January 1, 2009 by pmelcher.

I like the new year. For one good reason. Everyone does a round up of all the best images of the year in a beautiful slideshow. So, like every year, I wandered through the internet, looking at different version of the year in pictures. This is where I went:

AOL

MSNBC

The Big Picture
The New York Times

Sports Illustrated

Der Spiegel

Time Magazine

And this is what I saw. Only pictures from either AP, Reuters, Getty and a little bit of EPA. All wire services, nothing else. At first I thought it was just a USA thing, but no. Even Der Spiegel, the famous German magazine did the same. Time magazine, The New York Times and Sports Illustrated decided that the best images were the ones that they had assigned, thus presenting only pictures of either staff photographers or assigned photographers.

Now, do not get me wrong. There are a lot of very talented photographers at the wire agencies, and some did an incredible job this year, but still. Ignoring photographers from Aurora, Redux, Noor, VII, Abaca, Sipa, Gamma, Reporters, Magnum, National Geographic, Minden, and so many other source, just because they are not accessible via a monthly payment is plainly ridiculous. Its pure journalistic laziness. And another pin in the machine.

All these so called photo editors who called themselves journalist either did not take the time to look around or simply refused to do so because it would cost them more money. Sad and pathetic. It is an insult to the photographic world to blindly close your eyes and the production of all these extremely talented photographers. It’s plain censorship. Economical censorship, maybe but still censorship. They will not publish and show these images because they are too expensive. Thus their readers will never see them. Not because they are bad, but because they will not pay for them.

Who is to blame ? The subscription model and the bean counters that have taken over. Who is suffering ? Everyone, since we are all deprived from seeing the real “best of” and only get to see a washed out version, pre packaged by the wires. What does it say about the state of our industry. Well, for one, that if you are not part of a wire service in 2009, you will have a hard time being published or seen. That real photo editors are disappearing and being replaced by researchers. That there is a real treasure to be mined for those who think outside the wires, and finally, that the public, the readers, are being scammed.

So all these year end “best pictures of 2008″ should be renamed “best cheap and affordable pictures of the year”, leaving room for someone with a budget, and a conscience, to do one with the real best picture of the years.

Posted in SIPA, magazine, Magnum, Aurora, TIME, photojournalism, editorial, finance, slideshow, msnbc.com, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

September 19, 2008 by pmelcher.

It not really a novel idea. Ap, Reuters and AFP have done it for years. The idea is quite simple. On one side, a big company with a lot of staff photographer producing lots of images, on the other, newspapers, gobbling images by the pound on a daily business. It is not really photography that is being licensed, but information.

Comes in Getty who pushes the concept to non wire service media: Magazines, monthlies and so on. The idea is then to sell images as a service. We will create such a volume of images that you will undoubtedly find your match many times over. And the more you use us, the less it actually cost per image. On paper. For Getty, it is a great deal. Since they do not pay commissions to staffer,  they just need to match the number of subscribers to meet their photographer payroll expenses. Salvation is in the number of subscriptions sold. For the photographers, who cares. They get a salary so who cares who and where their images are being sold. For photo editors, its good and bad. Good to have cheap and alsmost endless ressource of images for cheap, not so good if they like to have a freedom of choice. Thus, the ones that are really consonscious about doing their job perfectly are not the ones who push for such scheme. But they have to deal with bean counters above them that do not care.

In most countries, magazines are run not by Editor and chief or CEO but by CFO’s. These CFO have no journalistic training, hardly open the magazine and only care about the bottom line : saving money. Unfortunately they have the power.

What happens ? Well, for one thing, the quality of the images publish drop. Because they have to edit within a pre-edited pool of images, photo editor have to rely on the best of the worst. Not that Getty have bad images, quite the opposite, but they do not always get the best. Its the nature of the beast. Regardless, readers will get to see not the best image, but something close. Not good. Take Boston.com Big Picture blog, for example. It is only wire service images they publish, thus giving the false impression that these are the best images. They are not. Its not journalism, it is deception, it’s a lie. Just to save a few bucks. This is not helping photography at all.

The competition, other photo agency, thinking it is a good idea, start jumping in the subscription scheme. Except that they forget that it is only profitable if you have a huge amount of clients. making subscription deals with 10 clients is a waste of time and money. Worse, they will do it with commissioned photographers,  forcing them to spend hours calculating who gets what at the end of the month. Ridiculous.

Getty is clearly trying to asphyxiate its competition, that is the lesser sized photo agencies, with this strategy. It doesn’t care about readership and its clients so much. Once on contract, they are stuck with their production and that is it. How many times have I heard photo editors claiming and admitting that your image is better but not being able to use it because of a Getty subscription deal made without their approval.

It is a sad situation that this industry is going through currently because the right image does not always win.And its all to the photographers lost. Because even if he/she belongs to Getty, it is sold at the same price as the next image. It never gets the value recognition it deserves, unless if it wins a prize. By averaging the pricing of all images, Getty is even hurting itself by sending a clear message that a photograph is the same as the one before and the next one to come. Well it makes sense for a big corporation trying to streamline cost and revenue, its very cheap thinking, that will, in the end, hurt the very core of our business, the photographers themselves.

The ones that really respect their work do not sign up with Getty. They go with VII, Aurora, Magnum, Cosmos, Contact and do very well. They are also treated as individuals and not “pool feeders “. Subscription deals are extremely counter productive for photographers and photo editors. They do not even benefit the readers. So why do they continue to flourish in a economy where image distribution is not even an issue anymore ? Because some MBA guy thinks that making money=saving money ? Can we all be better than that ?

PS : Gawker.com has posted a rumor that makes no sense : Getty to purchase Flickr. You can read it here.

Posted in license, magazine, technology, Magnum, newspaper, web 2.0, editorial, photojournalism, flickr, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

August 12, 2008 by pmelcher.

- Misconception No1: Photojournalism is not being killed by celebrity photographers. In fact, photographers that cover the celebrity scene, weather red carpet or street photographer have the same ratio of good to bad photographers than in news. It takes some of the same skills to cover news and celebrity. Regardless. Time or Newsweek have not increased their celebrity photography coverage. They just have just lessened their news coverage.

- Misconception No2 : Editorial photography is dying. What is dying are the daily and weekly print publications. Newspapers, magazines, and old brands. They cannot compete with the speed of  news anymore. What is dying is the image that is formatted for a print support with a rectangular format. What is dying is the photography taught in school and colleges today. There is a new medium for editorial photography that has never existed before, that knows no boundaries will it be in size, amount, artifact and pricing ( the Internet). What really is dying here is an old mentality.

- Misconception No3:  Video will replace stills. Take a look at the amount of video images coming out of the Olympics. Hours and hours of footage. Now, tell me who will sit down and edit film pumped out at 25 frames per seconds to find the right image ?While you think, look at this great gallery done by Stern magazine and see what can photographers can do.

- Misconception No4: Anybody can shoot great images these days. Why would anyone say that when pro photographers have always used the same equipment as amateurs. This is not like dentistry or chemistry where the tools are hard to find, let alone the knowledge. Photography has always been easy to learn and the equipment always available to anyone. The only part that has changed is how easier it is these days to share. But really good images created by amateurs have always been around. Not as accessible, that is all. Its not the equipment that matters in great photography, it is the person holding it

- Misconception No5 : If you produce a lot of images, you can make a living with your photography. A rule of thumb more in the stock photography world than in the editorial one. It was true for a while when it was expensive to distribute images to clients. Today, it is a dangerous thought. Quantity will slowly be replaced by quality as the market will no longer be able to support myriads of photographers hoping to make a living. Image buyers will no longer be capable of keeping up with offer and start closing doors.

- Misconception No6: A photo editor knows a lot about photography. A photo editor only knows a lot about the photography used in their publication. He or she works, breath and sleeps in a very confined universe. Their ability to make one publication look great almost never  translate in making any and all publications look great.  That is why very successful photo editors never leave the publication they work for. They grow into them.

- Misconception No7 : Blogs about photography are useful. Besides posting press release they never read or repeating something they read elsewhere, they actually do not help much. Only a very few escape the ego narcissistic trip of the popularity contest and give out extremely valuable insight. They are extremely rare. The rest are operated by hit counters.

- Misconception No8: Every Magnum / VII photographer is a great photo editor. Why do thousand of photographers flock to have their portfolio edited by another photographer? It would vaguely make sense if one would want to be that photographer or replace him/her. And even so, photographers are the worst editors of their own work. But what makes a successful photographer a better editor than a non photographer ? If anything, if they see a great portfolio, wouldn’t they  try to dissuade that person from stealing their job?

- Misconception No9 : There is still room for a news agency. With AP, AFP, Reuters, Getty, EPA, DPA and other wire services employing some of the best photographers in the world while controlling most of the sales channel, it does seem obvious. There is no more oxygen. The best one can hope to do is represent a small pool of extremely talented photographers and help them get assignments, but even that is not a given. If they are extremely talented, they really do need much help. So what makes all these agencies try to cover events like the Olympics with 1/10 of the resources the others have with medium to mediocre photographers( crumb photographers)? Hope ?

- Misconception No10: Free photography will save the world. or a new pricing.or a association of good willing people. There is only one thing that will save photography, if it actually needs saving. It’s photography. great photography

Posted in magazine, celebrity, Magnum, Newsweek, commercial stock, newspaper, TIME, news, editorial, wire service, photojournalism, getty | Print | 4 Comments »

June 30, 2008 by pmelcher.

Photographers used to shoot black and white because they had no other choices. Photojournalist were somewhat frustrated by their limitations of not being able to represent the world the way they saw it. Then, color became available and they jumped on it. Finally, the world could be reproduced the way it was. Sure, for a long time, because of the nature of film itself, the colors were somewhat off. But still, it was like the word processor for the reporter. Today, it seems that color has been abandoned by the photojournalists that want to be at the cutting edge of reporting. Why ?

Today, two things happened to me, simultaneously. First, the announcement of Magnum new members. All black and white shooters  (besides Alec Soth). Second, I got a copy of Dispatches, the new magazine created by Gary Knight and someone else . Again, all black and white. That would not be so bad if those black and white were different. But quite frankly, they are all from the the same school of “very dark, poorly lit, very crowded, and slightly out of focus”. Most were probably taken with Holga’s or other crappy cameras. They all feel like seeing someones  very depressed bad dreams. The only feeling that emerges from viewing them is a feeling of  “hopefully the next picture will tell me what I am looking at”. But no, like a bad dream, it keeps on. For Dispatches, it is for an obscene number of pages. For Magnum’s new members, it is probably for the rest of their lives.

I was really looking forward to seeing Dispatches. I was also really looking forward to Magnum reinventing itself by accepting some new colorful original members. Both have been very, very disappointing.

Photojournalism, at least the one promoted by the photojournalism intelligentsia,  is all about moods.   Its mood photography. And the mood right now is very dark, very depressed, very Goth. There must be another way to depict the world around us than this photographic teen age angst, no ? Goethe would have no problem finding his young Werther in these images.

Enough is enough.  Black and white is only rich if can compensate for its lack of colors. It is an handicap that should be overcome with a passion, not infinite sorrow. Sadness, unless if you have a lot of time to waste on a terrace of a Parisian cafe, if very boring. Existentialism, or at least the fashion that went along with it died long before Sartre did. This absence of being in all these empty photographs remind me of the endless conversation people used to have over how much “life sucks”. That was back when I was 15.

Don’t take me wrong. I love photojournalism. With such a passion that it rips my heart to see it abuse by bored rich kids with a camera. They reject color and digital like rich suburban kids decide to become punks and get a tattoo. Against society and to piss of their parents. To get a reaction. It is a bit if these guys were trying to hide the reality of the situation they photographs with all these artifacts. This is what this current school of photojournalism makes me think about:  A bunch of spoiled rich kids rejecting the very foundation that made photojournalism what it is.

And this is not a good time for this.

Sometimes I wonder if any of these guys even know how to take a photograph in focus anymore. This is how ridiculous it has become. I know, I know, I am not being politically correct and in acceptance of what is fashionable to like. But I will take a Natchwey anytime against a Kratochvil. A Kashi before a Pellegrini. Call me old fashion, but I love color. I love photographs that speak to me about a situation rather than a “mood”. I have an insatiable thirst for truth and knowledge and I count on photography to teach me. I count on photojournalist to help me understand my world. I really, really do not need them to add more puzzles and complication with these  “plastic camera taken at night BW photos” that Edgar Allen Poe would have taken minutes before committing suicide.

I have a mood already. Just pass me reality.

Posted in focus, Magnum, magazine, photojournalism, editorial, news | Print | 2 Comments »

June 26, 2008 by pmelcher.

I am a big fan of coops. Initially started in France, Magnum being the most famous one, Coops are small photo agencies created by a group of photographers who pool their resources in order to survive. Most do not last very long, because, along with the financial pressures, getting along amongst photographers with a lot of personality is not a easy task.

That’s what a coop is, really : a group of very individual individuals with a very strong ego. Thus internal fights and argument are quite frequent and explosive. Nevertheless, although very rare in the US ( VII being the exception), coops are striving in Europe. Not just France, but Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden and Italy. You have to have that socialist edge to create or be part of a coop, not really an American thing.

Photographers who belong to those coop have complete editorial freedom and shoot what they want, when they want.It is not always favorable to great business, but it allows for genuine photography. And that is where they are very strong. Far from the hard news already covered by countless wire services and photo agencies, Coop photographers tend to cover the unexpected and forgotten. In a industry now only obsessed by speed, they take their time. They do not produce much or fast and sometimes tend to over think their images. But nevertheless, you might be surprised. very surprised.

PictureTank, the Coop of Coops, or rather a platform that allows for different agencies to pool their images in one place, is a great way to discover and follow the work of many photographers. Presented in full sets rather than single images, it displays the story the way they were meant to be shown. It carries a full respect for the photographers work.

These agencies are not affected by Getty or microstocks. Not even Britney Spears worries them as they all seem to have made a vow of poverty. They understand that the path they have taken will not lead them to stardom or richness ( material, that is), but like priests of a Godless church, they have decided to devote their lives to photography. They cannot be touched because their world is not made of nice cars and expensive restaurants. They care about their work and nothing else.

Not all are good, far from it. You probably have the same ratio of good to bad than anywhere else. Some are helplessly useless while others shine like diamonds. No surprises here.

At a time when photography is all about numbers, dollars and no sense, where photo magazines worry about a supermodel’s ass while others are proud of their scatological content, where  Alain Meckler admits failure even in trade shows production and Corbis remains hopelessly in the red, it is good to see some fresh production.

Posted in photojournalism, Search, magazine, Magnum, wire service, slideshow, getty, corbis, france, editorial, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »

April 10, 2008 by pmelcher.

When you grow up, like me, with a dad who is director of Magnum, these guys become family. Because that’s what magnum is. It’s not a co-op, a photo agency, a club, but rather, a big dysfunctional family of extremely talented men and women.

Burt Glinn was the crazy funny uncle. He had an exquisite sense of humor rapped around such a charming personality. He was also the only one of the magnum founding guard that made sure no one took themselves too seriously. He was not always succesful at it, but he didn’t mind. As much as his images were serious, as much as he could not resist making jokes or witty comments on the world around him. He crunched on life as he was talking, enjoying its apple fresh juicy taste. He was a man of many, many talents, with his most important being his love of life.

Last time I met Burt was at his apartment on the Upper West side, a few years back. He was showing me how he was scanning all his images with the help of a few student-Interns with the excitement of a kid about to lunch his first self made rocket-ship. Burt was passionate about technology and understand very early on that photography was going to be digital or nothing at all. And for a man of his generation, he knew a lot.

Burt is going to be missed a lot. Not just as a the great, immensly talented photographer that he was, but as the wonderful piece of humanity that he was : a perfect soul.

Should you do anything of importance today, spend a moment to look at some of his images on the magnum site. He would have liked that.

Posted in lens, Magnum, photojournalism, slideshow, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »

March 19, 2008 by pmelcher.

There are times when the world of photography just stops. To a standstill. Today is such a time. Legendary man and photographer Philip Jones Griffiths , passed away after 72 years of an amazing life.

There are no words that could truthfully pay enough tribute to such a photography giant . There are, thankfully, a lot of his images.

As Henri Cartier-Bresson to write of Philip: “not since Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths.”

In memory, now and forever, please visit, see, understand, appreciate his images :   Portfolio

and read more about Griffith in the wonderful Magnum tribute by Stuart Franklin

Posted in copyright, Magnum, newspaper, photojournalism, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »