"For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved
The future of photojournalism is a topic that is being beaten to death. Maybe a more apt term for photojournalism would be visual journalism.
In a May 27th, 2009 online article that appeared on
The British Journal of Photography website, Jean-Francois Leroy, founder and director of
Visa pour l'Image, an annual festival held in France dedicated to contemporary photojournalism said, "This year, I can count less than a dozen photographers who have gone on a magazine assignment to do a real news report, allowing the photographer to make a living from his work and pay his bills at the end of the month."
If what Jean-Francois Leroy said is true, and I have no reason to doubt him, "real news reports", told visually with photographs, will soon disappear (at least throughout the Western World's "bubble of prosperity"). According to Kentucky resident and college student
Patrick Yen, a multimedia producer (creative), "any jackass with a digital camera can take a decent photo." While his statement may or may not be true, clearly, not every "jackass" can earn a living doing so these days.
How did this happen?
Problem Number 1 Might Be PerceptionAs
photographer Diane Wah noted in
an interview on Dodge & Burn, "Photography is a business supported by amateurs." "What I mean to say is that most sales of photography equipment are not to professionals but to the average consumer and even "professional" equipment is not bought by professional photographers but by those who have the money."
What this seems to indicate is that in reality, photography is a rich man's sport but "professional" photography is not. However, professional photographers are presumed to be "rich" and this could explain why seemingly
everyone under the sun is trolling the internet asking pros for free photographs, or stealing them. Call it the Robin Hood syndrome in reverse.
Problem Number 2 Is The Evaporation Of The Photo Industry As We Know ItDan Heller explains what's happening on his website when he says, "My specific hypothesis is that the majority of buyers and sellers are no longer associated with the industry as it has been traditionally defined, leaving the traditional photo agencies, and even pro photographers themselves, minor players in the overall economic activity of photo sales."
Additionally, many youngsters such as Patrick Yen view digital photographers as donkeys, further blurring the line between the pool of pro photographers and non-pros who give away free photos. All a photo editor has to do these days is find to his or her liking a few of the roughly
50 billion photos taken by amateurs in the US each year. Any jackass might give away a photo to a multi-million dollar company.
In other words, entities other than traditional photo agencies and publications are participating in the photo-buying marketplace and no one knows how large this group is.
Problem Number 3 Is The Demise Of Western World Newspapers and MagazinesNewspapers and magazines are going broke. This isn't news of course, but I don't feel that the internet has unseated them as trusted sources of information. Habits have changed, demographics have shifted and younger people are unmoved by human-interest stories. In America for example, Generation Y, a group numbering 90 million people comprised of those born between 1985 and the present have supplanted 75 million remaining Baby Boomers who were born between 1945 and 1964 as the largest definable age bracket.
Those in this age range are consuming at 500% of the rate of the Baby Boom Generation in adjusted dollars age for age and presently at least, are interested in information related to celebrity driven culture easily accessible to them on the internet. These folks are moving at a faster pace than Baby Boomers and don't have time to ponder their own behavior, let alone read a newspaper or magazine at this point in their lives. They're busy spending, unlike Boomers whose consumption is slowing.
Is Multimedia The Photographers Silver Bullet?Leroy says that
Visa pour l'Image will host multimedia projects for the first time. "We're not doing it because it's fashionable,...but because it's about photographers' survival" explains Leroy.
Although thousands of photographers and photojournalists are rushing to produce multimedia pieces, moving imagery is quite different from still photography when comparing visual logic. Further, most multimedia presentations fall short when production value is taken into account.
If one is a
Magnum photographer with access to the best creative minds and equipment, high production value may attract unique buyers looking for great content.
Wade through youtube and see how much material you would be proud to call your own.
Taking multimedia distribution of news, photojournalism and documentary work to a logical conclusion, it too will become a business supported by amateurs while news organizations such as CNN and BBC ask for free content. While it's great for photographers to polish skills and diversify, multimedia pieces aren't presently paying photojournalist's bills either.
Who Will Be Left Standing?Only the best of the best will go on magazine assignments to do real news and documentary reporting. The rest will perform work for hire or shoot weddings and conferences and financially, those last two gigs should be great for a long time.
After all, if a person is lucky they'll get married only once. When that day arrives, do you really want to give the job of taking the photos to "any jackass with a digital camera"?
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERSMy Mondo Library PhotographyMy Photoshelter Photography Archive HomepageGAIA Photography and PhotojournalismRead More Details Regarding Visa pour l'Image
