Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Photographers facing changes

   Among the many changes now hitting media is a big change for photographers. A story in today's New York Times highlights how it's affecting French photographers, but it also highlights changes hitting the industry as free cellphone photos seem to be all over the place. 

     In short, as you can imagine, the professionals find themselves squeezed.  Once again, I see those fateful words "business model doesn't seem to be working" applied to the traditional approach.  Of course, they don't seem to work for new approaches either.

     As I tell students, it's a new world out there, and we better get used to change. In many ways it's a wonderful world -- including all the poor photography coming from cellphone camera shot by amateurs that is capturing news events.  But I'm also seeing a yearning for quality, and I think we're going to have to find some "business models" that do work, and I think we will.

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