I have to admit, my musings about “the vast wire service in the cloud” the other day did stem from some sense that the job I’m training for just isn’t sustainable. This article eloquently argues that as soon as digital technology touches a thing, its marginal cost drops to zero. And while I have no doubt that there will always be a role in our society for the tellers of truth and the seers of history, I can’t help but worry that the same trend is going to drive the cost of photography and journalism in the same direction.
Flickr has a vast pool of users photographing and giving their photos away for nothing more than a photo credit. And if it were only pictures of cats it would be one thing, but thirty seconds of searching shows that they’re giving away everything from stock photography to coverage of the primaries. One argument I’ve heard is that we just need to do better work and tell better stories. But the trend in mass media today is clearly in the direction of covering crap, we know this. Crap makes for better ratings than difficult reporting on issues of social justice. On that note, Anderson Cooper’s show has already jumped on the bandwagon of airing free, viewer-generated crap. And given the choice of free crap that makes money and expensive journalism that doesn’t, well, look around. This trend is well underway.
The other day I was telling Donna that I wish there were an organization out there, be it a news organization or what have you, that could say, “Just go out there and do good and meaningful work, and we’ll figure out how to make money, we’ll figure out how to find an audience.” Newspapers and magazines used to fulfill that role. LIFE Magazine used to fulfill that role.
But on the same day that WIRED magazine published an article on how everything’s going to be free (and according to them, free! is! great!), WIRED showcased the work of ten photographers shooting Holgas. The magazine is making money on ad revenue. And how did they pay the photographers?
A new Holga and a T-shirt for the winner. Nothing for the other nine.
I know the WIRED thing is just a contest, and I know that Anderson Cooper errs on the side of crap on almost a nightly basis, but when I see a lot of people giving away a lot of photographs, and an industry that’s trying some pretty desperate things in the hopes of making money, I get worried. I get worried because I see the same trend that the author of that article saw. I get worried because it doesn’t take an economist to see that this is only the beginning.
To be proud of America
Anti-war protest on 20 March 2003, the day after the invasion of Iraq.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to state this: for a long time, the right wing in America characterized Democrats, liberals and progressives as having disdain for their own country. Immediately after the events of 9/11/2001, I remember there being a good 24 to 48 hours in which that all went away. But then the mischaracterization got even worse. The right worked hard to equate patriotism with jingoism, and in so doing ensured for themselves a monopoly on displays of the flag and screamed chants of “U - S - A!”
As true patriots watched with trepidation, the nation screamed its way to war. That was five years ago next month.
This image is from a massive protest in Austin against the war, 20 March 2003, the day after a series of airstrikes signalled the invasion of Iraq had begun. You could (not unfairly) argue that it’s sign art, but something about the glance and the sentiment remind me of the mood at that time. We’d been made to feel afraid. We’d been made to feel ashamed. And, even though we all loved our country, it was hard to be proud of the things that were happening around us.
Five years later, the monopoly on pride has been shattered; young Democrats paint themselves in red white and blue, and across the spectrum Americans are speaking in terms of the nation’s promise, not its faults.
That’s quite a thing to have witnessed.
It’s quite a thing to be proud of.
Barack Obama in line at McDonald's
- Barack Obama: Hi, can I get a number 10 meal with fries and an iced coffee?
- Drive-thru voice: You can't get that with coffee, it comes with a soft drink or a bottled water.
- Obama: Yes we can.
- Drive-through voice: Come again?
- Obama: We're coming upon a defining moment in the history of this great nation. So many things that once seemed impossible seem now to be within our reach. So as you stand there and say that we cannot have iced coffee, I say, "Yes we can."
Not quite liveblogging, but...
I brought my laptop to the Obama rally. Around my neck, easy, left a hand for my camera and another to shade bright lights. After the speech I grabbed sidewalk wifi and posted three quick JPEGs. No toning, just the BASIC half of RAW+BASIC. With only reserve battery to run on I did a quick edit and emailed these shots to my blog.
Walking back to my car now, people behind me are still crying out ‘Yes We Can’s in the distance, and my shots are up. Is this the future of photojournalism? Or am I just a part of the vast wire service in the cloud, where pictures flow fast and no one can earn a living making them?
Politics, hope and humanity
Yeah, yeah, I know. More words on the photo blog. But like I said, sometimes I get moved and I can’t help myself. Because after all the rancor died down — rancor that I was a part of, I confess — I watched the debate tonight. And I was moved, I suppose, because I know what it feels like to watch the thing you want more than anything else slip away before your eyes. It’s a crappy feeling. And watching Hillary Clinton tonight, I was moved by memory.
I feel bad about how personal this campaign has become. I think it reached a tipping point — and again, I confess to my part in that tipping point — in the last 48 hours. For me it came when I submitted a link on Digg and it reached the front page of election news.
This was my first link on Digg to make it into double digits, and it got over 1,200 diggs. This was my first submission to even get a comment on it, and it got well over 100. But when I read those comments, I saw this race with somewhat new eyes. People in comments called the senator from New York “evil bitch,” “sleazy bitch,” “psycho,” “fiend,” “repulsive,” and “scum.”
Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are human beings in this thing. When you talk about the Hillary campaign, the mechanism is so large as to crowd out the Hillary behind it all. And to that human being, the things happening are human things. I can barely imagine what it would feel like to be called “bitch” several hundred thousand times a day, although in all the scenarios I do imagine, it sucks. Hard.
Two years ago I watched as a job I desperately wanted — a job I thought was a sure thing — slipped away from me in a week’s time. It hurt; there was anger; there was bargaining; there were tears. And watching the senator from New York tonight — especially as she delivered her closing statement — I felt touched by those memories. There was some anger. There was some frustration. But in the end, there was grace. And it moved me.
Barack Obama makes much out of hope transcending politics, but tonight, for a moment, humanity transcended both. And for the first time in a long time, I felt at peace with it all.
America ‘08.
-j
Attendees at a rally for Senator Barack Obama shoot cameraphone images outside Guadalupe Plaza in San Antonio. I didn’t get to see the crowd inside the plaza, but about 1,000 people overflowed, packing the street outside despite assurances they couldn’t get in. Obama addressed the overflow crowd before starting the official event, and despite the distance — I’dve needed a 300 to get a shot of the candidate — the crowd threw up cameras and phones and tried to capture the feeling.
Who knows, maybe even in grainy low-res JPEG, they did catch that feeling. There’s a ruined Polaroid that I’ll always treasure simply because it reminds me of a feeling, it reminds me of what I felt in a moment.
There’s poetry somewhere in there, but it escapes me right now.
Looking for old audio just now, I ran across this scan dated 20 September 2005. This represented the first time that I was published, anywhere. This was my first tryout at the Texan.
And the copy desk screwed up my caption. Eh, whatev. I turned out alright.
[audio post, 6m 09s]
At Joe’s thing on Friday I told Jeff that I’d post an exchange I recorded between Eli Reed and a young African refugee named Majaliwa.
Some background: Eli was speaking to a group of African refugees living in Houston. Almost all were in high school; for almost all, English was a second language. Eli showed his Lost Boys of Sudan project and some other work; afterwards the floor was open for questions.
Majaliwa’s hand shot up, and he asked, “Why do you take these pictures?” Eli offered an explanation of how the images go into newspapers and magazines and raise awareness.
“Does that answer your question,” Eli asked.
“No,” said Majaliwa.
And that’s where this clip picks up.
Supporters of Senator Barack Obama at the opening of his campaign headquarters in Austin.
I like the light in this one. Thanks, Peter, for keeping me on manual exposure. :)
The Blogs
- Daily Texan photo-blog
- Texas Photojournalist
- Drew Smith
- Bruno Morlan
- Callie Richmond
- Annie Snodgrass
- Caleb Miller
- Cliff Cheney new link
- Courtney Dudley
- Eliot Meyer new link
- Mark Mulligan
- Glennon Simmons
- Jon Huang new link
- Jordan Gomez
- Jeff McWhorter new link
- Katie Hayes new link
- Kim Espinosa new link
- Logan Barron new link
- Megan Shelby
- Tessa Moll new link
- Peter Franklin
- Joe Buglewicz
- Ranjana Thomas
- Rebecca Davis new link
- Rob Strong new link
- Stephen Durda
- Brian Ray
- Tri Vo
- Paul Wentzell