…my phone rings. It’s Sports Illustrated. They said that they say my photos on Flickr and want to send me to Kiribati. I go, ‘where’s Kiribati?’ and they’re like, ‘don’t worry about it, we need you to fly to Kiribati to take the cover photos for next year’s swimsuit issue.’”
via New Camera News.
The role of the critic in fact is not be to berate “the masses” for their choices. That would indeed be a bad form of elitism. Instead, the critic’s role consists of talking about artistic merit, in particular how it can be determined. A good critic is more like an educator who helps us when we have to make our choices, who help us see photographs with a fresh set of eyes. If I like the pictures by this particular artist, maybe there is something to them that makes me appreciate them even more? Or if I don’t like the pictures by that other artist, maybe I can revisit them and look at something I haven’t seen, to build an appreciation?
via In Defense of Merit | Conscientious Photography Magazine.
…the White House routinely excluded news photographers from sessions with the president and then released photographs of the events, usually taken by Mr. Souza. “You are, in effect, replacing independent journalism with visual press releases,”…
via NYTimes.com.
The clients are in a different space today. They don’t want to take risks. They want to see the advertising campaign before it is shot. It’s not like 10 years ago. That’s finished. You have to bring the clients so many references. So everyone’s work is referenced. There is not one picture that is new, let me tell you this. And the clients don’t want a new picture.
…the appropriate time to search for representation is when you literally can no longer manage shooting and client requests and calendars and making estimates and negotiating various licenses and shoot deliverables all at once.
The other time an agent is helpful is if you’re extraordinarily talented but a recluse, and want someone to be your “face” and leave it up to you to just make photographs. But the key thing here is that you need to be extraordinarily talented. Extraordinarily. Talented.
via PDNPulse » Pro Tips for Photographers with Jake Stangel.
…I enjoy digital more. I don’t carry a computer. I come inside in the evening, and until 12 o’clock I look at the screen on the back of the camera, and I eliminate.
Landscape photography is fantastic. It’s not by chance that as they get older many photographers start with the landscape. There are certain things you have to do to photograph people — you have to be able to run. If you photograph people, all of the time you are running after something and you are losing all the time. With landscapes you are waiting all the time. It’s much more relaxing.
I don’t like picture stories. In fact I think picture stories destroyed all photography. You needed to have a close-up and you needed to do other things and for me I am interested in one picture that tells many different stories to different people. That is to me a sign of the good picture.
I have never had any hero in my life or in photography. I just travel, I look and everything influences me. Everything influences me. I am quite different now than I was 40 years ago. For 40 years I have been traveling. I never stay in one country more than three months. Why? Because I was interested in seeing, and if I stay longer I become blind.
So we need to go back and give that medium a good, hard look again. What does it actually do? Not what we think it does, not what we want it to do. Instead: What does it do? And how does it do that? We need to think about that process of defamiliarization.
Instead of whining about the limitations of the medium, we need to start appreciating those very limitations. It is right here that the promises lie.
via The Challenge of Photography | Conscientious Photography Magazine.
Auctions make me sick. I can’t stand them. They’re ruining the art world. They change the conversation from art to money, from quality to quantities, and now those quantities are mass quantities. Hey did you ever notice the word tities is in quantities?
The Francis Bacon is completely predictable. A middle-brow painting by a middle-brow painter painting another middle-brow painter.
via Jerry Saltz’s Best Responses From His Reddit AMA — Vulture.
Mary Ellen Mark shared her thoughts with me; “People are bidding on something that has no value. I thought it was a joke, so I just took a cell phone picture of a real photograph. It is easy to take a good picture and so hard, almost impossible, to take a great picture. It takes years of labor to do this well. Photography is a craft, an art, a point of view. Instagram is not meant to be fine art or a beautiful object; it is social media—a means of communication.”
via Instagrams Fetch Thousands of Dollars at 2013 Aperture Benefit Auction | Feature Shoot.
There are 20 books in the Paris-Photo/Aperture First Book shortlist and 14 of them are self-published. Increasingly, these self-pub books are very sophisticated in their construction and the materials they use.
[…] I really respect the creativity in the self-pub world and the level of production has really increased dramatically.
via Take It From a Publishing Pro: The Photobook Format Is Up for Grabs | Raw File | Wired.com.
It’s no longer enough to get something in focus, well exposed and color correct. It’s no longer good enough to fix all the “flaws” in Photoshop. What the important audience wants now is the narrative, the story, the “why” and not the “how.” The love, not the schematic.
Charlie [Trotter] was pissed. He had been trying to call me for an hour but my mobile phone was locked inside. In a rage, he asked me what kind of idiot would dream of photographing him trampolining in the rain. Was I trying to kill him?!?! Needless to say, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. “If you want to shoot me come to the restaurant NOW!” he blared, and hung up.
I was furious.
My assistants and I packed up the trampolines, I mumbled away under my breath, and Mrs. Trotter made herself scarce; she was embarrassed. I admit I had a moment where I wanted to say “no thank you” and walk out. It was my book, after all.
Then I remembered something that I learned very early on in my photographic career: as good as an idea is, you must always be ready to throw it away.
The trial of Daniel Morel vs. Agence France Presse and Getty Images is set to begin with jury selection on November 13, 2013 at the Thurgood Marshall US Court House, 60 Centre St., Manhattan before Federal District Court Judge Alison Nathan room 506.
More (here).
Everyone is now fully aware that professional Dslr are going to be replaced by mobile phone cameras. It is just a question of time. Already, this year, there has been more phone cameras sold than point and shoots. One main reason: Phone cameras can now do pretty much what any point and shoot delivers but are less bulky to carry, have multiple other useful functions and we carry them all the time. While Dslr cameras offer much more than point and shoots, they are already threaten by the high quality files delivered by phones.
via Why mobile stock is the future of the industry. | Thoughts of a Bohemian.
…photography is becoming a career for rich kids – who can endure the droughts with a hand-out from Daddy. Anyone from a needier background need not bother. And this, I think, is rather sad, because photography used to be a great social ladder – look at the brilliant careers of working class ‘60s snappers like Bailey and McCullin. Now that social ladder has been kicked away.
via Why are today’s columnists and photographers so posh? – Telegraph Blogs.
The Wall Street Journal has an exciting opening for a high level Photo Editor/Multi-Media Producer.
Apply (here).