Is photojournalism dying?

[Spicy]

until walls are no longer necessary for hanging pictures on, photos will still be taken, and where photos are taken, photojournalists will still exist.

perhaps one day, when newspapers are flexible screens, it might be time to rediscuss things, but until that day, there will be photojournalists... the only question is whether or not they will be paid.

 

[gns]

As soon as it is dead...that would be the best time to start doing it.

 

[Roger Hicks]

...and a happy new yeeeeearrrrr!!

Well, that was my point, really. You can ALWAYS find something new to worry about. Or something old. So why burden yourself with pointless angst?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I generally avoid video articles. Too time consuming.

Exactly. You can glance at a written/illustrated article; see if it interests you; and then concentrate if it does. Video articles plod along at a pace suitable for the hard of thinking, and you can't easily pause; say to yourself, "Did they REALLY say that?"; and re-read it.

A wonderful example I heard lately on the BBC was from some pundit from the religious right discussing US presidential candidates. He said, in response to one of the questions, "If that happened,I think God would have every right to withdraw his blessings..."

This carries the inevitable correlation that if it didn't happen, God wouldn't have the right to do so. Good theology or what?

I had to rewind the program to find out. And yes, he DID say that.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Steve Ash]

Photojournalism

Photojournalism

I find videos boring and not the best media to tell stories.

My guess is photojournalism will be alive and kicking also in 2016.

There will always be a place for good photojournalism.

Regards,
Steve

 

[mdarnton]

If anything kills print photojournalism it will be that newspapers no longer investigate and reveal news: they print biased PR reports from industry and politics. I grew up in a home with three daily papers, and worked on one, but now subscribe to none, because they no longer do journalism.

The web is different, though, and still photos work best there for many, many things.

What seems inevitable is equipment that will do both still and moving, and most good digital cameras already to that to the point where pros are using some of them. Further, manufacturers manage to do this in the same size package, with no negative cost to either feature. I think this is great!

The question is silly from a couple of different angles. For instance, does anyone think that moving pictures will wipe out writing? I suspect not, and we have over 100 years of history on that question. The question of photojournalism's future sounds more like the publicity the photographer's version of the RIAA/MPPA would put out to try to convince Congress to outlaw moving images. 🙂

 

[taskoni]

The photojournalism definitely will survive as a media form. IMO the still pictures are meant to bring the necessary information without taking too much space and have a direct impact and also easy to get back to them. The video footage however will require most of the time an editing in order to get rid of the unnecessary stuff and bring it in to the length required, sometimes also censored, which is time consuming and not as quick to handle and work with it. Also is time consuming to watch as previously stated as well as more boring as you might get the picture right from the beginning and most of the times it doesn't bring more information to the viewer till the end... However, the direct translations existing for a long time but they are meant for different purpose than the stills.

 

[nikon_sam]

Photojournalism is just documenting the world around you...and we will always be doing that...dying...no...
Just because the big newspapers might make a shift to video or feel they no longer have a need for the still photo doesn't mean that the world as a whole doesn't have a need for it...
Photojournalism isn't just the big newspapers it's all of us capturing our everyday lives...

 

[shadowfox]

Agree that still photo will be around forever.
But how people get the still photo, that's different.

I think in 2016 people will be plucking a frame out of a stream of video.
That's what I would do if I run a newspaper because of the time pressure, that's not new in any business.

Personal photographers like you and I (not counting pro's like Damaso and others) will continue to use our cameras.

 

[taskoni]

I slightly disagree on the capturing technique if you are a newspaper owner what's the point of shooting video for grabbing a few stills? The still photo professionally taken will be in greater quality and will compete well with the other newspapers on the market, but when grabbing the shot from a video requires watching the whole thing, choosing the right frame etc so in that sense you'll be slowed down big time and still won't have the best you need and we all know every newspaper want the best they can afford ( or at least the owners want that) 🙂

 

[BobYIL]

Here's a still picture by Alfred Eisenstaedt, most of us recognize at the first glance "Children at Puppet Theatre, 1963"...

To capture the peak moment to represent a slice of time of an event in the shortest way; the most efficient process to extract the "decisive moment". Do you believe that a video clip of some couple of seconds would cause more impact than this? Most probably this particular frame would not even be noticed among the sequence.

This picture is some 50K size, not 50M!!.. a very practical size to be expressed, displayed, relayed, processed or dealed with by any analog, electronic or digital means.

Any reason for these to be replaced by video?

 

[swoop]

Still will never die...

You will never be able to print video. Print will always live on in some form. Even web based publications like stills. Not everyone has 3 minutes to sit there and watch a video when it takes a 3rd of the time to read through an article and glimpse a few images to get the message of a story. When it comes down to it photojournalism isn't about you being an artist it's about getting information to the public. And text and an image is super efficient at doing that. Even still video is annoying because publications often like to cram 20 second ads in front of and after the piece. With text and stills the reader is more likely to get their information quickly and move on instead of just closing the window.

The work will become more exclusive. You'll probably have better odds playing for a major league baseball team than being a staff employed news photographer but the role will always be around. And newsrooms will want to see video skills in your portfolio and resume but it will not be the sole medium of delivering news and information.

 

[swoop]

I think in 2016 people will be plucking a frame out of a stream of video.
That's what I would do if I run a newspaper because of the time pressure, that's not new in any business.

NO NO NO.

Do you have any idea how much more time consuming and how much more hardware is required to deliver an image cut from a video especially in breaking news situations.

Right now I can go out with my Leica M9, cover a fire/murder/press conference. Send the JPG to my phone using an Eye-Fi card. Caption it and FTP the image to the photo desk at the newspaper and have it online within minutes. MINUTES.

 

[Araakii]

I consider it dead already.

If you open up New York Times or worse, a regional newspaper, chances are you won't find a single decent shot in the whole paper.

 

[BobYIL]

I consider it dead already.

If you open up New York Times or worse, a regional newspaper, chances are you won't find a single decent shot in the whole paper.

You did't like these in New York Times?

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

 

[DanOnRoute66]

You ask that as if it isn't already dead.

 

[Araakii]

You did't like these in New York Times?

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

There are definitely stuff I like but I just find the ratio of good photos is pretty low, but that might be due to the fact that so many more photos are now available for public viewing that weren't available in the film days.

What I noticed is that a lot of the good shots are done by AP or Getty freelancers and NY times just bought their rights.

 

[shadowfox]

NO NO NO.

Do you have any idea how much more time consuming and how much more hardware is required to deliver an image cut from a video especially in breaking news situations.

Right now I can go out with my Leica M9, cover a fire/murder/press conference. Send the JPG to my phone using an Eye-Fi card. Caption it and FTP the image to the photo desk at the newspaper and have it online within minutes. MINUTES.

Are *most* news that made into the press breaking news?

And in 2016, assuming we are going with the same rate of advancement in technology, more people would be able to do exactly what you described up there with video also.

 

[sevo]

And in 2016, assuming we are going with the same rate of advancement in technology, more people would be able to do exactly what you described up there with video also.

You mean, prepare your questions, shoot a well-lit meaningful interview without background noise, edit it down to the 1:30 the editor permits, write and record a introductory voice-over (again without background noise), and sound and look good at all of it (so that you don't need an extra talking head in your team for the smooth voice, looks and hair-do). And all of that it in the time it takes so shoot twenty photographs, select one of them and write forty words of accompanying text?

The media industry would love to create the one-man (or more often one-woman) video news team - but there is a fair deal more to condensing what once was a eight man team into one person than to reducing the former two-some of writer and photographer into one...

 

[shadowfox]

I slightly disagree on the capturing technique if you are a newspaper owner what's the point of shooting video for grabbing a few stills? The still photo professionally taken will be in greater quality and will compete well with the other newspapers on the market, but when grabbing the shot from a video requires watching the whole thing, choosing the right frame etc so in that sense you'll be slowed down big time and still won't have the best you need and we all know every newspaper want the best they can afford ( or at least the owners want that) 🙂

Boris,

We are talking in the near future aren't we?
My statement is based on the assumption that videos in the future will output enough resolution per frame that is sufficient for news coverage. So quality is not a problem.

In most cases, choosing the right frame would take the same amount of time as a still photographer trying to capture the right moment. But the video editor can do that without having to dodge bullet.

Now the videographer still would have to watch for his back 🙂 , but since it's video, you can record from behind a barrier or use a remote control robot.

NOTE: I am *not* a proponent of this method. I, like most of you, consider still-photography to be superior to video recording for real time news coverage. And I hope for the sake of all still-photo journalists out there that the above scenario would never materialize.

But we also can't bury our heads in the sand and ignore a potential trend.