[Leica] Re; Accidental photojournalist

[lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)]

 George,
You raise several interesting points. I can't agree with most of them but 
still they are interesting. In my retirement career as an art critic, 
certainly influenced by my nearly 50 year marriage to an extremely 
"creative" artist, I have learned that creativity is not a rare attribute. 
Most children are very creative. Visit a kindergarten art class to see 
unfettered inspiration at work. Society bashes it out of most children by 
the time they are teen agers. "Paint BETWEEN the lines was the mantra of my 
kid's art teachers. Adults who are creative have learned to recover their 
inner child. Whether or not their re-emergent creativity is recognized is 
largely a function of the skills that they have learned in writing, 
painting, or photography. And once their creative works are manifest, they 
must find a venue for presentation. Galleries, magazines, exhibition halls, 
and, in fact the media in general are the gatekeepers. These are businesses 
for the most part. They must turn a profit to survive.


For every artist who is exhibited, I know 10 equally talented artists who 
never found an outlet. Look at the LUG. The Gallery is replete with 
excellent photographs, most taken by "non-professionals" whose pictures will 
be seen only by close friends and on the web. Ted, Tina, and some few others 
have managed to break the barrier but there are plenty of other LUGGERS 
whose work is equally as good.


In my day if you wanted to get paid for taking pictures, you did one of two 
things. You worked for a media outlet, newspaper or magazine, or you tried 
to establish an independent freelance or "professional" business. While some 
"professionals" managed to live quite nicely, most barely scraped by or 
failed completely. I bought most of my cameras from failed professionals. 
Sometimes "security" is better than starving.


On your second point. Sure photography has been devalued as a profession. It 
has been happening as long as I can remember. During my formative years I 
spent hours learning how focus, set exposures, and load a Nikkor reel. By 
the mid 60s my expertise had been obsoleted by a silicon chip no bigger than 
my fingernail. Anyone could possess my technical skills by plunking down a 
few bucks at a camera counter. A similar thing happened with the advent of 
digital photography. D76 - what's that? It has happened now with the iPhone. 
Who needs a camera any more? My phone is always with me.?


Newspapers, if they still exist, have never obsessed over the quality of the 
printed pictures. Timeliness is everything. Tomorrow the paper will be used 
to wrap fish. We are awash in images. They are no longer novelties and the 
people who make them are not regarded as exceptionally skilled. A child can 
do it. And many have.


Even television has fired many of its videographers. Sure, some still work 
in studios or cover local breaking news events but for the most part many of 
those studio shots are taken by remote control cameras. Even combat 
photography is a dying profession, literally and figuratively. Many of those 
images you see on the evening news are taken by drones, cell phones, or 
soldier's helmet cameras.


Few fine artists make a living painting portraits any more. Rembrandt did 
quite nicely but even he suffered financially in his declining years. 
Similarly few photographers will make a living by taking pictures. They will 
take photographs because they love it, just like my wife paints. Cherish the 
good times. They are almost over for photography as a profession. Jayanand 
is right. Something will take its place but I can't imagine what.


Larry Z


- - - - -


While many "news photographers" may have seen the exchange of "security" for 
"all rights"
as a good trade - many others certainly did not - including the vast majority
of those whom we laud as among the historical best.


Writers, photographers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians all depend on 
income
from one or another form of "use fees" and/or royalties.


In my opinion it's the people who have screwed the creators out of those 
fees,
rather than the creators working to get compensated for use of their work,
who should be looked down upon.


P.S.
Newspapers firing their photographic staff
has nothing to do with photographers selling "rights to use their 
photographs."
It has everything to do with the overall devaluation of photographers and 
photographs.




YMMV


Regards,
George Lottermoser?