| Sign in: |
| Members log in here with your user name and password to access the your admin page and other special features. |
|
|
|
|
|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
A Question for All The PhotoJ Students Out There - Redux
Rick Rickman, Photographer
 |
Laguna Niguel | CA | USA | Posted: 2:19 PM on 12.30.09 |
->> Chuck:
I believe that it's always important to examine where life is heading and I want to congratulate you for starting this discussion because, in my opinion, this kind of examination is long overdue.
Your original question is important;
" I'm curious to know with the continued "downsizing" of newspapers and the elimination of staff positions almost everywhere what students are being advised to do by their respective schools."
It's important because the current economic situation demands that we pay attention but also because historically journalism has been too myopic and limited in it's mode of delivery.
I'm currently teaching in the Visual Journalism department At Brooks Institute in California as well as trying to keep beans and rice on the table by continuing to tell visual stories for various publications and institutions. It's been a demanding ordeal the past couple years to say the least.
I don't believe it would be unfair to say that I talk in uncompromisingly straight forward terms about how difficult things in the current market are. I attempt to speak with sometimes painful clarity about the prospects of making a living as a visual journalist and how daunting that can be and often times is. I think many of the students who have had me would tell you that I'm sometimes frank to a fault.
However, I'm also a lover of history and if we look back at the times when many of our most significant advancements have been made, it was during times of significant stress and duress.
You are absolutely correct is making people face up to the fact that jobs in the normal journalism delivery systems, ( newspapers, magazines,) are struggling. Publications are paying less and less for still images because more and more people are using the advances in technologies to become more proficient at capturing better pictures. because of that fact good images are becoming easier to find.
However, as has been historically the case, many people have begun to also use the technology to become better storytellers who can harness greater depth of emotion in the stories they tell by using multi-faceted elements to enhance the richness of their story delivery.
Just as a simple example, take a look at Media Storm. What they are doing is just the beginning of some possibilities of venues to pursue. Look at the new technology the SI is employing as a new delivery mode for their magazine. (Look it up. You'll be astonished as to what's going on out there.) Look at what Runners World did for a cover story using video and how a thin sheet of velam and now become a changeable information sheet which can be updated continuously and customized to bring you your own magazine information source.
Someone earlier mentioned that when new technologies emerge new sources of employment often follow for those who are up to speed and prepared to fill those positions. Dylan Isbell was correct when he mentioned the need to develop multiple skill sets and become adept and adroit at using them.
We are in a vortex of change at the moment and now is the time to do all you can to expand your experience and understanding of the movement of this vortex. Find the excitement in the change. See the opportunities it will provide and be excited to travel the road.
If we look at change in any industry it's not to hard to see that the people who were least afraid of loosing the status quo and most receptive to the opportunities provided by the changes were the very people who are now viewed as the innovator in their fields.
Look at Graham Bell, look at Henry Ford, review the history of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Creativity is developmental and should be nurtured. This is the time in journalism when that creativity should be nurtured extensively.
I believe that those who demand more from themselves by expanding their creative platforms will be the ones who lead us into our new visual journalistic venues and journalism will become the richer for it. I look forward to those continued advances.
Discussion enables thought. Thought can initialize the creative process. Thanks for getting this started Chuck. |
|
Return to --> Message Board Main Index
|