Re[2]: [Leica] Today's Great Photographers {was Photo whores

[Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil]

     Ted wrote:
     
The subjects making mega money for newspapers and magazines these days is 
the publics complete facination with "celebritie life styles and it's 
attended gossip and whoring around!"
     
And what that says is the public, not all, as some of us do have real life 
interests, have no interest in "real life happenings."

     <snip>
     
We who strive constantly for the Leica "magical moment" are up against a 
force we will never beat, as long as there isn't a demand for better image 
and life  value.

     <snip>
     
As long as "bean counters" can justify their existance by a paper or 
publication still surviving in cutting quality and yet make the "base 
profit", crap photos are going to be the name of the game.
     
It's stupid logic to eliminate quality because some bean counter decides 
"too much film is being used" and the fool doesn't have any idea of what 
photography is all about!

     <snip>
     
And LIFE magazine of late is the prime example of mental midgets running a 
once world class magazine!
     
     Ted,
     
     What are we railing against here?  I don't think it's "bean counters." 
     They do not get to "run...a once world class magazine" for no reason.  
     The old, presumably better, LIFE magazine must've had problems (though 
     what they were, I don't know).  If the "bean counters" do "justify 
     their existance by a paper or publication still surviving," then they 
     have responded to those problems.  And if the purchasing public is 
     interested in "celebritie life styles and it's attended gossip and 
     whoring around" and not in "real life happenings," there's little the 
     "bean counters" (or anyone else at LIFE magazine, new or old) can do 
     about it.  So "bean counters" seem like too easy a target, and what's 
     more, the wrong target.  The problem (if that's what it is) seems to 
     be, simply, that we have a free market economy, in which, generally, 
     the "lowest common denominator" rules, and in which, specifically, the 
     public demand for top quality photojournalism is much diminished.  No? 

     Art Peterson
     Alexandria, VA