Post: #1

The goal of a photo in a news article is to illuminate the subject, to reveal what it looks like, to give viewers insight into its character and how it would appear if they were there.

On that score, at least half the photos I see are just fucking terrible. I look at them and get confused and say, "what the fuck am I actually looking at? What is going on in this picture? Why did the photographer shoot this at such a bizarre angle so as to make it impossible to make sense of what's going on? Why he is focusing so much attention on such an insignificant item?"

Typically, there are close-up photos yet few panoramic photos that give you a good sense of scale, place and context. Or the panoramic photos have some weird kaleidoscopic shit going on that only resembles the real deal if you were tripping on acid.

As an example, I recently checked out a new bar, called Harlowe. Here are the photos that various online media outlets posted:









^From LA Weekly



If I were the bar owner, I'd feel robbed - the venue is much bigger than the photos let on, as that bar is actually a whole oblong octagon that goes all the way around - it's not your typical bar against a wall. The venue is actually quite nice and spacious - but these photos would have you thinking it's some old timey dive bar. The last one is the only successful one, and I only found it through a google images search. And even that one is oddly looking up at the ceiling too much - it's not the Sistine Chapel, no one is fucking looking at the ceiling.

I hadn't seen the last photo before entering the bar, but I had seen some of the others. I hadn't been to the bar that had previously been there either. So when I finally walked in, I was quite surprised by the scale of the place.

Instead, you have these hipster closeups of things that are admittedly interesting, but pale in comparison to the importance of the actual space. And as a guy looking to meet girls at bars, the overall bar arrangement is very important, something that these photos fail to illuminate.

I don't mean to rail at just this one episode of a bar being covered, but I see this sort of thing all the time. It's this weird cosmic dimension of our time, where the goal is not to expose truth and depict beauty, but to indulge in expression for expression's sake, to attract attention to the one speaking, and not to the actual content of his speech. Photography is just one subset of this - depicting something as it is, with minimal artifice, is boring and easy, so you must do something novel and esoteric, with the bizarre results you see above. If it's easy to grasp, it's not worthy of esteem.

Such photos also have a very 'ADD' quality to them - instead of capturing the feel of the overall space, they get distracted by little trinkets and devote outsize attention to them. If you let these media types post more photos, they'd post close up photos of those paintings on the wall, or an aerial hyper-closeup of the lilies in that fountain.

Also, having any expertise in what you're covering - say knowing how a cow is pastured, butchered, aged and prepared when reviewing a steakhouse is seen as ancillary, unnecessary, entirely unessential to the objective of assessing the restaurant's steak. Hell, the restaurant review is really just a vehicle for some melodramatic stream of consciousness missive that captures none of the craft and mastery involved in the steak before you. Because talking about the craft would marginalize the importance of you, the reviewer, and give the limelight to the steak instead.

You see the same thing with lots of media interviews - instead of asking questions to draw out the interviewee's thoughts and character, almost as if the interviewer is absent, the interviewer manages to steal the limelight and shine it on themselves, even when the interviewee is a much bigger name. That hag Deborah Solomon in the NYT Magazine is a typical example of this (I haven't read her interviews in several years though).

Every time there's a shooting, it's clear most reporters, and apparently our own President ( http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/04/...andy-hook/ ) don't know the difference between semi-automatic and fully-automatic firearms, an incredibly basic distinction. Not that I'm a gun nut, but how can you presume to cover anything when you don't know the most basic features of it?

I knew a couple kids in college who were into 'journalism' and the school paper, and the higher up they were, the more insufferably high their opinion of themselves, and the less they knew or cared about the subjects they covered. All they were interested in was being a journalist - what they actually covered was immaterial, so long as it was prestigious and glamorous.

Post: #2

Great post!

The reason is just what you'd think -- most photographers are f'ing terrible. They have neither the interest in conveying the most accurate and informative representation of a place, nor the skill to do so if they wanted to.

It doesn't help that the higher level photography world, like many other artistic worlds, is dominated by gay men and females. Gays can be skilled but they are mincing and tight and are often more interested in creating a certain kind of impression than in conveying information. And women often have no idea about what the hell they're doing. Heterosexual men are often found only on lower rungs of this world and their skills are correspondingly low-level.

This is why that thread about Peter Hurley, the "squinching" photographer who posted youtube videos about some tricks used to get good head shots, was so exceptionally fine -- a rare example of a heterosexual dude skilled in this stuff at the very highest level, and able to communicate his knowledge clearly and eloquently.

Post: #3

Those detail shots (they are called image shots) sell the place.. It's the difference in vibe that makes a venue standout against another.

But, I agree, those pics don't really make the place look cool. The lighting sucks in most of them.

Post: #4

I read a piece that said that media is cutting out pro photographers, they just send the reporter out with a digital camera and tell him to take pictures.

Post: #5

All the good ones are over at National Geographic.

Post: #6

Another reason:

With so many media organizations downsizing, individual employees end up wearing a lot more "hats." Reporters are now expected to also be their own photographers, copy editors and web content providers.
Naturally, the quality suffers.

Post: #7

No understanding of lighting, iso settings (that's partially why the images are grainy) or shutter speed. Photography is literally the study of light. I see no attention to it in these pictures. And I agree they don't show the space in wide angle shots at all. That would help sell it I think.

Post: #8

(05-17-2014 03:21 PM)The Lizard of Oz Wrote:  Great post!

The reason is just what you'd think -- most photographers are f'ing terrible. They have neither the interest in conveying the most accurate and informative representation of a place, nor the skill to do so if they wanted to.

It doesn't help that the higher level photography world, like many other artistic worlds, is dominated by gay men and females. Gays can be skilled but they are mincing and tight and are often more interested in creating a certain kind of impression than in conveying information. And women often have no idea about what the hell they're doing. Heterosexual men are often found only on lower rungs of this world and their skills are correspondingly low-level.

This is why that thread about Peter Hurley, the "squinching" photographer who posted youtube videos about some tricks used to get good head shots, was so exceptionally fine -- a rare example of a heterosexual dude skilled in this stuff at the very highest level, and able to communicate his knowledge clearly and eloquently.

Yeah I wondered if that was the case, I just have little insight into 'the scene.' The funny thing is though that even when straight men are minimally represented in an industry, there are *always* a few of them right at the top - Ralph Lauren is a great example. Also, the best cinematographers are men ( eg http://listverse.com/2009/09/12/top-10-g...ographers/ ).

I understand that photo budgets are declining, and that spots for professional photographers are dwindling, but the trend I'm referencing predates even that. I remember being confused at photos fifteen years ago, seeing my father's newspaper and wondering, "now why would someone ever take a photo like that - it doesn't help me understand the story any better?" It's this weird cult of self-worship and self-promotion, where by taking a weird angle photo, the photo draws attention to itself and the photographer. It's like having a frame that distracts the viewer, and makes it hard to appreciate the painting within it. As if expression itself matters more than what is expressed. Attention whoring by another name. We're trained to recognize attention whoring in the form of Instagram hos and drunk girls dancing on tabletops, this is just a more subtle example of it.

Post: #9

No one wants to pay photographers! Add to that the fact that newspapers are losing money, and the photo-journalist is usually the first one to feel the cut.

A lot of journalists end up taking a photo with their camera phone, instead of having a photographer side-kick to take a nice shot.

When it comes to interior shots, you need a nice wide-angle lens, and most camera-phones and point and shoots don't have that.

Post: #10

I think this guy sums up pretty well what photography used to looked like:

http://shapirophoto.com/index2.htm

Post: #11

Being a former part of this profession on the business side, I would concur that its likely a jr writer taking these shots on her broken screen iphone. Its a shame, where are the high quality people going?

Post: #12

Don't you think that overuse of photoshop is a bigger issue today? I can't count how many hotels I've checked in to where the rooms have been nothing like depicted because they were so heavily photoshopped.

Post: #13

Your answer lies in the metadata of those photos, if you cross-reference it with the original LA Weekly article. The images were taken with a Nikon D3200--a respectable, if entry-level dSLR camera. The photo credit in the article is the SIF below (see the hands), a Lesley Jacobs Solmonson, who is also the author of the piece. So, yes, real photography work is being collapsed into the responsibilities of the writers.

   

But the forces are a little more complicated than editors simply being cheap and making the journalists take these pedestrian photos, which are "good enough."

   

At the core is the wide accessibility of professional photo technology (SLR cameras and editing software)--part a broader democratization of crafts in general. Everyone with a computer can do anything these days. Be a writer, be a photographer, be an investment banker, be skinny. Everything is disposable, so why have tailors and cobblers? Everything is subject to the lowest bid, so how would professional photographers ever win out, when everyone has a camera and can take competent photos? People simply don't respect most crafts, and their well-trained practitioners, anymore. I'd hate to say it, but here's your free market at work. Cheaper always beats quality when you're dealing with the masses, and these are the results.

Photography was once a lot less accessible, and had a serious learning curve--expensive, non-automatic equipment and hours of training in a dark room. No longer. Now, any idiot can buy a decent camera and pretend to know what she's doing. It's the Instagramification of photography. And with no cost to development film, and rechargeable batteries, the market is clogged with unlimited noise; the real talent out there is being silenced by the flood of garbage. It's fine if only they believe it, but that knowledge has trickled up to the people in the position to hire photographers. Sure, mass availability has opened photography (and other crafts) to talented people whose work might otherwise never be seen, but these are few and far between. I'd argue that it's a net loss, by a long shot.

The sad part is that metadata doesn't just reveal that she's taken it with a Nikon D3200--which can and should produce much more impressive results than this--but that it was also put through Photoshop. Not only does she take poorly conceived, stagey shots with bad composition and illuminated by the built-in flash*, she manages to not fix them even with professional editing tools.

*the first picture in the LA Weekly piece linked above.

   

Post: #14

(05-19-2014 02:22 AM)Tuthmosis Wrote:  At the core is the wide accessibility of professional photo technology (SLR cameras and editing software)--part a broader democratization of crafts in general. Everyone with a computer can do anything these days. Be a writer, be a photographer, be an investment banker, be skinny. Everything is disposable, so why have tailors and cobblers? Everything is subject to the lowest bid, so how would professional photographers ever win out, when everyone has a camera and can take competent photos? People simply don't respect most crafts, and their well-trained practitioners, anymore. I'd hate to say it, but here's your free market at work. Cheaper always beats quality when you're dealing with the masses, and these are the results.

It's technology combined with free markets that are the killer combo. Even if you made government mandated official photographers it wouldn't be able to stop people from taking pictures with their cell phones.

Post: #15

Tuth, while your breakdown of these specific images is spot on, it is an entirely different matter to argue that the ability of large numbers of people to inexpensively capture and transmit visual information is "a net loss, by a long shot". In fact, it's very obviously the opposite -- a net gain, by a very long shot.

To argue the opposite is to miss the forest for the trees. You might think of the main application of this as sluts endlessly attention whoring on Instagram -- and that is certainly one major application -- but it is missing the untold myriads of minor applications that happen every second and go entirely unnoticed. Here is what it really means, inter alia:

It means the patient can capture an image of the swelling on his skin and instantly send it to a doctor in a different city -- and also instantly upload it to the internet and ask people if they've seen anything like it.

It means a merchant selling a product -- any product -- can instantly capture its image from every angle and upload it to the site from which it is being sold. And that means that I, the customer, can look at the product from any angle I like and decide if it's what I want or not.

It means that if I'm corresponding with a slut, I can tell her to take an image of her ass in a specific pose with a newspaper dated from today in the background as proof of the time -- and evaluate in 5 seconds whether she's worth my time or not.

It means the Marine on the ground in Afghanistan can transmit an instant image of his environment to air support and call a targeted strike with a precision of inches. And if that Marine is injured in a complex way, the corpsman treating him can capture his wound and get expert feedback from the best specialist in Walter Reed within seconds.

This list could go on, and on, and on -- and it does, in reality. It is impossible to even comprehend the scale of progress in convenience, expediency, and often enough in difference between life and death, or health and lifelong sickness and disability, that is represented by the ability to instantly and effortlessly capture and transmit visual information.

When you weigh these benefits against considerations such as erosion in the respect for certain crafts -- well, the latter do not even register on the scale.

There has never been a technological breakthrough that has made advances in the widespread availability of some particular means of technology without some people arguing that it represents a "net loss" and an erosion of some irreplaceable craft or skill. You can go back to the invention of the printing press, and this was the case then. These arguments are always wrong -- in fact, as spectacularly wrong as they can possibly be. They miss the forest for the trees in the most radical way possible. There is no need to make the same mistake here.

Post: #16

^
I think Tuth may be talking about how on average, photography is lower quality than usual, and people are more likely to settle for non professionals.

You are right, I dont think the craft itself will be lost. Its just that only a minority(as was the case in the past) takes it seriously, like any craft. I think if it does die out, then I think society has decided the savings are worth it. If you dont like it, you can always hire a good photographer.

Post: #17

(05-19-2014 02:45 PM)cooledcannon Wrote:  ^
I think Tuth may be talking about how on average, photography is lower quality than usual, and people are more likely to settle for non professionals.

You are right, I dont think the craft itself will be lost. Its just that only a minority(as was the case in the past) takes it seriously, like any craft. I think if it does die out, then I think society has decided the savings are worth it. If you dont like it, you can always hire a good photographer.

Yep, its just most people don't study it - i.e. they have no knowledge of composition or lighting - so they take crappy pictures. And with the media not making any real money and consumers eating up homevids and amateur stuff on youtube & instagram, it doesn't make sense to train a photographer or journalist and its up to the journalist to train himself.

It's both a blessing and a curse because if you are the business owner you can get by without hiring professional photographers and videographers since the public doesn't really know quality thanks to the glutton of youtube and instagram home vids and pics. But if you're a connoisseur it can really piss you off!

Post: #18

(05-19-2014 02:45 PM)cooledcannon Wrote:  ^
I think Tuth may be talking about how on average, photography is lower quality than usual, and people are more likely to settle for non professionals.

Agreed.

I also think that if you're paying for a service, you expect a level of professionalism and expertise that you wouldn't expect this from an Instagram slut, for example.

I hired a photographer a couple of years ago. I didn't have a lot of money to throw around but her images were passable. A few weeks before the shoot she told me her sister (who works in photography for a high-end, internationally famous fashion magazine) was visiting and was it okay if she helped out? Not a problem - and you could see the difference in quality with her sister there guiding her.

Post: #19

Digital cameras are all the same, they differ in image size.

If you are posting the images on the internet any camera will do. If you are hired by Mercedes Benz you need a Hasselblad.

If i was on assignment doing those pictures i would have brought at least 3 flashes.

The problem here is that newspapers only think about money, and don´t give two shits about the information.

Post: #20

(05-19-2014 02:22 AM)Tuthmosis Wrote:  At the core is the wide accessibility of professional photo technology (SLR cameras and editing software)--part a broader democratization of crafts in general. Everyone with a computer can do anything these days. Be a writer, be a photographer, be an investment banker, be skinny. Everything is disposable, so why have tailors and cobblers? Everything is subject to the lowest bid, so how would professional photographers ever win out, when everyone has a camera and can take competent photos? People simply don't respect most crafts, and their well-trained practitioners, anymore. I'd hate to say it, but here's your free market at work. Cheaper always beats quality when you're dealing with the masses, and these are the results.

Photography was once a lot less accessible, and had a serious learning curve--expensive, non-automatic equipment and hours of training in a dark room. No longer. Now, any idiot can buy a decent camera and pretend to know what she's doing. It's the Instagramification of photography. And with no cost to development film, and rechargeable batteries, the market is clogged with unlimited noise; the real talent out there is being silenced by the flood of garbage. It's fine if only they believe it, but that knowledge has trickled up to the people in the position to hire photographers. Sure, mass availability has opened photography (and other crafts) to talented people whose work might otherwise never be seen, but these are few and far between. I'd argue that it's a net loss, by a long shot.

There's much truth to what you're saying, but it may be more accurate to ascribe the demise of craft to democracy, to the age of the mass man.

Quote:The artisan readily understands these passions, for he himself partakes in them: in an aristocracy he would seek to sell his workmanship at a high price to the few; he now conceives that the more expeditious way of getting rich is to sell them at a low price to all. But there are only two ways of lowering the price of commodities. The first is to discover some better, shorter, and more ingenious method of producing them: the second is to manufacture a larger quantity of goods, nearly similar, but of less value. Amongst a democratic population, all the intellectual faculties of the workman are directed to these two objects: he strives to invent methods which may enable him not only to work better, but quicker and cheaper; or, if he cannot succeed in that, to diminish the intrinsic qualities of the thing he makes, without rendering it wholly unfit for the use for which it is intended. When none but the wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones: few are now made which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket. Thus the democratic principle not only tends to direct the human mind to the useful arts, but it induces the artisan to produce with greater rapidity a quantity of imperfect commodities, and the consumer to content himself with these commodities.

-Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville

Of course, photography and journalism generally is a bit different - the marginal cost of distributing their work is practically zero, especially with the advent of the internet. People are not discerning enough to reject the mediocre and embrace the good, or simply lack the time to separate the wheat from the chaff unless Google does it for them.

You'll see several media outlets covering the same spectacle, with identical coverage. You see Lindsay Lohan walking out of the courthouse, with dozens of cameramen filming the same sight, with several expensive camera vans with protruding satellite dishes and marvel at the sheer folly of it - how does it make sense to spend several thousands of dollars for duplicates of the same thing? You see the same thing here with my example - several different outlets covering a bar opening with identical shallow, mediocre coverage.

A vice of mine is reading tech news, and it's the same exact thing - some story appears on a hundred web sites with identical information. Better there were ten sites with insightful analysis and unique investigation. Syndication is supposed to prevent that, but this sort of waste is the rule.

Post: #21

(05-19-2014 09:59 AM)Samseau Wrote:  

(05-19-2014 02:22 AM)Tuthmosis Wrote:  At the core is the wide accessibility of professional photo technology (SLR cameras and editing software)--part a broader democratization of crafts in general. Everyone with a computer can do anything these days. Be a writer, be a photographer, be an investment banker, be skinny. Everything is disposable, so why have tailors and cobblers? Everything is subject to the lowest bid, so how would professional photographers ever win out, when everyone has a camera and can take competent photos? People simply don't respect most crafts, and their well-trained practitioners, anymore. I'd hate to say it, but here's your free market at work. Cheaper always beats quality when you're dealing with the masses, and these are the results.

It's technology combined with free markets that are the killer combo. Even if you made government mandated official photographers it wouldn't be able to stop people from taking pictures with their cell phones.

True. This is the access curve with the democratization of any tech.
(Old) Example: CD's. First, only big record labels had the tech. When everyone else eventually got it, there was a glut of DIY band's CD's everywhere.(NTTATWWT, in itself). 90% of it crap. Ask anyone who worked at any music rag in the 80's-90's. Schlocky CD's clogged the mail like you wouldn't believe. Same goes with people's access to Photoshop. (a rant at a later time.)

Anyway, the same curve is here with cell phones/cameras. Everyone has one but haven't done the homework to just learn the basics.
Learn the basics, and learn how your tool works.

I work with print media and I still get crap 72dpi lo-res photos sent to me by people who refuse to learn how their camera works.

Then again, I'm the only guy in my workplace… Big surprise...

Post: #22

Both Tuth and Lizard of Oz are right. There is a democratization of tools, less respect for craft, but the benefits of that system are fairly large and unpredictable.

What is means is that artists have to differentiate themselves and figure out what work actually pays.

Photography for mom and pop shots might not have much money in it but a large advertising client will still offer enough that a couple shoots could provide for a photographer for a year.

It also means photographers have to set a fee that reflects their skill. Too often artists think because they are competing with free, they have to compete on price point. People will still pay for skill if the skill is high enough, reliable, convenient etc.

Journalism, because it's free, is in a quantity over quality place. National geographic and subscription based models still shell out money on quality photographers because that's what pays, but LA weekly isn't gonna pay a pro to shoot your bar.

The real issue is that these professions are becoming a "winner takes all" system and that the middle class of artists is basically gone. Again, whether this is good or bad, we'll find out.