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Sidebar to the Internet.
Is it just me or does anyone else out there feel like what you see in print, on the web or even on the TV seems passe? I guess the instant exposure has finally killed everyone else's sense of the creative. Maybe this $40 a month bill just ain't worth it. -- Reality-Is finding that perfect picture and never looking back. www.gregblankphoto.com |
#2
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Sidebar to the Internet.
Greg "_" wrote:
Is it just me or does anyone else out there feel like what you see in print, on the web or even on the TV seems passe? I guess the instant exposure has finally killed everyone else's sense of the creative. Everything is worse than it was when we were younger. Of course, Xenophon (IIRC) made the same observation about the Athenian republic ... |
#3
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Sidebar to the Internet.
In article , Mike Kent
wrote: Greg "_" wrote: Is it just me or does anyone else out there feel like what you see in print, on the web or even on the TV seems passe? I guess the instant exposure has finally killed everyone else's sense of the creative. Everything is worse than it was when we were younger. Of course, Xenophon (IIRC) made the same observation about the Athenian republic ... Oh I don't know- actually aside from bills, crime worries, and future old age issues I think my life is far more interesting and complete than when I was young. I like listening to Cspan and thinking about how screwed I could be compared to others,....and how the Quote UNquote wise people are going to correct all this Once upon a time it bothered me I didn't have a lot of close friends but now I really like my available solitude. -- Reality-Is finding that perfect picture and never looking back. www.gregblankphoto.com |
#4
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Sidebar to the Internet.
On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:51:55 -0400, "Greg
\"_\"" wrote: Is it just me or does anyone else out there feel like what you see in print, on the web or even on the TV seems passe? I guess the instant exposure has finally killed everyone else's sense of the creative. Maybe this $40 a month bill just ain't worth it. July 28, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick, Maybe not "killed" everyone else's sense of the creative — but diluted it. Also, I would not limit your remarks to print, TV and web. The ability of the individual to "create" has advanced enormously. Digital cameras have made the ordinary user free to create as many images as desired, for next to no cost. Until recently, film was a slight impediment to this, although user-friendly cheap cameras certainly moved this process along nicely. But where people used to say they had a camera, so they could make the pictures, too, thank you mister professional photog, now they say it and do produce piles of images, instead of one or two rolls' worth. I think a facet of what you are saying is that the value of any single image (I'm sure this applies to all creative output; certainly the music industry has been an example recently) has declined along with the decline in scarcity. People can not be expected to appreciate the 'value' of an image when the world is awash in them — when a single family can be awash in them, and personal images of their own family, at that. And maybe the personal aspect is significant, too. A parent with a shirt pocket digital camera can generate thousands of pictures of the kids in short order. Some of them are bound to be good, or at least satisfy the family. The low cost certainly makes them seem, um, low cost. So the reason to actually hire and pay a photog becomes more and more remote and theoretical. A mentality grows, and has come to underlie (and undermine...) public attitudes toward artistic output. With so many images and so much music out there, why should it be paid for? We've seen a big change due to this attitude. The stock photography business has been changed radically. Getting a customer to pay a significant amount of money for an image is more and more difficult. Getting a picture for free is pretty easy, and making it do the job in hand is not exactly difficult, either. Paying a photog to create a suitable image is a very unattractive proposition by comparison. Even browsing a collection of pay-for-rights images must seem like a bore to a prospective image user. But we've seen this process at work for decades. Digital is not the culprit. It only speeds up the process. One could say George Eastman started it with 'you press the button, we do the rest'. People made their own pictures, and now we see the results. In 1971 I got a job with an importer of cheap gift ware, ashtrays and the like. I photographed the stuff and oversaw the production of a number of color prints in 5x7. Each sales person got copies. I had a little room with lights and shelves to hold the stuff in front of the camera (which was mine! great deal for the cheapskate employer...). But the boss wanted to pick my brain. He had a point and shoot and was banging away with it taking pictures of his goods under showroom fluorescent light. He wanted me to tell him how to get good pictures so he could eliminate my piddling salary from his life. We're seeing a manifestation of what McLuhan called the 'speedup' of media or communications. Things can happen faster, sooner and in greater quantity, which means they do so. The effects are on us, on our psychology and attitudes. People now grow up with pictures (and music) all over the place, like blades of grass. Why choose one particle of sand over another? Is one crack in the sidewalk worth more money than another? And if an artist comes along and makes a superb portrait of your family, why should it be worth more than any of the thousands you've made yourself? Who can see the difference any more?? There is a TV commercial playing these days. A dad is sitting at his computer expounding on his kids and his picture collection. He says — "I am my son's paparazzi". Wouldn't McLuhan and Warhol have loved that? Not only does everyone get fifteen minutes of fame, but everyone gets photographed fifteen thousand times, famous or not. regards, --le ________________________________ Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto. website: www.heylloyd.com telephone: 416-686-0326 email: ________________________________ -- |
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Sidebar to the Internet.
In article ,
Lloyd Erlick Lloyd at @the-wire. dot com wrote: On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 22:51:55 -0400, "Greg \"_\"" wrote: Is it just me or does anyone else out there feel like what you see in print, on the web or even on the TV seems passe? I guess the instant exposure has finally killed everyone else's sense of the creative. Maybe this $40 a month bill just ain't worth it. July 28, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick, Maybe not "killed" everyone else's sense of the creative — but diluted it. Also, I would not limit your remarks to print, TV and web. The ability of the individual to "create" has advanced enormously. Digital cameras have made the ordinary user free to create as many images as desired, for next to no cost. Until recently, film was a slight impediment to this, although user-friendly cheap cameras certainly moved this process along nicely. But where people used to say they had a camera, so they could make the pictures, too, thank you mister professional photog, now they say it and do produce piles of images, instead of one or two rolls' worth. I think a facet of what you are saying is that the value of any single image (I'm sure this applies to all creative output; certainly the music industry has been an example recently) has declined along with the decline in scarcity. People can not be expected to appreciate the 'value' of an image when the world is awash in them — when a single family can be awash in them, and personal images of their own family, at that. And maybe the personal aspect is significant, too. A parent with a shirt pocket digital camera can generate thousands of pictures of the kids in short order. Some of them are bound to be good, or at least satisfy the family. The low cost certainly makes them seem, um, low cost. So the reason to actually hire and pay a photog becomes more and more remote and theoretical. A mentality grows, and has come to underlie (and undermine...) public attitudes toward artistic output. With so many images and so much music out there, why should it be paid for? We've seen a big change due to this attitude. The stock photography business has been changed radically. Getting a customer to pay a significant amount of money for an image is more and more difficult. Getting a picture for free is pretty easy, and making it do the job in hand is not exactly difficult, either. Paying a photog to create a suitable image is a very unattractive proposition by comparison. Even browsing a collection of pay-for-rights images must seem like a bore to a prospective image user. But we've seen this process at work for decades. Digital is not the culprit. It only speeds up the process. One could say George Eastman started it with 'you press the button, we do the rest'. People made their own pictures, and now we see the results. In 1971 I got a job with an importer of cheap gift ware, ashtrays and the like. I photographed the stuff and oversaw the production of a number of color prints in 5x7. Each sales person got copies. I had a little room with lights and shelves to hold the stuff in front of the camera (which was mine! great deal for the cheapskate employer...). But the boss wanted to pick my brain. He had a point and shoot and was banging away with it taking pictures of his goods under showroom fluorescent light. He wanted me to tell him how to get good pictures so he could eliminate my piddling salary from his life. We're seeing a manifestation of what McLuhan called the 'speedup' of media or communications. Things can happen faster, sooner and in greater quantity, which means they do so. The effects are on us, on our psychology and attitudes. People now grow up with pictures (and music) all over the place, like blades of grass. Why choose one particle of sand over another? Is one crack in the sidewalk worth more money than another? And if an artist comes along and makes a superb portrait of your family, why should it be worth more than any of the thousands you've made yourself? Who can see the difference any more?? There is a TV commercial playing these days. A dad is sitting at his computer expounding on his kids and his picture collection. He says — "I am my son's paparazzi". Wouldn't McLuhan and Warhol have loved that? Not only does everyone get fifteen minutes of fame, but everyone gets photographed fifteen thousand times, famous or not. regards, --le ________________________________ Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto. website: www.heylloyd.com telephone: 416-686-0326 email: ________________________________ That's it in a larger nut shell -- Reality-Is finding that perfect picture and never looking back. www.gregblankphoto.com |
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Sidebar to the Internet.
On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 08:27:59 -0400, "Greg
\"_\"" wrote: That's it in a larger nut shell July 29, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick, No restriction on number of words used ... that's what I love about the Internet ... regards, --le |
#7
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Sidebar to the Internet.
There's an interesting article about the devaluing of professional
photography in the current issue of "Rangefinder". While I tend to agree with most of the author's conclusions, I think he's failing to see the whole picture, no pun intended. The simple facts are that people simply aren't willing to spend the kind of money for professional photography that they were once willing to. Ironically the people who think that simply buying a camera makes them a photographer are the ones who still actually need a professional, they just aren't willing to pay for one. I had a boss much like Lloyd did, he hired me to shoot products for a while, watched what I did, and then he went out and bought a cheap set of strobes and voila, he became a product photographer. The work looks like crap and he's perfectly happy with it. I moved on. Now I shoot youth sports for money, same thing, parents go to the camera store and buy the latest Nikon and Canon digital SLR's with huge lenses and they shoot thousands of images of little Justin and Brittany playing soccer, then they come to our booth and buy images that they somehow aren't able to take themselves...for now anyway, I have no doubt that some of them will take enough so that they get an occasionally nice image, and they'll ask themselves why they should buy a picture when they're just as capable as the "professional" who's standing downfield. Arnold Newman is dead and there won't ever be another Beethoven, no amount of file sharing is gonna change that. So it goes... John E. "Lloyd Erlick" Lloyd at @the-wire. dot com wrote in message ... July 28, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick, Maybe not "killed" everyone else's sense of the creative - but diluted it. rest snipped for brevity... |
#8
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Sidebar to the Internet.
Correction to my earlier post, it was the June issue of "Studio Photography"
not "Rangefinder" that ran the article about the devaluation of professional photography. Sorry bout that... John "John Emmons" wrote in message ... There's an interesting article about the devaluing of professional photography in the current issue of "Rangefinder". While I tend to agree with most of the author's conclusions, I think he's failing to see the whole picture, no pun intended. The simple facts are that people simply aren't willing to spend the kind of money for professional photography that they were once willing to. Ironically the people who think that simply buying a camera makes them a photographer are the ones who still actually need a professional, they just aren't willing to pay for one. I had a boss much like Lloyd did, he hired me to shoot products for a while, watched what I did, and then he went out and bought a cheap set of strobes and voila, he became a product photographer. The work looks like crap and he's perfectly happy with it. I moved on. Now I shoot youth sports for money, same thing, parents go to the camera store and buy the latest Nikon and Canon digital SLR's with huge lenses and they shoot thousands of images of little Justin and Brittany playing soccer, then they come to our booth and buy images that they somehow aren't able to take themselves...for now anyway, I have no doubt that some of them will take enough so that they get an occasionally nice image, and they'll ask themselves why they should buy a picture when they're just as capable as the "professional" who's standing downfield. Arnold Newman is dead and there won't ever be another Beethoven, no amount of file sharing is gonna change that. So it goes... John E. "Lloyd Erlick" Lloyd at @the-wire. dot com wrote in message ... July 28, 2006, from Lloyd Erlick, Maybe not "killed" everyone else's sense of the creative - but diluted it. rest snipped for brevity... |
#9
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Sidebar to the Internet.
"John Emmons" wrote in message ... There's an interesting article about the devaluing of professional photography in the current issue of "Rangefinder". While I tend to agree with most of the author's conclusions, I think he's failing to see the whole picture, no pun intended. The simple facts are that people simply aren't willing to spend the kind of money for professional photography that they were once willing to. Ironically the people who think that simply buying a camera makes them a photographer are the ones who still actually need a professional, they just aren't willing to pay for one. I had a boss much like Lloyd did, he hired me to shoot products for a while, watched what I did, and then he went out and bought a cheap set of strobes and voila, he became a product photographer. The work looks like crap and he's perfectly happy with it. I moved on. Now I shoot youth sports for money, same thing, parents go to the camera store and buy the latest Nikon and Canon digital SLR's with huge lenses and they shoot thousands of images of little Justin and Brittany playing soccer, then they come to our booth and buy images that they somehow aren't able to take themselves...for now anyway, I have no doubt that some of them will take enough so that they get an occasionally nice image, and they'll ask themselves why they should buy a picture when they're just as capable as the "professional" who's standing downfield. Arnold Newman is dead and there won't ever be another Beethoven, no amount of file sharing is gonna change that. So it goes... John E. And some of them will learn to be good photographers, and that's how it's done, by getting out there and doing it. This despite all the pros who want to gripe about it. ;-) |
#10
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Sidebar to the Internet.
Wasn't griping so much as making an observation of what I see happening. The
few parenal units that will become good photographers weren't our clients anyway. I would argue that there's more to becoming a professional photographer than "getting out there and doing it", some basic training would be a good start for instance. Other than that gotten from the frustrated "pro" standing behind the counter at the local camera store or at big box electronics store. The simple reality is that I'm better at photography than the average person, as are most professionals working in the field, and there are more than enough people that realise that to keep me busy enough along with all the many thousands of other pros. The guy writing the article was the one griping about something he can't change which is the other simple reality, that photography has become devalued and I don't see it increasing in value in the pro market. Hope I'm wrong. Just to be safe, I'm going back to school and I've gotten other income streams to keep the funds coming in...;^) John E. "Matt Clara" wrote in message ... "John Emmons" wrote in message ... There's an interesting article about the devaluing of professional photography in the current issue of "Rangefinder". While I tend to agree with most of the author's conclusions, I think he's failing to see the whole picture, no pun intended. The simple facts are that people simply aren't willing to spend the kind of money for professional photography that they were once willing to. Ironically the people who think that simply buying a camera makes them a photographer are the ones who still actually need a professional, they just aren't willing to pay for one. I had a boss much like Lloyd did, he hired me to shoot products for a while, watched what I did, and then he went out and bought a cheap set of strobes and voila, he became a product photographer. The work looks like crap and he's perfectly happy with it. I moved on. Now I shoot youth sports for money, same thing, parents go to the camera store and buy the latest Nikon and Canon digital SLR's with huge lenses and they shoot thousands of images of little Justin and Brittany playing soccer, then they come to our booth and buy images that they somehow aren't able to take themselves...for now anyway, I have no doubt that some of them will take enough so that they get an occasionally nice image, and they'll ask themselves why they should buy a picture when they're just as capable as the "professional" who's standing downfield. Arnold Newman is dead and there won't ever be another Beethoven, no amount of file sharing is gonna change that. So it goes... John E. And some of them will learn to be good photographers, and that's how it's done, by getting out there and doing it. This despite all the pros who want to gripe about it. ;-) |
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