[Leica] 2010 Yearbook NOW NEWSPHOTOGRAPHY.

[leicaslacker at gmail.com (kyle cassidy on the LUG)]

I especially think the reporter being sent out with a 5d and told to report 
on the story, get stills & video and file is wrong-headed. Reporting news, 
photographing news, and videographing news are all very different 
disciplines and the public isn't being served by asking one person to do it 
all simply because there is now a small device capable of everything.


On Dec 2, 2010, at 5:36 PM, <tedgrant at shaw.ca> wrote:

> kyle cassidy on the LUG offered:
> Subject: Re: [Leica] 2010 Yearbook & Kodachrome
> 
> 
>> Some time in ... 1999 or 2000 I photographed an unexpected and somewhat 
>> volatile interchange between two mayoral candidates. Realizing that I had 
>> something special, I dropped the rest of the day, rushed home, processed 
>> the film made a fast print and called the local paper and was told by the 
>> city desk that they'd already gone to press with a digital image someone 
>> got in an hour before me. I realized that day that film was over in terms 
>> of news photography because the guy with the digital shot was always 
>> going to get there before you and he'd be off at the next assignment 
>> beating you again while you were developing. It's only going to get 
>> faster with wireless SD cards sending everything back to the mother ship 
>> while the event's going on....
> 
> Hi Kyle,
> In the newspaper world of today if you are not intune with the instant 
> world automatically every second, you will get beat on any assignment no 
> matter who you were in the "good old days" of news photography. I mean, 
> even if you were considered the "most fantastic news photographer in the 
> world" and still screwing around with film because you didn't like 
> digital, as it was just a fad?"
> And even if you could walk on water, drinking scotch and shooting with one 
> hand tied behind your back! You are history!
> 
> The new kid on the block with the right electronic hook-up will blow you 
> out of the water before you even think to take the picture. Actually even 
> before you put the camera to eye, his picture will be on the way to the 
> press for printing on the other side of the world!
> 
> Quite frankly it's a world I'm quite happy to say.... "Boy am I glad I did 
> my tenure as a news guy a long, long, long, really longtime  ago!" Then we 
> throw in many newspapers require their "news-photographers" use cameras' 
> to shoot video and stills at the same time! And if you can't do it, then 
> your "last pay check will probably be your last pay cheque!" :-(
> 
> ted
>