddy, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 10:13 PM on 08.09.09 |
| ->> Not wanting to be a smart ass but, if this is news to anyone in the field they have had their head in the sand for more than two years.....hell, I've been saying this for over three years...... |
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Jack Kurtz, Photographer
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Phoenix | AZ | United States | Posted: 10:21 PM on 08.09.09 |
->> I don't think anyone would accuse you of that. :)
I posted as I was started my shift in the buggy whip factory dreaming of being a cobbler one day. |
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Robert Hanashiro, Photographer
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Los Angeles | CA | | Posted: 10:26 PM on 08.09.09 |
| ->> No. |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 10:34 PM on 08.09.09 |
| ->> Dying ? No. Changing ? Yes. |
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Mike O'Bryon, Photographer
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Ft. Lauderdale | FL | USA | Posted: 10:35 PM on 08.09.09 |
| ->> I have been shouted down for years... but I still say NO.... the "vehicles" we have traditionally used to display our work are evolving... but the art/craft/profession of telling stories with pictures is not dying.... we just need to hold on and survive the ambulance ride |
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Jim Comeau, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Los Angeles | CA | USA | Posted: 10:40 PM on 08.09.09 |
| ->> EVERYONE wants a picture to go with the story. Sometimes, the picture IS the story. |
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Nick Morris, Photographer
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San Marcos | CA | United States | Posted: 11:18 PM on 08.09.09 |
| ->> Photojournalism is not dying. It's shedding it's old skin for new. There will always be a market for photos of news as long as there are people to look at them. The old club is gone and the walls have fallen. The industry as it has been for the past few decades is no longer a "private" club held by schooled and seasoned vets. It's now an open club with memberships by anyone with a shutter to click whether it be an iphone or a Mark III. The market is also changing. As with any industry supply and demand will dictate the price of a photo. Also effecting the price will be the people willing to sell their front page photo's to Time Magazine for $30 or the ever popular "Exposure" promised by the editors. We now have the internet which is free. Free news, free pictures and free press. It's not dying... it's changing. We can either find a way to change with it or we can die ourselves. |
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Arthur Spragg, Photographer
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San Angelo | TX | USA | Posted: 11:32 PM on 08.09.09 |
->> The end of the story quote from Dirck Halstead sums it up for me...
"Ten years ago, Dirck Halstead, who spent 29 years as a White House photographer for Time magazine, wrote in Digital Journalist: “When I speak of photojournalism as being dead, I am talking only about the concept of capturing a single image on a nitrate film plane, for publication in mass media.” Visual storytelling has itself been around since the Stone Age, he noted, and “will only be enhanced” by the changes now taking place.
Revisiting that column last month, Mr. Halstead wrote that, if anything, conditions today were worse than he had predicted. To be a photojournalist today, he wrote, “You have to be crazy.”
“Those people who will do anything to come back with a story will be out there shooting for a long time,” he concluded."
I'll rather be crazy, thanks, roll with the punches, and continue learning and adapting and improving my craft. I plan to be out there shooting (in one form or another) for a long time.
"Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is!" - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky, Animal House, 1978 |
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Matthew Sauk, Photographer
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Sandy | UT | United States | Posted: 12:03 AM on 08.10.09 |
| ->> The old model is pretty much dead it seems...new model is still trying to be figured out, it seems |
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Erik Markov, Photographer
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Kokomo | IN | | Posted: 12:07 AM on 08.10.09 |
| ->> Sure the NYT is going to say that photojournalism is a dying field. They don't want anyone to pay attention to the fact that they just ran faked/ photochop photos of the empty homes recently. Whether thats photoj or art or something else who knows, it ran in a paper known for it's photoj. "Look over here, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 1:02 AM on 08.10.09 |
->> Dead?
Commercially viable, profitable photojournalism - quite possibly.
Today, it is challenging to find a full-time job where all you do is use a still camera to tell stories. Most jobs involve at least some multimedia and video. The "Bridges of Madison County" image of a lone photographer traveling the backroads with a trusty still camera are pretty much done today, at least as a full-time staff position.
But the medium of storytelling still photography will never die. People will still tell stories with still photographs. There are subjects and situations where it just works better. Hidef video technology will get better and will become a mainstay for certain situations, but a full resolution still photograph will be around for quite awhile.
The thing I worry about for the future is the loss of compositional skills. Right now during the transition we have people who have shot stills transitioning to moving pictures. In ten years most of the people on the market will have learned both at the same time. Compositionally they are different creatures, and both need to be taught separately by experts.
Hopefully the still photography part doesn't get pushed into the shadows like darkroom skills have been pushed out by digital. |
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Eric Neitzel, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Clinton | UT | USA | Posted: 2:40 AM on 08.10.09 |
| ->> No it is not but it will if people keep asking the question... |
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Danny Gawlowski, Photographer
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Bellingham | WA | USA | Posted: 3:57 AM on 08.10.09 |
->> Separate the businesses that have always paid for photojournalism from the photojournalism itself.
Are news businesses hurting? Absolutely. Does that affect their ability to pay for images? Of course.
But photojournalism is thriving. We have never had so many tools for storytelling at our disposal. Photojournalists who were recently experimenting with multimedia storytelling are now masters at it. The work that is being produced right now is amazing. I am constantly inspired by the images I see and the projects I watch. Hence, I'll say it again - photojournalism is thriving. |
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Steve Ueckert, Photographer
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Houston | TX | | Posted: 8:03 AM on 08.10.09 |
->> David Harpe--
If you are referring to the loss of the vertical image, it has been happening for a while now. While the broadsheets and tab covers could play a vertical image bigger in fewer columns, computer monitors are horizontal, thus web designers and online editors force the horizontal.
--Steve
All--
Was photojournalism dead when the original LIFE magazine folded in 1972? |
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Greg Foster, Photographer
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Atlanta | GA | | Posted: 9:58 AM on 08.10.09 |
->> Photojournalism is not dead, but the business of photojournalism is in a lot of trouble.
It's a great field to be in if you have a trust fund. |
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George Bridges, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | USA | Posted: 10:18 AM on 08.10.09 |
->> Why am I reminded of Monty Python when reading this thread?
:-) |
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Chuck Liddy, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 10:32 AM on 08.10.09 |
| ->> Ah, the black knight I assume! 8) |
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George Bridges, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | USA | Posted: 10:54 AM on 08.10.09 |
| ->> the Nights who say Ni as well as the Bring out your Dead scene "I'm not dead yet. I'm getting better" |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 11:01 AM on 08.10.09 |
->> Could just as well be the Argument Clinic.
"You PhotoShopped that image, didn't you? You're no photojournalist! You have no ethics! You're a digitally-manipulating paparazzo!"
"Wait, I came here for an argument."
"Oh, sorry, this is flaming. You want the next thread."
(next thread over)
"Photojournalism is dead!"
"No it isn't!"
"Yes it is!"
"No it isn't!"... |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Urbana | IL | USA | Posted: 11:05 AM on 08.10.09 |
| ->> Photojournalism isn't dying. It is growing. Everyone with a D-reb and above is now a PJ. The key to success is a full time job in another industry or field and shoot during your free time. The ability to make a living, enough money to live, pay bills and raise a family, work as a photojournalist in the way that was common up until two years ago is in ICU. It won't be long now before they'll have to remove the tubes and start using parts of the profession as we know it as donors to new, hopefully more financially viable form of disseminating information to the public. |
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Albert McCracken, Photographer
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Lockport | NY | USA | Posted: 2:05 PM on 08.10.09 |
| ->> It's the world that is changing. The field of photojournalist is large, too big and more people with cameras that think photojournalist and don't understand the business.Remember the jar of coins on the cover of times. |
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Steven E. Frischling, Photographer
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102 Yards From The Beach | CT | | Posted: 2:32 PM on 08.10.09 |
->> "->> Why am I reminded of Monty Python when reading this thread?"
Because Geo...its only a flesh wound |
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