There's technology, and there's talent. Everybody can have the first one. The second one can't be easily imbued, only developed in people who already show promise.
Even though they found no evidence of [censored] taking inappropriate photos, police arrested him....
Lovely. The guy is reporting on a graduation ceremony, brushes up against the crowd, and they react by calling the police to arrest him. I think people need to be a little less hysterical. Seems to me the reporter is the victim in this story, even if he did make some women "feel uncomfortable". Sometimes that's a reporters job.
Back to the Sun-Times firing all their photographers. I guess we're all feeling good by taking the side of the photographers here, and ridiculing the paper's managers, but let us remember that we're only getting one side of the story, and it's possible that the Sun-Times did review the quality of the photos they were getting from their staff photographers lately, vs. those they were getting from cheaper sources, and that the decision was easy. Maybe. Maybe not. But I wouldn't expect we're reading the whole story here. One lucky Pulitzer-winning photo from years ago does not make an excellent photo crew today.
In a few years smart phone cameras will continue to progress to the point that they are nearly as good as dedicated cameras. Already there are some phones using CMOS sensors with optical zoom available by Sharp and Toshiba in Japan.
In other words, phones that are getting to the quality level of existing compact consumer zoom cameras, like the Nikon Coolpix.
Be that as it may, photography is not about gadgets or specs, but the skill of the photographer. Plenty of amateur DSLR shooters out there who have never taken their fancy camera out of "P" (or "AUTO") mode, and wouldn't know what to do if they did. It doesn't make them Ansel Adams.
This must have been said a number of times here, but photography is very little to do with the device, it's who's behind it. Unfortunately today's media and consumers seem resistant to appreciating that.
Because they just didn't want to pay them anymore. That's really it. They can pay a freelancer WAY less money than a salaried professional photographer.
That is actually a possible death sentence for the publication. Freelancers in any industry charge more for the same amount of work to make up for the taxes, inconsistency, etc. If they aren't getting that, it decreases the quality of talent that they attract. There's a false notion that people are lined up, yet if it was the case, these companies would have made a similar culling years ago.
Quote:
Ten years from now this will be a laughable sentence.
You already have publications that can be viewed on your phone. Everyone has a phone. Tablets could push it even further, but really they need to be dirt cheap to achieve real volume. If it's something you care about or wouldn't want to leave in your car, it's not a great replacement to to the distribution of a printed publication that was essentially disposable. I also think you have the issue of cultural shifts. Magazines and newspapers involved paid content. You still looked at ads, but you paid a certain price to pick it up. I haven't looked up the numbers, but it would be interesting to know what Conde Nast or Time has today in terms of digital subscriptions paid by people in their 20s and maybe 30s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
On the other hand, the alternative is " you're fired." Is that preferable? Newspapers are dying and must make a painful transition or disappear.
It's more of a delay tactic here. I'm not sure this will really create a viable path to restructuring. These guys should really be looking for new jobs as it is rather than maintain a poor job that still may not be there in a couple years. As I've mentioned, it will dissuade new talent from entry, which further complicates long term viability. Really they need to have at least an abstract idea what that business will look like five years from now.
Because they just didn't want to pay them anymore. That's really it. They can pay a freelancer WAY less money than a salaried professional photographer.
Ten years from now this will be a laughable sentence.
Especially when devices start displaying at 1200ppi.
Next we fire all the reporters and let the public write the stories. We unfortunately will become just a nation of bloggers as Jobs feared. I'm starting to tire of the digital world.
You already have publications that can be viewed on your phone. Everyone has a phone. Tablets could push it even further, but really they need to be dirt cheap to achieve real volume. If it's something you care about or wouldn't want to leave in your car, it's not a great replacement to to the distribution of a printed publication that was essentially disposable.
Yeah, but you don't see it happening, do you? You don't see the revolution that should already be here, do you? I say ten years at absolute max. If almost 100% of newspapers in the US alone aren't via the iPad (and its successors) in ten years, then I'd say that's a failure for digital news!
These guys should be flocking en-masse to the iPad! ANIMATED TEXT! VIDEOS! And the layout can either be the same as the physical or something radical and innovative and new! Heck, they can do that with the physical newspaper itself, but do you see them caring?
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Especially when devices start displaying at 1200ppi.
Next we fire all the reporters and let the public write the stories. We unfortunately will become just a nation of bloggers as Jobs feared. I'm starting to tire of the digital world.
Nah, someone will write a program that captures Facebook, Twitter, and TwitFace (coming in 2018) crowdsourced info and then auto-composes news stories*.
Nah, someone will write a program that captures Facebook, Twitter, and TwitFace (coming in 2018) crowdsourced info and then auto-composes news stories*
We have that now. They're called "reporters."
Oh, you mean software... that would have the advantage of only requiring the focus of the story to be punched in once...
The issue is money. Or more correctly, return on investment.
Very difficult to justify 28 photographers when the newspaper business is already in the toilet. And this way a photo could end up a closer link to the story in any case. All they need now is an app for the sun times that formats the story and embeds the pics to further streamline the layout process. Then the next to go will be the subbies.
It isn't as though the photographers turn out a Pulitzer pic every second week, and the sell on of a photo with a story would happen regardless if it is a DSLR shot or an iPhone snap.
That is actually a possible death sentence for the publication. Freelancers in any industry charge more for the same amount of work to make up for the taxes, inconsistency, etc. If they aren't getting that, it decreases the quality of talent that they attract. There's a false notion that people are lined up, yet if it was the case, these companies would have made a similar culling years ago.
Freelancers may (try to) charge more for the same service, but the company will always have saved money by using freelancers instead of staff, for mainly two reasons. First, no benefits. Secondly, if there's little in the way of local breaking news they're not paying anyone to be on call for any story that breaks. A story breaks, they call someone to shoot it. If there's a lot going on, they're using a lot of freelancers. If not, those freelancers are not being used or paid by that company.
This story is similar to the way cheap digital tools changed the music industry. You can't tell a guitarist that he can't record a song in his bedroom with a $400 package from Guitar Center, because he can. Would it be better done in a recording studio? Maybe, but does that matter? The bar for the result has been lowered enough for both this and the Reporter-with-iPhone-as-photographer to yield a not unacceptable end product in the context.
Sucks, but as mentioned before, it's a kick in the ass for photographers to show why they make the newspaper better, same as recording studios and live musicians have had to do. This has been on the radar for a long while.
The Sun Times just saved on Providing 28 people with benefits. Not the first Daily to do this btw. Supporting that trend the Sports photography will most likely now be covered by free lance. Very Sad news for Pro Photogs.
whoops. just read last cmmt. take mine as a summery..
The news is meant to be objective. For those purposes, all you need is photos that are sharp, clear and pointed in the right direction. You need technical excellence not artistic excellence. And there was always going to be a time come when the technology handled that side of things itself.
But it will be a much longer time before technology takes artistic photos by itself so that would be the kind of job I would look for next if I was these guys.
As a retired Photography teacher, I can say that Professional Photographers tend to be born. It's a gift, like being a wordsmith: and it's probably rare for the two to overlap. In my experience, there were usually one or two in every photographic class who had the gift. Their shots right from the get-go were always selected, framed and played with, at a level above the rest. I don't think it's necessarily something you can learn.
"If Ansel Adams used my camera to take a photo, it'd look like an Ansel Adams. If I used his camera to take a shot, it'd look like I took it." -- Source forgotten
Yeah, but you don't see it happening, do you? You don't see the revolution that should already be here, do you? I say ten years at absolute max. If almost 100% of newspapers in the US alone aren't via the iPad (and its successors) in ten years, then I'd say that's a failure for digital news!
These guys should be flocking en-masse to the iPad! ANIMATED TEXT! VIDEOS! And the layout can either be the same as the physical or something radical and innovative and new! Heck, they can do that with the physical newspaper itself, but do you see them caring?
There are a lot of interesting things that can be done, but it comes down to whether companies have a viable business plan and a way to fund these ventures. Doing it really well might involve further software development to include desirable features, and ideally you want younger designers who came out of college using smartphones (probably blackberries at the time) yet have some understanding of print layouts (not just magazines but brochures, tech packs, bus wraps, etc). I think they won't survive without a certain level of quality. Blogs typically do not charge subscription fees, so it has to be something more than that.
Regarding animating everything, I don't think that's always necessary. There has to be a reason for it. Otherwise you end up with the 90s era of banner ads all over the place. It was no less cheesy then. If you're just making things move because they can be displayed in motion, that just makes it more of a fad. There are viable reasons. You can show what really happened at an event rather than just highlights. I'm not describing this very well relative to what I'm thinking, so I will end it here for now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jlandd
Freelancers may (try to) charge more for the same service, but the company will always have saved money by using freelancers instead of staff, for mainly two reasons. First, no benefits. Secondly, if there's little in the way of local breaking news they're not paying anyone to be on call for any story that breaks. A story breaks, they call someone to shoot it. If there's a lot going on, they're using a lot of freelancers. If not, those freelancers are not being used or paid by that company.
This story is similar to the way cheap digital tools changed the music industry. You can't tell a guitarist that he can't record a song in his bedroom with a $400 package from Guitar Center, because he can. Would it be better done in a recording studio? Maybe, but does that matter? The bar for the result has been lowered enough for both this and the Reporter-with-iPhone-as-photographer to yield a not unacceptable end product in the context.
Sucks, but as mentioned before, it's a kick in the ass for photographers to show why they make the newspaper better, same as recording studios and live musicians have had to do. This has been on the radar for a long while.
What you seem to miss is that this is a short term ploy. You're also focused on the wrong portion. You're looking at entrenched talent and saying okay they need to step it up. That kind of goal based management technique wears off very fast. Sure you can fire them and bring on new people for less, but if that music label can't turn out something that clearly differentiates them from the bedroom audio engineer, they don't have a sustainable business model on the production side, not that labels always produce everything directly. Anyway that is the basic situation this publication may face assuming they intend to stick to the paid subscription model while cutting costs wherever possible. If the difference isn't immediately distinguishable, how do they attract new subscribers? Pointing at the employees or contractors is just stupid and lacking in vision. It means their management team has no idea what to do and they're trying to buy time. Look at what happened with Apple prior to the return of Jobs for a point of reference. When he returned he did cut down the line somewhat, but he lined up new projects to secure their future.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by jungmark
It's hard to embed video in a newspaper.
...a newspaper website?
Here's what happens when you send out a reporter with a camera.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57587080-504083/oklahoma-city-reporter-nathaniel-campfield-arrested-suspected-of-taking-upskirt-photos/
Quote:
Originally Posted by Macky the Macky
Here's what happens when you send out a reporter with a camera.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57587080-504083/oklahoma-city-reporter-nathaniel-campfield-arrested-suspected-of-taking-upskirt-photos/
From that story:
Quote:
Even though they found no evidence of [censored] taking inappropriate photos, police arrested him....
Lovely. The guy is reporting on a graduation ceremony, brushes up against the crowd, and they react by calling the police to arrest him. I think people need to be a little less hysterical. Seems to me the reporter is the victim in this story, even if he did make some women "feel uncomfortable". Sometimes that's a reporters job.
Back to the Sun-Times firing all their photographers. I guess we're all feeling good by taking the side of the photographers here, and ridiculing the paper's managers, but let us remember that we're only getting one side of the story, and it's possible that the Sun-Times did review the quality of the photos they were getting from their staff photographers lately, vs. those they were getting from cheaper sources, and that the decision was easy. Maybe. Maybe not. But I wouldn't expect we're reading the whole story here. One lucky Pulitzer-winning photo from years ago does not make an excellent photo crew today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwmac
In a few years smart phone cameras will continue to progress to the point that they are nearly as good as dedicated cameras. Already there are some phones using CMOS sensors with optical zoom available by Sharp and Toshiba in Japan.
In other words, phones that are getting to the quality level of existing compact consumer zoom cameras, like the Nikon Coolpix.
Be that as it may, photography is not about gadgets or specs, but the skill of the photographer. Plenty of amateur DSLR shooters out there who have never taken their fancy camera out of "P" (or "AUTO") mode, and wouldn't know what to do if they did. It doesn't make them Ansel Adams.
I am, but I think the Ministry uses gifs (pronounced jiffs
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Because they just didn't want to pay them anymore. That's really it. They can pay a freelancer WAY less money than a salaried professional photographer.
That is actually a possible death sentence for the publication. Freelancers in any industry charge more for the same amount of work to make up for the taxes, inconsistency, etc. If they aren't getting that, it decreases the quality of talent that they attract. There's a false notion that people are lined up, yet if it was the case, these companies would have made a similar culling years ago.
Quote:
Ten years from now this will be a laughable sentence.
You already have publications that can be viewed on your phone. Everyone has a phone. Tablets could push it even further, but really they need to be dirt cheap to achieve real volume. If it's something you care about or wouldn't want to leave in your car, it's not a great replacement to to the distribution of a printed publication that was essentially disposable. I also think you have the issue of cultural shifts. Magazines and newspapers involved paid content. You still looked at ads, but you paid a certain price to pick it up. I haven't looked up the numbers, but it would be interesting to know what Conde Nast or Time has today in terms of digital subscriptions paid by people in their 20s and maybe 30s.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
On the other hand, the alternative is " you're fired." Is that preferable? Newspapers are dying and must make a painful transition or disappear.
It's more of a delay tactic here. I'm not sure this will really create a viable path to restructuring. These guys should really be looking for new jobs as it is rather than maintain a poor job that still may not be there in a couple years. As I've mentioned, it will dissuade new talent from entry, which further complicates long term viability. Really they need to have at least an abstract idea what that business will look like five years from now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Because they just didn't want to pay them anymore. That's really it. They can pay a freelancer WAY less money than a salaried professional photographer.
Ten years from now this will be a laughable sentence.
Especially when devices start displaying at 1200ppi.
Originally Posted by hmm
You already have publications that can be viewed on your phone. Everyone has a phone. Tablets could push it even further, but really they need to be dirt cheap to achieve real volume. If it's something you care about or wouldn't want to leave in your car, it's not a great replacement to to the distribution of a printed publication that was essentially disposable.
Yeah, but you don't see it happening, do you? You don't see the revolution that should already be here, do you? I say ten years at absolute max. If almost 100% of newspapers in the US alone aren't via the iPad (and its successors) in ten years, then I'd say that's a failure for digital news!
These guys should be flocking en-masse to the iPad! ANIMATED TEXT! VIDEOS! And the layout can either be the same as the physical or something radical and innovative and new! Heck, they can do that with the physical newspaper itself, but do you see them caring?
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Especially when devices start displaying at 1200ppi.
Nah, someone will write a program that captures Facebook, Twitter, and TwitFace (coming in 2018) crowdsourced info and then auto-composes news stories*.
* Patent not pending.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Nah, someone will write a program that captures Facebook, Twitter, and TwitFace (coming in 2018) crowdsourced info and then auto-composes news stories*
We have that now. They're called "reporters."
Oh, you mean software... that would have the advantage of only requiring the focus of the story to be punched in once...
Very difficult to justify 28 photographers when the newspaper business is already in the toilet. And this way a photo could end up a closer link to the story in any case. All they need now is an app for the sun times that formats the story and embeds the pics to further streamline the layout process. Then the next to go will be the subbies.
It isn't as though the photographers turn out a Pulitzer pic every second week, and the sell on of a photo with a story would happen regardless if it is a DSLR shot or an iPhone snap.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmm
That is actually a possible death sentence for the publication. Freelancers in any industry charge more for the same amount of work to make up for the taxes, inconsistency, etc. If they aren't getting that, it decreases the quality of talent that they attract. There's a false notion that people are lined up, yet if it was the case, these companies would have made a similar culling years ago.
Freelancers may (try to) charge more for the same service, but the company will always have saved money by using freelancers instead of staff, for mainly two reasons. First, no benefits. Secondly, if there's little in the way of local breaking news they're not paying anyone to be on call for any story that breaks. A story breaks, they call someone to shoot it. If there's a lot going on, they're using a lot of freelancers. If not, those freelancers are not being used or paid by that company.
This story is similar to the way cheap digital tools changed the music industry. You can't tell a guitarist that he can't record a song in his bedroom with a $400 package from Guitar Center, because he can. Would it be better done in a recording studio? Maybe, but does that matter? The bar for the result has been lowered enough for both this and the Reporter-with-iPhone-as-photographer to yield a not unacceptable end product in the context.
Sucks, but as mentioned before, it's a kick in the ass for photographers to show why they make the newspaper better, same as recording studios and live musicians have had to do. This has been on the radar for a long while.
whoops. just read last cmmt. take mine as a summery..
The news is meant to be objective. For those purposes, all you need is photos that are sharp, clear and pointed in the right direction. You need technical excellence not artistic excellence. And there was always going to be a time come when the technology handled that side of things itself.
But it will be a much longer time before technology takes artistic photos by itself so that would be the kind of job I would look for next if I was these guys.
"If Ansel Adams used my camera to take a photo, it'd look like an Ansel Adams. If I used his camera to take a shot, it'd look like I took it." -- Source forgotten
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Yeah, but you don't see it happening, do you? You don't see the revolution that should already be here, do you? I say ten years at absolute max. If almost 100% of newspapers in the US alone aren't via the iPad (and its successors) in ten years, then I'd say that's a failure for digital news!
These guys should be flocking en-masse to the iPad! ANIMATED TEXT! VIDEOS! And the layout can either be the same as the physical or something radical and innovative and new! Heck, they can do that with the physical newspaper itself, but do you see them caring?
There are a lot of interesting things that can be done, but it comes down to whether companies have a viable business plan and a way to fund these ventures. Doing it really well might involve further software development to include desirable features, and ideally you want younger designers who came out of college using smartphones (probably blackberries at the time) yet have some understanding of print layouts (not just magazines but brochures, tech packs, bus wraps, etc). I think they won't survive without a certain level of quality. Blogs typically do not charge subscription fees, so it has to be something more than that.
Regarding animating everything, I don't think that's always necessary. There has to be a reason for it. Otherwise you end up with the 90s era of banner ads all over the place. It was no less cheesy then. If you're just making things move because they can be displayed in motion, that just makes it more of a fad. There are viable reasons. You can show what really happened at an event rather than just highlights. I'm not describing this very well relative to what I'm thinking, so I will end it here for now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jlandd
Freelancers may (try to) charge more for the same service, but the company will always have saved money by using freelancers instead of staff, for mainly two reasons. First, no benefits. Secondly, if there's little in the way of local breaking news they're not paying anyone to be on call for any story that breaks. A story breaks, they call someone to shoot it. If there's a lot going on, they're using a lot of freelancers. If not, those freelancers are not being used or paid by that company.
This story is similar to the way cheap digital tools changed the music industry. You can't tell a guitarist that he can't record a song in his bedroom with a $400 package from Guitar Center, because he can. Would it be better done in a recording studio? Maybe, but does that matter? The bar for the result has been lowered enough for both this and the Reporter-with-iPhone-as-photographer to yield a not unacceptable end product in the context.
Sucks, but as mentioned before, it's a kick in the ass for photographers to show why they make the newspaper better, same as recording studios and live musicians have had to do. This has been on the radar for a long while.
What you seem to miss is that this is a short term ploy. You're also focused on the wrong portion. You're looking at entrenched talent and saying okay they need to step it up. That kind of goal based management technique wears off very fast. Sure you can fire them and bring on new people for less, but if that music label can't turn out something that clearly differentiates them from the bedroom audio engineer, they don't have a sustainable business model on the production side, not that labels always produce everything directly. Anyway that is the basic situation this publication may face assuming they intend to stick to the paid subscription model while cutting costs wherever possible. If the difference isn't immediately distinguishable, how do they attract new subscribers? Pointing at the employees or contractors is just stupid and lacking in vision. It means their management team has no idea what to do and they're trying to buy time. Look at what happened with Apple prior to the return of Jobs for a point of reference. When he returned he did cut down the line somewhat, but he lined up new projects to secure their future.