February 8, 2008 by pmelcher.

The World Press awards has revealed its winners for 2008. As expected, the picture of Britney Spears having her head shaved off won for the best image of Arts and entertainment. Or wait..it did not. Once again, The World Press has shown its complete disrespect for the world of news in favor of an overly intellectualized vision of the world. A bit as if the judges, once gathered in a room, behind closed doors, had said: “lets kill photojournalism a little bit more this year”

The photojournalism intelligentsia has voted. A closed group of overly self adoring and painfully egocentric intellectuals whose vision of a news photography is closer to the likes of ICP than the masses. They look for the creative touch, the Holga/lensbaby effect, the “je ne sais quoi” that makes a news photograph a work of art. They over think photography to an excess and seem to look for the Picasso rather than the human touch. They do not believe that an news image can be good, if doesn’t carry the touch of a creative artifact.

This years big winner is a blurry image of a tired soldier. Although not taken in a combat situation, and probably because of low light, it is slightly blurry. I don’t care for such poorly taken image. What is so wrong about reality that it has to be altered and given the highest prize in photojournalism ?

Sadly enough, we see the same intelligentsia controlling most of the major prizes worldwide and spitting out the same type of winners. These judges are all friends with each other and spend the rest of the year over analyzing images as if they where reading a Kafka novel. It has to be dark, blurry, slightly incomprehensible and borderline boring.

No wonder photojournalism is dying. Once again, the sports images of this year seem to be the real winners. Amazing images of incredible situation. The rest is dark, so dark. Not just dark subjects, but simply slightly underexposed or taken with low light. The less you see, the more you can imagine. The image is good for what is not there, so you can fill in the blanks yourself. Even the Nature category is full of blood and sadness because a happy image, according to these judges, cannot be a good image.

Lets no forget that politics, for example, has no place in the World Press. We marvel at the John F Kennedy images in the Oval office yet there is not one image of world leaders in action. Between the French election last year, the changing of guards in England and the US election, you cannot tell me there was no great images.

It is a little bit as if, outside of Africa ( Kenya, mostly), Afghanistan and Iraq, the rest of the world stood still. Or, maybe it was not favorable for a nice moody b&w panoramic Holga image. You can almost hear the judges discuss the lightness of being, quoting “The human condition”, while sipping their warm cappuccinos.” This image is so Nietzscheen, isn’t it?”

Certainly not a good year for the World Press. Even more, because, once again, they refused to acknowledge multimedia, one of the most powerful tool of today’s photojournalism. Or, in a socially driven internet, they do not have a people’s choice, where image consumers could vote.

No, they prefer to remain in photojournalism Medieval ages, taking comfort in congratulating themselves for picking the least interesting images possible as to prove there is more to photojournalism than the reporting of the news. If anything, this, and other awards of it kind, are killing photojournalism. They create the false impression that this is the standard to achieve.

If you have time to waste and have really nothing else to do, here are the winners :

World Press

PS: At least I was right about John Moore’s images who, by the way, truly deserved this prize.

Posted in mediastorm, multimedia, celebrity, magazine, lens, HOLGA, TIME, slideshow, editorial, lensbabies, photojournalism, web 2.0, news | Print | 1 Comment »

November 13, 2007 by pmelcher.

We all know that black and white, Holga / Lensbaby enhanced (?) with a touch of personal sensibility photo “journalism” is a dying breed (thank G~d !) and that it has created in its wake a lamenting song of despair : Photojournalism is dying. Well yes, bad photojournalism, the one that desperately tries to mix art and journalism into “made for museum” photography certainly is, if it ever lived.

These ” I have smoked too much pot ” exposes of blurry, highly grainy ( I don’t shoot digital, digital is for the common man), insufferably pretentious images that make great conversation pieces at photo exhibitions or gallery opening. They have hurt the photojournalism community, desperate for anything original and new, at the expense of real reporting. Cameras, unlike paint, were invented to replicate reality, not alter it.

In the midst of this current debacle of pro photojournalism came the Web 2.0 preachers of community driven content. Crowd, they say, is the new journalist. The masses are everywhere and equipped with cameras, whether in cell phones or in point and shoot. It is multiple eyes everywhere rather than two somewhere.

Furthermore, technology had made the idea very simple, and cheap, to create. For about $300, anyone can purchase an off the shelf package that will manage a fully functional image database. The rest is wait and see. And so we wait. and wait. And as of today, we are still waiting. For numerous reasons.

One source : A citizen photojournalist site would make sense if there was only one. Photo editors could immediately add it to there daily scouting and verify if anything of interest has been put up. There are so many of them today, including Flickr and other photo sharing sites that it becomes impossible to find, if it exists at all, the right image. It is almost like knocking on everyones door and asking if they have an image. Extremely laborious and completely counter productive.

Training: when I hear an explosion or shooting, I duck and protect myself. I do not take pictures. A pro, on the other hand will do the opposite. Immediately. You cannot learn this type of reaction. And once I am finished protecting myself, I will look at what happened, not take pictures. I will only take pictures when I feel perfectly safe, which is, as far as news is concerned, too late.

Composition : There is story telling in photo journalism. There is investigation. there is composition. Trying to explain in one image a situation is as hard as writing a full length article, if not harder. A pro has an audience in his/her head and shoots to explain. You need to take an event and bring it to someone who wasn’t there as if he was. A passer-by will take a picture of whatever is burning, moving or looking odd. His/her audience is himself. It has the same attention then a dog.

Editing: Albeit probably helped by the sites owners, an amateur has no clue on what sells. Nor will they ever. A pro is always confronted to news event.An amateur, maybe once in their lifetime. How do you want them to know what images to send ? A pro looks at what has been published and what hasn’t. A happy snapper couldn’t care less, unless if he or she witnessed the event.

Rewards: With CNN, Msnbc, ABC.com and so on urging their readers to upload images directly to their site with absolutely no other compensation then to see their images published, photocitizen are also being lured away by publishers.

Finally, and this is probably the main reason we are seeing this stillbirth, Photo agencies have always been in the business of recuperating images of amateurs that have worthwhile pictures. Some even have full time dedicated people just in charge of doing these pick ups and quickly securing exclusive rights. Unlike to Citizen journalist site that wait and hope for a great image to come up, agencies will invest time and resources in finding these images. There is no competition there as web 2.0 community sites have none of this knowledge and capability. They sit and wait while their source of income is being professionally poached by smooth operators.

So what do we see on these sites ?: a lot of images of car crash ( always a winner in an amateur’s heart), bad images of celebrities at a restaurant or nightclub, fires, lots of fires, and other useless images. The junk of citizen photojournalism. All this spread out over hundreds of “use me” websites. Even if these sites would follow the microstock model of charging a penny an image, they would still not work as no one needs these images.

So, we can safely predict that citizen photo journalism will be the first to blow when the web 2.0 bubble explodes.

Posted in web 2.0, HOLGA, license, flickr, photojournalism, editorial, lensbabies, news | Print | No Comments »

July 23, 2007 by pmelcher.

Over and over one can read, or hear, that photojournalism is dead, or dying. And it is, but not for the reason that one might think.

What is really dying is the journalism in photojournalism . A while back photographers were great investigators, reporters, that would uncover a story and bring it to the world’s attention through images rather than text. They would find a story and treat it, from beginning to end, with images.

These days, photojournalists have become article illustrators. They either stroll along a word reporter and photograph accompanying images for the article, or are told to shoot specific images that would fit nicely with the story. That is when they get an assignment. Otherwise, they will read a story somewhere and replicate in images what they have read about.

It is rare these days to discover images that really break a news story. Images that perform the tasks of informing. Today’s photojournalist should be called newsillustrators as they battle each other for the best spot a news conference or nice angle at a parade. There is much more to photojournalism then being there at the right time.

Salgado brought us the famine in Ethiopia like no journalist could had ever done . The result was as powerful as the images themselves as they led to worldwide concern and involvement into what would have otherwise been a paragraph in the New York Times international briefs. The same photojournalists that complain about the lack of space for stories are the same that are not providing stories.

In order to be revived, photographers need to rediscover investigation. They should find the stories to shoot, make sure it has not already been covered a thousand times, either by article or other photographers, and do a thorough job in explaining in images what they see.

Currently, most rely on the opinions of editors at photo agencies or NGO’s who provide for their expenses. The goal is to be published, not to report. The intent is wrong from the start. Its style over substance. It takes an independent mind with an uncanny need to dig for the truth. To be more curious about the world than the rest of us. To keep on digging where others have left off.

There are a few misconception that are floating around. First is the need for speed. Its becoming an arm race to deliver images as quickly as possible. What used to be the domain of wire service photographers is now spreading to everyone. If my images get there before the others than I must be good. While it might help in being published because your images got just on time to hit a deadline, it is not photojournalism, its playing the odds.

The second misconception is style over substance. Thanks to photography museums and other grants, photojournalism is being thought as fine art. Therefore photographers go through great efforts to be different and create a style. They forget that they are journalist before all and start regarding themselves as artist. Thus the appearance of Holga’s, Lensbabie’s and other interference. The result is a detachment from the subject of the story and a complete lost of interest from the readers.

The third is a reliance on traditional media. Most photographers these days cannot see past the usual forms of medium to support their images. Photography and photojournalism is not a conventional tool and should not be treated as such. As much as the images must exist to inform, as much as the medium should support the language. There is no mold for how to create a great story, thus there should be no traditional way to make it visible. The rules should always be broken in order to make the message visible.

As this industry changes, it is important for its photographers to change and innovate. Thanks to the internet, it has never been easier and cheaper to have images seen. Yet hardly anyone has used the medium at its full potential. Granted, it might not pay as well as a double page in Time magazine but it will certainly be seen by many more people worldwide. And, isn’t it what photojournalism is all about ?

Posted in HOLGA, photojournalism, lensbabies, editorial | Print | 1 Comment »

June 29, 2007 by pmelcher.

It has been very hot here, in New York city, these last few days. It is not just the heat that is unbearable, but mostly the vapor humidity that turns you into a wet sponge the minute you step outside. Fortunately, a line of angry powerful thunderstorms broke the hellish spell, lifting the heavy lid of miserable days. Guess the heatwave did not just hit New York.

Time for a NO Sense posting:

I have seen it all category :

Sports photography with a lensbabies !!!! aargh. What next ? photography without a lens? Shoot with your toe ? They should have a show on TV called “photographers gone wild”

The no news day will be personal news:

Usually very professional blog Stockphototalk goes nasty and very personal today ( link withheld on purpose. I do not want to advertise this story). What next, publish images of Darryl Lang in embarrassing situation ? Publish tax returns from Jim Pickerell ? How is this related to photography ? Why so much hate ?

Corbis decide to help Bill Gates, financially:

From Gary Shenk’s memo, CEO of Corbis :”As I indicated earlier this year, we will intensify our focus on profitability and shareholder value.” Since Corbis has only one shareholder, I am sure he is jumping up and down in anticipation of the extra income he will be soon be making. In the mean time 160 more people are paying the price from the ongoing mismanagement of the company.

Agent Mulder anyone ?:

Thomas Hawk, fame blogger and CEO of “Flickr killer” site Zoomr gets it all wrong when he abruptly attacks Corbis latest creation SnapVillage. He places the RF market at $2.5 billion ( that would be nice), complains about the royalty percentage, and believes putting a cap on image pricing is part of the master plan from the big three (Corbis, Getty, Jupiter) to control the world.

Finally, the English have it the Voltaire way:

According to the most vocal of the UK based photographer group, it is time to take care of your garden. I guess if you can’t make it in the editorial world, you might as well get a quick buck with no traveling expenses.

Posted in flickr, No sense, lensbabies, corbis, getty, Royalty free | Print | 1 Comment »

May 24, 2007 by pmelcher.

Filing in the blanks. Stock photographers fill in the empty spots of an agencies collection. I really want to know, who gets up one day and decides to become a professional stock photographer ? “my job”, I would assume they are thinking “will be to shoot for an archive”. Hopefully for them, they will be so much smarter than the industry itself and will shoot that ’special” picture that everyone needs, becoming zillionaires.
Mmm…The holy grail of photography.
What kind of photographer travels half way around the globe to shoot the devastating result of an earthquake in an already challenged area and decides to send all their images as gray scale ? or use a $2 camera ( think Holga) ? or worse, decides to distort the whole think with a lensbaby ?

Might as well stay at home, take a big hammer, and slam it really hard on ones’ foot.

Photographers have the right to try things, I agree. But to a certain extend. On one side of the spectrum there is a whole mass of buzzing photographers shooting stock for clients they have and will never see. They are entirely at the mercy of photo agencies because they were created by them. On the other, pros that believe that distorting reality is a definitive selling advantage.

I am aware that some photographers, like Paolo Pellegrin combine Holga and B/W, and still manage to be published. But this is the exception that confirms the rule.

Because they are taken with no audience in mind, stock photographs have no emotions. They are blend, stripped off of any and all feelings, aseptic. Everytime I look at RM stock photography I feel I am walking in a hospital, with its lifeless white walls. Like pasteurized cheese. It looks like cheese, but it certainly not smell nor taste like it.

Likely, I do not want to see actresses roaming the red carpet of a movie premiere who spend days on make up, hair do, choosing a dress , in boring lifeless black and white. There is no “decisive moment” on a red carpet. I do not want to see a tragedy stripped of it colors that make it multi dimensional and thus humane. Do sports photographer shoot in B/W? Why not? Well, maybe because the image itself defines the moment and that it needs no artifacts.
Reality has colors. Reality has defaults. More important, reality has emotions.

Somewhat related additional reading:

A great post by Jesse Nivens: In Search of Stock(y) Photography

Posted in HOLGA, lensbabies, editorial | Print | No Comments »

March 9, 2007 by pmelcher.

• NOT AGAIN : Stumbled on a press release from a French archiving company called LOCARCHIVES. They are the company that Corbis has subcontracted to handle the Sygma collection. Their press release indicates that once the 800 square meter facility will be finished (will it have an indoor swimming pool ?), LOCARCHIVES will be also managing the collection. Meaning that Corbis will outsource the management of the Sygma archives to a company specialized in archiving, not selling, images.
• BIG IS BACK: 160 million pixel captor, 307 MB images in RAW format, up to 20,000 ISO settings, amazing breathtaking images, the big bad photo camera is back with the SEITZ roundup. Maybe commercial stock photographers will drop the lensbabies and photojournalist will stop using the Holga for this?
• JUPITER MEDIA/GETTY : Seattle based company Getty is notorious for going through the rounds of an acquisition before finally pulling out at the last minute. It gives them a free, full visit of their competitors books and facilities.  They did this with Digital Stock, before buying Photodisc, and eventually got sued. They have done it repeatedly. Corbis does the same, by the way. I would do it too, if I could.
• MICROSTOCK PRICING: Dan Heller posted yet another very interesting entry about Microstock pricing. But he forgot to see that Istockphoto, for example, has been playing around with prices for the last 6 years, as per CEO and founder Bruce Livingston. And they are not about to stop now.
• PHOTO NEWS WEBSITE UPDATE : I have been adding more photo industry sites and blogs to my ONE STOP PHOTO NEWS PORTAL. It is starting to look good. Even I use it to quickly glance at the news. Try it and let me know. It’s free.

Posted in HOLGA, lensbabies | Print | No Comments »

February 9, 2007 by pmelcher.

Like the Academy Awards of news photography, the new World Press winners are announced. A few notes of interest:

~There are a lot of black and white images. Not sure if this is a trend of how images were shot this year (2006) or the jury, looking at stories from afar, thought that the b/w images were more meaningful at the end.

~The sports section show some of the best images I have personally ever seen. Its fascinating to see that with such predictable events as sports events, happening in set location with set conditions, some photographers are still able to reinvent themselves and continue to take incredible images.

~The extreme majority of winners are with either wire services or photo agencies. Where are the independents? Where their material not good enough or did they simply did not have the time to submit their images?

~ Being at the right place at the right time just doesn’t cut it. Photojournalism, as I said before, has absolutely nothing to fear from UGC ( User Generated Content) or other “Citizenphotojournalist armed with a cell phone”

~ When will the World Press acknowledge multi media slide shows? I have seen some pretty amazing made for the web slide shows in 2006 and expect to see some more in 2007. As the internet is becoming more influential as a medium for photojournalism, the World Press organization should pave the way. And the Pulitzer for that matter.

~ No artifacts please. Like the Lensbabies for Commercial stock photographers, there has been an over use of images taken with the HOLGA. I understand that technology can be intimidating for some but I am a big believer that great images do not need any artifacts. Please, let’s stop rewarding those who rely on tricks to take images.

Otherwise, a great year for photography and congrats to all the winners and all those who were close to winning. You make my job more interesting every day.

Posted in prosumer, HOLGA, photojournalism, lensbabies, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »

December 22, 2006 by pmelcher.

There is no imagination left in the professionnal fields of stock RM and RF photographer. Nothing. zip. Zilch.Nada. Has to be, because when you look at the images being offered by most stock agencies, they all look the same. Especially those taken with a piece of plastic added to their lenses.

Stop it. Please. whoever is responsible . I do not know if it is the photographers or the editors, but if I see one more image taken with that Lensbabies extension, I will start to cry too, like a baby. It is like those filters used in the late 70’s early 80″s that changed light into multicolor 4 tip stars. It was used so much, by photographers, movie directors, TV shows, that it is rare to see any images from that period without them. Those filters were stuck to photographers lenses, like Lensbabies these days.

I even see news editorial photographer using it. Aaaargh !! I guess reality has become such a bore that we need to distort it. Find another trick, quick !! and stop copying each other. I do not know if those bean counters with a humongous corporate background and a degree in Historical redundancy are telling you that “the numbers indicate that picture taken with lensbabies sell 80 % better than does without”.Of course they do, Image Buyers cannot find anything else.

One cannot find a food picture taken without it anymore. It was interesting at first but now it is becoming repulsive. I will call my congressman if necessary, pass a bill that bans the use of those things. Be creative, someone, quick. and throw these plastic things out or give it to someone you hate.

Trends in photography are like rulers of countries, they are made to be replaced. If one stays too long, the system gets corrupted.

Posted in filter, lensbabies, news, Royalty free | Print | 1 Comment »