May 28, 2010 by pmelcher.

Photography, like most industries affected by a center of gravity shift to digital, has experienced more than a migration from film to data packets. One of the most fundamental shift, however,  is how the decision process moved from quality of content to cost. Let me explain:

For a long time, the key decision in purchasing a license for any photograph had been it’s quality, it’s relevance to the intended usage. Sometimes, the photograph even outperformed its intended use, it was so good.  Cost, because it was perceived as a tool of value, was not an issue. Magazines had absolutely no problem in spending a lot of money to send photographers around the world and back in order to get the best images.

In fact, a lot of the magazines’ competition was done on newsstands with whom had the best cover. It was a badge of honor.

As images became easier and cheaper to transport thanks to falling memory prices as well as more readily available and cheaper bandwidth, the prices also started to drop. The cameras, the lens, the post processing, the traveling certainly did not drop. Just the cost of getting an image form A to B. Somehow, however, the belief that digital was cheaper to produce took root and, like a bad venom, infected  the whole industry.

Getting the best photographer to the location suddenly did not become a necessity. Getting the images faster took over. The best images was replaced by the fastest. Let’s just pick a photographer that is there already and get those images in. Assignment no longer included transportation to and fro. That lasted for a while as the still high cost of technology paired with the difficult technological learning curve kept the competition to a select few. However, that did not last long. Cost of equipment as well as it’s ease of use quickly lowered, allowing more and more to enter the competition for the fastest image.

Since it is impossible to transmit an image before it is taken, the competition hit a wall where everyone found themselves at the same level, transmitting as fast. So what happened ? prices dropped. The competition, as well as the usage decision, shifted again, this time to the cheapest.

Today, this is where we are : Decisions are no longer made on the quality of content but on its cost. It really doesn’t matter if your the next Cartier-Bresson, if you are too expensive, you won’t get published. If the photo budget is already spend on two or three subscriptions to photo agencies and your images are not part of the “feed”, forget it. You might as well go fishing. They will like your images, they just won’t use them.

What magazine readership do not see, is that they are paying to read publications that do not show them the best pictures but rather the cheapest. It is a very deceptive procedure. Don’t magazine attract your attention by the promise of delivering what they consider the best ?  Yet, as far as photography is concerned, they don’t. The rule has become to fit the image purchasing process within a pre-established budget. No longer do editors beleive that great images can boost readership. Instead, they beleive cheaper images will save them from oblivion.

How long would you continue to go to your favorite restaurant once you knew that they didn’t even try to purchase better product but just the cheapest ? This reminds us of those houses build with cheap dry wall imported from China that eventually made everyone badly sick. Sure, they were cheaper, and yes, cheap photography is not bad for your health. At least, not that we know of.

Photographs have a better chance to be published these days if they are cheap, not if they are good.

It is sad. Sad because there a great images being shot everyday that will never, never be seen because of this dictatorship of the wallet. Sad, because readers are being lied to by this money censorship. Sad because it is helping no one.

As magazine or website publishers continue to think in terms of broadcasting (One to many), our world is changing to social (many to many). Consumers are quickly evolving from passive participants to active contributors. As this migration is deepening, more will search for their own sources of photography that they will in turn grab and share. They will start invading the publishing world with images that they like rather than those that are being force fed to them by penny-pincher corpocrates. They will deconstruct and break the barriers of the conglomerate publishing world in order to resubmit their own vision of the world. It is already going in the world of text journalism, it will not be long before photography gets swept in.

It is no longer a viable proposition to beleive that image consumers will continue to just passively absorb cheap content. The barriers  that kept the suppliers of images invisible to the readers  have fallen, permitting them, for the first time in the history of photography, an unprecedented access to the source. They can now see where publications get their content from and make their own decisions. Ironically, as publications divert more and more what they use to the cheapest, the rest of the production become more and more visible, making their money censorship more obvious.

Obviously,  this uncomfortable situation is not going to last long. Photographers and photo agencies will soon be forced into finding lucrative ways to supply their images directly to the readers, by-passing those publishers who have refused to use them for monetary reasons. Some already do.

There is another revolution lurking here and once again, the photography world will never be the same.

Posted in copyright, license, multimedia, celebrity, magazine, E Reader, technology, newspaper, web 2.0, transaction, editorial, news, finance, wire service, prosumer, photojournalism, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

April 22, 2010 by pmelcher.

You know what would be news ? Something different. No, not another microstock “save the world” launch. Nor another “look, we slashed our prices so low, it’s not funny anymore”. I am sure even image buyers must be fed up of receiving another flier, email, phone call, or goddamn tweet about another discount or super low pricing.

No. What would be news these days would be an archive, photo agency, even solo photographer announcing the launch of a premium collection of absolutely insanely beautiful images for a ridiculous expensive price. Hyper good images for Uber money. Now, that would grab everyone’s attention.

What this business has lost is the sense of luxury. In a world ( that sounds like a movie trailer, especially if you read it with a deep, deep voice), anyway, in a world where we are constantly reminded of recession, poverty, calamities, earthquakes, grounded air flights, bankruptcies, corporate greed, crooked multi-millionaire CEO’s, and price saving cuts and lay off, it would be a fresh breeze to see and enjoy luxury.

It would be nice to see and hear that this magazine or website has just published an insanely beautiful spread of amazing pictures that cost them a fortune to publish. No, not another blurry image of some celeb caught in some very common act ( like having a baby, or not wearing a ring). No, something as magnificent as Irving Penn, Lee Friedlander, Eugene Smith, Herb Ritts and so many others that have raise this profession so high. Something that you would look at and say “wow”. Not for what it depicts but how it depicts it. Something that would bring you bliss, joy, happiness, something that would inspire you, lift you, make you feel more than human.

In this cacophony of  discount merchants screaming helplessly on how cheap their images are, it would be such a relief to hear someone proudly announce how expensive his images are. It would be good to  see publishers stop taking their readers for idiots and uncultivated and start showing exquisite exclusive photographs. Stop taking the lowest common ( and priced) path by printing the same images over and over, not because they are good, but because they are cheap.

What has happen to brands that they have such a low esteem and associate their product and services with boring photogrpahy? What has happened to magazine, or website, that they do not mind anymore having the same images as their once dreaded competition. What has happened to readers that they do not seem to care what they pay for ?

There is a luxury market for almost every product and services out there. For every cheap car there are very expensive ones. For every cheap health club , there are luxurious ones. Why has the photography world given up on luxury content ? Especially at a time when everyone is a photographer. You would thing that the logical reaction would be to move away from the bottom feeders and start offering something of very high value.

So stop sending press release about how low your prices are, how you can have 3 images for the price of 2, how your company can out price any competition. Leave that to the Wal Mart’s ( Corbis and Getty)  and other discounters. Value your work. Value what you do for a living. Be proud, be expensive, be exclusive, be valuable.  Leave the crowd, become an individual.  Because at the end, you are how you present yourself.

Posted in license, newspaper, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, web 2.0, prosumer, corbis, getty, editorial, transaction, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »

April 13, 2010 by pmelcher.

Photography is an investment. No, not the “I buy a lot of expensive equipment  and resell it later ” type of investment. It is an investment for the image buyer.

A photograph, or a series of photograph, can increase the value of anything around it. Like a multiplier. In it’s raw format, few images have any power. It sits on  hard drive, or on a print, and does nothing. Once associated with words in a magazine, or slapped next to a product or service, it start doing its magic. It blends, merges, and adapts to its surrounding and creates a powerful communication  funnel with the viewer.The message is suddenly increased.

The trick is to match the right image. That is where the investment comes in. A photo editors job, or anyone that purchases images, is to find the raw, and if possible cheap, image that will make the perfect combination. If it’s properly done, the returns can be spectacular. For a few hundred dollars a magazine ( think LIFE Magazine) or a campaign ( think Marlboro) can achieve legendary status.

Like any investment, there is part gamble, part luck, part intuition, part research. When licensing an image for a particular project, one has to juggle these skills in order to get the proper result.

Why is this important? Because those who license images should keep that in mind when they license their images. Sure, pricing can be based on usage, or size, or a subscription, if you so desire. But what about pricing based on predictive impact ?

An image buyer calls you because they want to purchase one of your image. They have a definite feeling that your image will enhance their message, whether an ad campaign or an article . You will ask about usage because that is quantifiable. But will you ask about the expected impact and enhancement value of your image ? No ? Probably because you do not expect them to tell you the truth in order to keep the price low. However, that is where the real value of your image is. Not how many times it will be used and in what format but rather how it will be perceived by those who see it in its new environment. Not in usage, in result.

Of course not all images end up creating value for its surrounding. Most often, it does nothing and sometimes even devalues its surroundings.  But that is not the fault of the photogrpaher but rather the photo editor, or the art director.

So, how do you price potential impact? Well, the same way the image buyers does : Part gamble, part luck, part intuition, part research. Mix them up properly and you have the correct price.

And like an investment trade on a stock market, the final price resides in a perfect balance between offer and demand. Not in quantity but in quality. The buyer has a price based on his perceived value of the image and the seller has to find it and match it. In the end, the market will decide its real value, but only after price negotiation has been finalized.

Maybe a new way to price images should be after a campaign or a article has been published . Both party would reunite and review how well the image did, or did not do, its enhancing job. Did people rush to stores and purchase that item? Did the magazine  double it’s readership ?  Then the image (s) were successful and thus should licensed at a very high price point.

Sure, these are hard to measure values. But quite frankly it would be a better system than to price an image based on how many pixel it has.

Posted in license, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, newspaper, photojournalism, Royalty free, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

March 27, 2010 by pmelcher.

One morning you wake up, and it’s facing you.  Everything that you took for granted and made your life so comfortable is suddenly gone. Probably forever. Welcome to the economy of fear.

What use to be a cozy job, where every day brought you  a new batch of interesting challenges, has now become days of uncertainty and doubt. From photo editors who are not sure how long they will keep their jobs, to staff newspaper photojournalists who could be shooting their last images, everyone is living in fear.

In the last decade, the photo industry has pivoted from an economy of wealth and abundance to an economy of fear. It is not so much about talent, creativity or effectiveness anymore, as it is about who can scare the other into submission.

Pricing for example, is not based on usage, or talent, or even level of professionalism anymore. It is based on the fear that someone else could price it lower and thus take the sale.  Whether assignment or stock, images are priced on how high it can go before loosing the job to the competition . And these days, that is not high. Photo editors negotiate with the “I can get it cheaper” stick in one hand, forcing photographers, or agencies, into fearful submission. There is little conversation about quality anymore.

It is not just about pricing, however. The fear factor enters all level of conversations. Companies like Getty approach and retain photographers also on fear. If you do not work with Getty, they claim, your images will never be published. If you work for a competing agency, you will never work for Getty, and so on. A bit like Wal-Mart ” how to handle a supplier” handbook of  “we own the market, we own you”. Some suppliers of Wal Mart, by the way, have been forced into bankruptcy, because they were forced into unsustainable low pricing.

It’s the fear of the other. Stock shooters fear the ever growing crowd of microstockers, Photo agencies fear other photo agencies ,wedding photographer fear other low cost wedding photographers, Photo editors fear their bosses, and publishers fear the future.

On top of that, everyone ( well almost) fear the passing of the Orphan Works bill, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Government, new technology and in some cases, even their car.

Recently, an image matching company released a report saying that 8 out of 10 images appearing on commercial Web sites are being used “non-legitimately”, offering their service as a solution.  Fear as a selling strategy. If I scare you enough, will you buy my product ?

When the future is uncertain, like it currently is  in the photo world and elsewhere, it is natural  to be worried and scared. No one can seriously say today that they know for sure where will they will be in 5 years from now. However, for companies, or individuals, to capitalize on that fear, to use is as a primary bargaining tool is despicable. It is like pushing down on the head of a drowning person with the promise of saving them. A false promise.

Photography does not live well under fear. Creativity gets lost and conformity becomes the norm. Snake charmers invade the land with their make-believe magic potions, orators take to the podiums to agitate  more fear and offer their security blankets ( for a fee). Opportunists see opportunities to make deals that defy reason as they know how fear is a powerful logic sedative.

We are going to see a lot of decisions driven by fear this year and next, mostly creating poor results.  A lot of people jumping to the cliff in order to avoid the fire. But mostly, we will see a lot of fear smellers take advantage of the situation.

Posted in license, technology, commercial stock, E Reader, newspaper, prosumer, getty, transaction, finance, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »

March 2, 2010 by pmelcher.

How to iTablet the Ipad ? Microsoft is about to reveal something that could bypass the need to carry yet another big thing just to read magazine, newspapers or surf websites. Called the “Mobile Surface” and only to be shown to employees for now (must be extra beta), it is a small portable box that will project an interactive image on any surface.

Look :

 Of course, there is a lot of questions left. Mainly, will it not crash. However, this technology could be integrated in your cellphone ( the smart kind) and, while keeping the size small, allow for higher viewing real estate.  One will have to see how editing an image on a blue table will work out, or keeping your email private in an airplane.

This is however a very interesting development for E-publishing  ( just think of a 3D video or immersive photography) as well as computing in general. More stuff here

Posted in technology, lens, Newsweek, E Reader, magazine, multimedia, slideshow, photojournalism, web 2.0, newspaper, editorial | Print | 1 Comment »

February 17, 2010 by pmelcher.

Wired magazine, in the trail of others, has partnered with Adobe Air, to display what their publication will look on a E reader. There are a few interesting points here.

First, for the geeks out there, it is interesting to see that Adobe, whose Flash is not supported by Apple’s Ipad, is now pushing Air  as a delivery platform. There will be a battle out there on what application will be running all these E magazines and Adobe is shooting the first salvo.

The second part is that Wired present this as an addition to their print publication, not as a replacement. As much as they are investing in the new technology, they are not ready to drop their print, web, IPhone apps just for that.

The Third, is that besides a format, there is no mention of hardware. It is supposed that this is for an Ipad, but really, it is for any existing or to be invented color tablet  ( sorry Kindle).

What about photography usage? Well, they are some very compelling statements here.

Images are a key element of this evolution. From 360 to immersible, from stop action to galleries, there are many forms of photography shown. Nothing new indeed, but a new usage certainly. Where do you find stock for 360 photography ? nowhere currently. So where will they go ?  Assignment, surely. Are you ready ? There is stock for panoramas images, but will that be enough ? And is the micro stock community going to plunge into this also ?  Probably.

However, the more important element of photography usage here is the option to share it. Either via email or social networks, almost every image can be shared with a click of one button. Now, we all know that editorial pricing has always been about placement, time and geography. What has never been appropriately addressed with web usage is now going to become standard practice for all editorial. Al thought you have  licensed your  image for a week, a month and for a small side usage, next thing you know it’s all over the web, in different format, given away for free to people you have never heard of. And never will.

Sure, you can go the Getty way. Here, pay me $49 and do whatever you want with the image. I would like to see Getty’s executives faces when one of their $49 image goes viral. Ouch. Na..not a good idea. Images should be license based on usage and usage should be tracked per number of clicks. After all, if an article or an image published on Tablet gets shared a lot, it is all in the benefit of the publication, right ? It’s free marketing. Yet, your image has been instrumental to that sharing action, so shouldn’t you be compensated ?

What do you mean you do not know how much click it has seen ? Do you know how much circulation a magazine has ? Yes, ok, well, with a link, it is even easier to track. They want a sharing option on your images, charge them either an additional flat fee, or a fee per clicks. But please, charge something. You are not Getty. You will not get back in volume what you just gave away for free. Never.

So. first thing first: Add to all your invoices  and delivery statement “NO DIGITAL RIGHTS” . If they want web usage or E Readers, then lets negotiate a different fee. Ask if there will be a sharing option . If yes, then add an additional fee. How much? well, that is up to you to decide.

Be proactive. You will be proud you did.

Posted in celebrity, copyright, license, magazine, technology, E Reader, commercial stock, multimedia, newspaper, editorial, getty, Royalty free, transaction, finance, web 2.0, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

February 16, 2010 by pmelcher.

Fed up of the pseudo intellectualism of most photojournalism awards ? Then go see the winners of the WHNPA “Eyes of History 2010″. Those Guys/Gals are stuck, most of the time, with a very restrictive subject ( aka, POTUS) and yet perform some of the highest form of photography. Furthermore, when you unleash them into a different subject, they eat them up with a passion rarely seen, putting at work what they have taught themselves so well in the confinement of the White House.

A lot of great photography, mostly unseen, from some of the lesser known, and yet probably more talented photojournalists in the world.

 A lot of NPR photographers here ( NPR is the US’s public radio, funded by tax and people’s money). A good example that “public” journalism can be of extremely high quality. If you see only one winning gallery, I urge you to see David Gilkey’s Portfolio ( winner of third place in Portfolio). It’s very Don McCullin with a refreshing twist.

Finally, the World Press Awards should take many lessons: The winners slide shows are big and very visible,  yes, they have a multimedia category and the result, although about politics, are not so politically charged.

Posted in multimedia, magazine, technology, newspaper, photojournalism, editorial, slideshow, news | Print | No Comments »

January 21, 2010 by pmelcher.

We have done a bad job. A terrible job. If picking a photograph is all about its price and not its quality than we, the photo industry, have made a terrible job at selling our work.

Every time an editor, whether  from an ad agency or a magazine decides to use an image because it is cheaper than the others, that means we have all failed to advocate for the real value of photography. We have failed, all of us, Photographers, agents, photo agencies to make the new generation of image buyers see the real value in our images. Thus the current situation.

It’s not the fault of microstockers that prices have gone so low in the RF world, it is the fault of the original traditional RF sellers. They are the ones who have devaluated the work so much that consumers have no issue  at purchasing from amateurs. It is the fault of a complacent industry that has not been capable of maintaining some degree of high end quality, an industry that has put on the market a lot of crap for obscene prices.

People or companies have no problem paying high prices for products they see as being of high quality and that brings added value.  Ever since the adoption of digital,  an overflow of redundant images  has saturated people’s mind into believing that photography is a commodity. It’s not just the commercial stock photography world. Editorial has seen an explosion of quantity, to the point that some photographers will submit the same images to multiple agencies, who, in turn submit to the same outlets. What are the editors to think ? Why pay a premium for such a deluge of redundant images ?

If prices are dropping, it’s your fault, not Getty’s or microstock. It is the natural consequence of fighting competition with over production. Too much of a product on a market has always brought prices down.

If this industry wants to survive,  it is going to have to recognize that it is guilty of its own demise and do something about it.  It will have to recognize that like the Easter Islands, it is cutting its own trees to the point of self- extinction. It will have to do something about it.

Do What, you say ? Cut the edits to a minimum, stop distributing the same images via different distributors. Quality is scarce, and people pay for quality, eliminate the bad and the medium, stop thinking in terms of volume, throw out the bean counters and hire the artisans, the creatives, the bohemians. learn to say no : no to poor or medium quality, no to bad prices, no to redundancy, no to habits, not to quantity, no to the easy way.

Of course, that would only work if all the industry would agree to a voluntary simultaneous move  to  clean up the market. That is not going to happen. It’s like trying to get all the nations to clean up the environment. Not happening either. Like with any panic situation, everyone digs in, trying to grab whatever they can before it is too late.  Like a city being looted by its own inhabitants. Everyone for themselves !! Throw as many images on the market of whatever quality. It’s asphyxiating.

So, instead of writing me an email about how depressing my entry is, or how its not very nice, or how I should write more optimistic thoughts, or how I am so wrong but do not even deserved to be explained why, step away from this blog and go review your images. If you are an agency and you have a photographer submitting the same images to you and to others, dump him/her. If you have  more than 50 images of the same subject, dump the rest. If you are a photographer submitting to an agency that already has 150 photographers shooting the same things as you, leave. If your images don’t sell anymore or for little money, shoot something completely different. In very small precious amount.

Don’t blame the others for the mess we are in and instead of digging your nose in your smart phone and tweetering some crap no one cares about, take control and preserve the space in which you live. Limit yourself. Redo your edits, over and over. And when you are done, do it over. Eliminate, reduce, clean. Pick the 5 best images. not 500. or 5,000.

If you stop treating the marketplace like garbage, it will stop treating you like trash.

Posted in magazine, commercial stock, celebrity, newspaper, editorial, photojournalism, Royalty free | Print | 3 Comments »

January 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

So you would think that with all the problems that online publications are causing to the print magazine industry, they would fight back in some manner. The print paper world would be all gang ho in trying to secure its predominance as the primary source of news and information so that the crowds would rush to purchase copies. But no.

It’s a complete lethargy. Well, at least in the USA. Take editorial photography. As much as they care if an image has been used in a competing publication, they completely ignore anything online.  They seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they come out sometimes with the same image that has been seen previously for more than a week on numerous websites. As if no one paid attention. However, with some URL’s drawing millions of visitors , and most, the same people they also try to attract, it should be hard to ignore.

Yet, they continue to ignore the reasons for their decline. Partly to save money ( as if it is going to help) , partly because a completely blindness to the forces that are shaping their market. If I have seen an image numerous times, for free, online, I am going to be a bit upset if I see it, again, days, weeks later, in a print publication I had to pay for. If it happens once, I could ignore it. If it happens issue after issues, I would want my money back.

No other industry has this approach to its consumer. Movies only show trailers, music have just snippets ( of  course, I am not mentioning stolen material) and you pay to hear/see the full version. If all was available online  a week before they could be purchased, it is doubtful that a lot of people would pay for them.

Magazines, in some sort of oblivious superiority,  continue to publish , week after weeks, month after months the same images already seen online more than once. Maybe they think that if they ignore it, the problem might disappear. Maybe they think that by the time they come out, readers will have forgotten what they had seen just hours ago on a website. Maybe they just think that their support is so superior than the digital, no one will notice.

The second issue with this, a bit more hidden, is that photogrpahers and photo agencies provide website with a free first right  at a lesser fee than  what a print publication would pay. In other words, website get to use the same image, much sooner than print for 10% of the price that a magazine pays to use it a week later. Does it make any sense ?

In France, for example, no magazine would ever publish an image that has been used on a website previously. None. Photo agencies or photographers do not have a problem with that since website pay so little, it is not even funny. Thus, readers can be sure that will discover new image in every issue. And with just cause, they paid for that, and other privilege. They paid to purchase a  product that do not consider them like fools. They pay for originality. They pay for what they value.

In the upcoming or ongoing debate about online pay walls, how many of the newspapers, magazines and others will take the step to guarantee original photography ? Because if it is to see another slideshow made of pictures from the trilogy (Getty, AP, Reuters ) that you can see anywhere else, I doubt people will be happy. And if they are not happy, well, they won’t pay. A pay wall will only work if people want to get in. And people will want to get in if the content inside is not something seen elsewhere for free.

The war between original content ( expensive) and  cost cutting  (cheap) is raging with  cost-cutting seemingly winning most battles these days. However, creating something for cheap that no one wants to pay for is not at all a guarantee of success. Once the CFO’s and their bosses finish destroying the very nature of what made their companies successful in a rarely seen slaughterhouse of talent, there will be only a few standing. And those will not be the ones that are the cheapest to operate but those who have found the zen like balance between originality, quality, cost and timeliness.

Photography will always be here to offer  all of this and much, much more. We know it, we are just waiting for them to understand it.

Posted in license, newspaper, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, TIME, photojournalism, editorial, transaction, finance, wire service, france | Print | No Comments »

December 18, 2009 by pmelcher.

All the E-readers and tablets are fine and exciting as long as they offer something new. If magazine publishers are going to do the same mistakes as they have been doing online, that is copy and paste the print content on a digital format, then let’s forget them.

Who will want to carry an extra item if its only a digital copy of what they can get on print. The other day, Time Inc released a video of what Sports Illustrated might look on a color E-reader. Besides giving updated sports results and bigger slideshows, the rest was exactly the same. Page of text, with same layout as print, with a few lonely photographs to illustrate them. Sorry, but there was nothing exciting about that.( Bonnier released  another example of a boring Print to E Reader layout in this this video. When you are done yawing, please continue). If the format is reinvented then the layout should be too. What we need is a Alexey Brodovitch of the E reader, a revolutionary mind that will break the old tired rules of publishing and make reading magazine exciting again. Someone that will invent the continuous magazine for example, breaking away from the daily, weekly, monthly, bi monthly cycle that printing and circulation demanded. Someone that will take advantage of the new possibilities, the new format for all that it has. Simply applying cheap make-up on a dead format will not work. People are not going to purchase and use these electronic tablets just to save the environment. The salvation of the magazine is  all in the content, not the support.

Take for example photography ( mmm, wonder why ?). Up to now, publishing empires of America have used photogrpahy only as a tool to prove or confirm a point , not as a narrative. Take news magazine like Time or Newsweek. They will use photography to illustrate an article on a topic, just to confirm with a visual what is being written about in the text. Why ? because as humans, we tend to trust more what we see than what we read. The written text has authority while the visual has credibility. In the current print media, the text is always, always privileged over the visual, even if sometimes the images would be a much better tool of communication. The image is used as a punctuation point after a series of written facts and explanations.

Part of the reason for this lies in the print limitation. Photographs have a lot of color and that used to be more expensive. Also, they can take more space and print is limited in the number of pages it can offer. Finally, they are much more difficult to lay out than plain black and whit columns of text.

But E readers and Tablets have none of these limitations. They are free of all the rules and regulation that had dictated the behavior of their print brothers. They are free of space , time and cost limitations. They no longer have to be the punctuation points of their text sibling. They can now freely and openly become masters of the information, leaving a simple caption the role of punctuating their reality.

The current batch of e magazines are a boring crop of conference room challenged idea spit out by a committee of politically frighten mid managers. They come out of the mind of those who want to save their jobs rather than create new idea. Where are the great Art Directors of tomorrow? Those that will reinvent the layout and the magazine at the same time. We have the tools, what we need now are the creatives.

Same goes for photographers. It will be those that stop thinking about photography as a punctuation mark, as a one image narrative, as a quarter space or double page , those who reinvent the narrative that will pierce through the frozen grounds of the current creative tundra .

Let’s kill the punctuation mark.

Posted in magazine, Newsweek, E Reader, multimedia, newspaper, finance, photojournalism, web 2.0, news | Print | No Comments »