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Interview/debate in Nikon Pro Magazine on Photojournalism today
Neil Burgess, former manager of Magnum, proclaimed: ‘Photojournalism: time of death 11.12. GMT 1st August 2010.’ In the article for EPUK (Editorial Photographers UK), he argued that newspapers and magazines had stopped putting money into photojournalism, and nowadays photographers are commissioned to merely illustrate articles. He lamented the fact that there were ‘no journalism organisations funding photographers to act as reporters’ and decided that it was time to make the call and declare the genre dead.
Certainly the long stretches of image-led photodocumentaries that dominated the magazines of the 1930s are rare in print these days. It was often described as the golden age of photojournalism, magazines like Picture Post, Time and Life were running the work of Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White and Eugene Smith among many others, whose images inspired and touched reader’s lives. Images, such as Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother shocked the nation and pressured the government into offering relief to the people worst affected by the Great Depression.
But by the1950s, the influential curator John Szarkowski was already declaring that the golden age of photojournalism was over as television became more dominant. Since then, everything from shorter attention spans, the reluctance of advertisers to advertise among difficult subjects, compassion fatigue, amateurs supplying newspapers with mediocre images to an indifferent audience, as well as shrinking budgets – have all been blamed for the demise of photojournalism.
However, as the media landscape has changed in the last 80 years, so has what many people consider to be photojournalism. Some go as far as including any news-related photography and paparazzi shots, but most understand photojournalism to be photographic storytelling, which is usually issue based.
There is no doubt that budgets to commission original photography have been cut in recent years, but there are many photographers that don’t agree that this signals the end of the genre. Our last issue’s cover photographer, Musa Chowdhury says, ‘Photojournalism isn’t dead! – it simply needs to be approached differently in today’s global market. Developing opportunities such as crowd funding or presenting your work as a multimedia package allows photojournalists to branch out and adapt to changing expectations. Continuing to document what the mainstream media has moved on from or focusing on developing stories overlooked by the press are just some of the options photojournalists can adopt. This provides the audience with a richer experience and news that is relevant and accessible to them.’
Photojournalist Philip Poupin agrees. ‘No it’s not dead as I can see so many photojournalists here in Libya taking great risks on the frontline. I think the money paid for pictures is getting very low. But some people will continue to report, as they like the adventure and they want to tell the story. Everyone has to find their own way. We have to find many different sources of income. From prints sold in galleries to publication in newspapers or video for the web.’
There are still a few magazines, such as GEO, Paris Match and Time, who commission original stories, but there are also many new ways photojournalism is distributed. There are countless online magazines and sites, that specialise in photography essays and many museums and galleries now have a photojournalism collection.
Photojournalistic exhibitions, festivals and books are plentiful. Making it pay is often difficult, but there are also new funding models emerging. Non governmental organisations often enable in-depth photography projects documenting their work and there are grants and scholarships available. There are also new opportunities producing video and audio slide shows, which are becoming more popular with online newspapers. Probably the most interesting development is crowdfunding, already mentioned in our Broadcast section. There seems to be a bias towards established photographers and mainstream projects, but then this has always been the case in this competitive genre. Kadir van Lohuizen from Noor says, ‘I think photojournalism is competitive anyway and crowdfunding will not change that. It does force me to very clearly state why I want to do a certain story and that can only be an advantage and improvement to the way we work.’
The other new funding model is the development of iPad and iPhone apps, which more photographers are developing and selling. However, only time can tell which of these funding models will firmly establish itself. However, just as in the 30s, there are still a lot of photographers who want to tell stories through photos. Images that matter will always have an audience.
Interview/debate in Nikon Pro Magazine on Photojournalism today
Neil Burgess, former manager of Magnum, proclaimed: ‘Photojournalism: time of death 11.12. GMT 1st August 2010.’ In the article for EPUK (Editorial Photographers UK), he argued that newspapers and magazines had stopped putting money into photojournalism, and nowadays photographers are commissioned to merely illustrate articles. He lamented the fact that there were ‘no journalism organisations funding photographers to act as reporters’ and decided that it was time to make the call and declare the genre dead.
Certainly the long stretches of image-led photodocumentaries that dominated the magazines of the 1930s are rare in print these days. It was often described as the golden age of photojournalism, magazines like Picture Post, Time and Life were running the work of Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White and Eugene Smith among many others, whose images inspired and touched reader’s lives. Images, such as Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother shocked the nation and pressured the government into offering relief to the people worst affected by the Great Depression.
But by the1950s, the influential curator John Szarkowski was already declaring that the golden age of photojournalism was over as television became more dominant. Since then, everything from shorter attention spans, the reluctance of advertisers to advertise among difficult subjects, compassion fatigue, amateurs supplying newspapers with mediocre images to an indifferent audience, as well as shrinking budgets – have all been blamed for the demise of photojournalism.
However, as the media landscape has changed in the last 80 years, so has what many people consider to be photojournalism. Some go as far as including any news-related photography and paparazzi shots, but most understand photojournalism to be photographic storytelling, which is usually issue based.
There is no doubt that budgets to commission original photography have been cut in recent years, but there are many photographers that don’t agree that this signals the end of the genre. Our last issue’s cover photographer, Musa Chowdhury says, ‘Photojournalism isn’t dead! – it simply needs to be approached differently in today’s global market. Developing opportunities such as crowd funding or presenting your work as a multimedia package allows photojournalists to branch out and adapt to changing expectations. Continuing to document what the mainstream media has moved on from or focusing on developing stories overlooked by the press are just some of the options photojournalists can adopt. This provides the audience with a richer experience and news that is relevant and accessible to them.’
Photojournalist Philip Poupin agrees. ‘No it’s not dead as I can see so many photojournalists here in Libya taking great risks on the frontline. I think the money paid for pictures is getting very low. But some people will continue to report, as they like the adventure and they want to tell the story. Everyone has to find their own way. We have to find many different sources of income. From prints sold in galleries to publication in newspapers or video for the web.’
There are still a few magazines, such as GEO, Paris Match and Time, who commission original stories, but there are also many new ways photojournalism is distributed. There are countless online magazines and sites, that specialise in photography essays and many museums and galleries now have a photojournalism collection.
Photojournalistic exhibitions, festivals and books are plentiful. Making it pay is often difficult, but there are also new funding models emerging. Non governmental organisations often enable in-depth photography projects documenting their work and there are grants and scholarships available. There are also new opportunities producing video and audio slide shows, which are becoming more popular with online newspapers. Probably the most interesting development is crowdfunding, already mentioned in our Broadcast section. There seems to be a bias towards established photographers and mainstream projects, but then this has always been the case in this competitive genre. Kadir van Lohuizen from Noor says, ‘I think photojournalism is competitive anyway and crowdfunding will not change that. It does force me to very clearly state why I want to do a certain story and that can only be an advantage and improvement to the way we work.’
The other new funding model is the development of iPad and iPhone apps, which more photographers are developing and selling. However, only time can tell which of these funding models will firmly establish itself. However, just as in the 30s, there are still a lot of photographers who want to tell stories through photos. Images that matter will always have an audience.