"I don't really care about the future of photojournalism"
“…The death of journalism is bad for society, but we’ll be better off with less photojournalism. I won’t miss the self-important, self-congratulatory, hypocritical part of photojournalism at all. The industry has been a fraud for some time. We created an industry where photography is like big-game hunting. We created an industry of contests that reinforce a hyper-dramatic view of the world. Hyperbole is what makes the double spread (sells) and is also the picture that wins the contest.”
“…I won’t miss the self-important, self-congratulatory, hypocritical part of photojournalism at all. The industry has been a fraud for some time. We created an industry where photography is like big-game hunting…” – Chris Anderson
“…I won’t miss the self-important, self-congratulatory, hypocritical part of photojournalism at all"
Me neither, but I do care about the future of photojournalism/editorial photography. These things go in cycles-there have never been more exciting opportunities to communicate what goes on in our world to each other.
Things will change, but they always have done. I’m an old geezer, however I remain optimistic-the glass is half full!
“Of course I am worried about how I will make my living now, and I worry for my friends and colleagues too, but I don’t really care about the future of photojournalism. The soul of it has been rotten for a while.”
~C. Anderson
I used to care about the future of photojournalism, but my encounters with copious amounts of fascist evil within the industry changed that. I actually wrote an entire book on how to save the media but burned it out of spite. The Republican-owned mainstream media can continue to eat a sloppy bowl of dicks, as far as I’m concerned.
Dana, hehehe…. Nice eye-catching header- must be a touch of the tabloid editor in you!
An interesting proposition and obviously it does come down to who pays the bills at the end of the day, but perhaps this is just a tad more sour grapes than anything else…
After all blurring that line between art and journalism might have put more documentary work on art gallery walls but it is still not to be confused with the ridiculous prices ‘art’ photography gets is it?
And does Mr Anderson truly think that the ‘art’ world is not one of the most ridiculous and venal societies operating in the world?
Get a grip, whats the difference between the ‘self-important’ photojournalists and a self important ‘art’ photographer or stock market trader or politician.
And aren’t we just indulging ourselves a little bit here by treating what Chris Anderson has said with such slavish attention? I mean everyone gets fed up and it sounds like he was having a spectacularly ‘bad hair’ day and sounding off…
What to me is more interesting is the comment that the blogger wrote about everyone ‘shouting’ at one another now. I guess my idea of a photojournalist of being just someone who tells good yarns is obviously irrelevant and that really you have to be an ‘author’ now.
Hmmm, now who was talking about self-importance?
Yep feeling like another Duckrabbit piece formulating itself in my brain!
This phrase is a trap. Depends of one understand as photojournalism, the bussiness part or what people do to tell their truth with photos? The first part bother me because is how i put food in my family table. But at the same time i agree that the soul of the enterprise side of photojournalism has been rotten, not for a while as said Anderson, at less for a decade more or less (maybe more in another countries). About the genuine part of photojournalism, the reason of why some of us run to shoot and show some aspects of our reality, i think it will take care for itself. Maybe without the bussiness part we will have more fresh essays. Don’t was always important the personal work? that is because the enterprise side never was good to promote photojournalism. Thanks Dana for share this interview, is very interesting.
Here’s the thing…people speak of a “golden age” when there were magazines like LIFE or LOOK, but really, when you look at a lot of what they published, it was pretty tame, fluffy stuff. And the death of newspapers, we don’t need to go into that again…but the same is true, lots of newspapers are rather establishment oriented, middle-of-the-road publications. What was true both of LIFE and of the smallest newspaper going out of business is that EVERYNOWANDTHEN they did something great, important, challenging, innovative, and in doing so put it right into the hearts and minds of the general reader. But most of the time it’s just what you were expecting anyway, reinforcing conventional wisdom.
Not that any of us can ever be free from that; after all, we are products of the society we live and participate in. But I wish more photographers, editors, and journalists would remember that part of our job IS to be contrarian, to investigate, to not be “on the reservation” or part of any “team,” that we MUST always try to go deeper, be subtle, to be in opposition. To embody protest, and to explore, rather than only to illustrate and obey.
Same with the contests…it seems to me that it should be more important to think about your photographs in a history book fifty or a hundred years from now…not winning the next contest. But many photographers (perhaps I am being unfair) seem to shoot only in order to try to get the next award, the next “step” in their “career.”
There seems to be a almost loathing of the present, a hope for the future and that nostalgic notion that only the past can be pure……….. now about that career, Dear Mr Newspaperman, I would like to direct you to but I am running http://www.etrouko.com.au/lizard.htm
So why point to one phrase only? ..Because it is easier to make stuff up like stating The industry has been a fraud for some time.or “cracher dans la soupe”.and give it true meaning
I did read the whole interview and I found it very disturbing. —perhaps it came of as something other than what he had intended, or he might have used a better choice of words.
Oh look really, I am seriously overwhelmed with the fact that everyone is so concerned that one of the ‘chosen’ ones is a bit disgruntled with the so-called ‘DEATH’ of photojournalism….
I am never gonna win any awards… NEITHER do I strive for them and well if I could actually be careerist enough to get a book together and flog it for world-wide credibility or fame then perhaps I would be in the same situation as Mr Anderson and bemoan the fate of photojournalism and bale out of my responsibilities for telling stories…
BUT I come from one of the world’s backwaters and at the end of the day I always thought that someone that gave a rats arse about the work, TRULY, cared less about the accolades and more about the people, events and times that we document.
Seriously do you all reckon Capa went out of his way to be famous?
Get over it you lot… We have bigger concerns than just ‘self important photojournalists’ and the ‘death of newspapers’
One of the things that I hear constantly and I hate more than the pox (not that I have ever had it mind you!) is that the media is the purveyor of all evils, ALWAYS.
It fucking well isn’t you know.
For F’s sake how would I actually know anything unless I had a source of information to turn to?
So if we could all get over the ‘God’ complex that we have have about telling things as they are and just got on with the business of doing it-then Chris Anderson’s hand ringing pronunciations on the fate of photojournalism might truly be as they should, a girlish attack of the guilts for wanting to be paid to report on the horrible, nasty and shitty things that human beings do to one another.
First of all, as far as Melcher goes, this is over the top…..its in the stratosphere.
What we have in the blogosphere is many people circulating the same posts between each other and calling it “content.”
Melcher want to finger NGO’s for not delivering aid, go ahead. But that actually requires doing something other than continued here…..
If Chris thinks that people are frauds, them I would like to know who exactly he is talking about. He has accused photographers, agencies and editors of being frauds without naming names— and he has repeated this to me personally. He has made a blanket statement in regard to this. (edited by Andy Levin….I have redacted the post and eliminated specific names of specific photographers, agents who are associated with the industry.)
He has accused photographers of going out to win contests rather than out of a real concern for the subject…..so since he himself has entered the World Press and won, shot numerous stories for US News, and has been among the most recognized of news photographers, working with Magnum. etc
the only conclusion that one can draw is that Chris Anderson is himself a fraud….who else could he be talking about?
I isolated that sentence on purpose, because I felt the same way as Andy…who is Chris talking about? and why? The problem with our profession today mostly lies outside of it…globalization and corporate buyouts of magazines and agencies, media owned by stockholders more interested to earn more with advertising than with content; Paris Hilton getting more print space in a week than the millions of displaced people in Darfur in 5 years, THAT I find disturbing.
I have won my share of prizes, it is nice, thanks to the various jurys who recognized my work, but does anyone really believe that I have been hit, bombed, shelled, shot at, arrested, teargassed in most of the last 10 years conflicts on the planet to win PRIZES? That any serious photographer or journalist would do that repeatedly, for years on end and put his/her life and his/her family at risk to win prizes? How stupid is that idea?
To make a long-term career in this job, you must thus be extraordinarily dedicated or just plain stupid.
There are many, many words that might have been used, whatever, but to call us a “fraud?” Photographers, agencies and editors……this is simply baffling to me. Fraud implies some form of intentional deception, a scheme, its an extremely bad choice of words….
not sure if this addresses the “why” part of Chris’ statement, but I find the similarities interesting…
“I won’t miss the self-important, self-congratulatory, hypocritical part of photojournalism at all.” – Chris Anderson, when interviewed about his book on Venezuela, “Capitolio”
“I am not a photojournalist” – Tim Hetherington, when interviewed about his book on Liberia “Long Story Bit by Bit”
“The Magnum and Newsweek photographer Luc Delahaye recently declared publicly that he was no longer a photojournalist. He was an artist.” – Luc Delahaye, when interviewed about his book, “History”
Be cool, please. I believe all this is not personal. Maybe the right word is rotten. And yes, maybe in this times is easy to talk about rotten media because we feel some kind of end. More difficult to talk about rotten media when all the system was apparent healthy. I think that Chris touch some good points, more far of the conjuncture. I don’t know if World Press is a fraud, but i believe that this award don’t represent the state of photojournalism in the world. The same with other local awards, like FNPI in latin america. If you see the first price of multimedia or internet related publications you will see a mediocre (or less) kind of product. Most of the awards are directed to north side and western issues. All the foreign people comes to Bolivia, Argentina or Venezuela because there are interest in some kind of resources here from the north countries. When something important happens here that don’t touch the economic or political side of the north is rare you will see that published in the foreign media. That is not news. Journalism always get information from one side to punch the other side. Is a matter of interests. But i don’t trust of a first price of WPP when someone of the jury was the editor of the photographer that won the price. And i don’t see the photo of the policeman with the gun as the very top of journalism about the crash in the economy. Don’t take me bad, I respect a lot Anthony Suau work, and i believe is more a statement his picture of the man with arms up in the middle of the city that the one the WPP select as the shot if the year. This last year was a price too of a manipulated toy soldiers stage. I belive there are a lot of more important pictures and not staged that can be see as photojournalism. At the same time i have the memory of an editor to the newspaper i work that said, when happen the 11 september 2001: “well, at least we have solved the cover”. The things the editors ask me to do confirm the idea of rotten journalism. They want to attract readers and the chiefs of them. They don’t give a shit to tell what really happen in the world. Obvioulsly this are not the only ones. there are people and editorials that are very good and respectable but the sad part is none of this person and editorials have interest in my part of world so easy. They reply to anothe kind of interests. We are talking about complex issues. Hope we can stay at the at the top of the circumstances.
Frank, I think is only marketing. They are very good journalists. The one think is real is that the stated difference is to be appart of a system that is not well seen.
‘To make a long-term career in this job, you must thus be extraordinarily dedicated or just plain stupid.’
Typical photographer, sees it in black and white (which I think is part of what Chris is getting at). In my opinion I think you’ll find you can be both extraordinarily dedicated and plain stupid. I’m happy to put my hand up to that one.
As for your industry and your art, why can’t you accept the same rot exists there as as in any group?
I come from a radio background and at the BBC I would have been considered one of the most dedicated producers. But yeah, there was times that I considered myself a fraud, when I would turn in at night and wonder what the fuck I was doing, whether I’d stopped seeing people as human beings. And you know the BBC was never pushing me to deliver any kind of story, not in the same way you guys are pushed in a certain direction by the outlets that can actually bring eyes in contact with your work.
Isn’t it fair that you should only be prepared to turn the lens on others, if you can accept it pointed back on you?
I thought chris’ interview was spot on. He does also say that there are photographers doing important work. I don’t get why everyone is so furious about what he had to say.
Last year when two members of a certain collective received grants in a competition in which a very esteemed member of the collective was a judge, ‘someone’ emailed me privately and told me that the appearance was worse than the reality. He went on to that this happens all the time, and that its a small industry and one can’t help but having these apparent conflicts of interest……. and that he adamant that this shouldn’t effect his ability to get a grant himself.
Many have spoken up about problems in photojournalism….yes there is too much self-serving behavior, but to label it a “fraud?”
I don’t know who you are because you are not, contrary to the objective of this forum when it was set up, use your real name.
I agree that we shouldn’t see the world in black or white. Believe me I accept the fact that not everything and everybody is all white perfect in this industry. However, I still stronly believe that Chris, as Luc Delahaye for one did before him, is spitting in the soup and perhaps shouldn’t generalize his own vision/values to be shared by his (ex?) colleagues.
I am NOT an artist. I am a journalist writing with photography as my pen.
Andy is right in my view. As is Groucho. Of course!
When people are scared and frightened it’s usually for a good reason. The current situation frightens me very much. A lot of us here have put our lives on the line taking considerable amount of risks in our line of work because we believed in what we are doing. Looking at all of this collapsing in front of us is certainly not easy and makes a lot of people very nervous, me included. I don’t want to sound naive but the last thing we need right now is pointing fingers at each other. I partially agree with many positions. It think the industry does need to be restructured in many ways and I strongly believe, stating the obvious, that most of our problems are external and out of our control. I just had a very bad 24 hours with a client canceling an assignment hours before my flight and another one starting an argument on a few hundred dollars of expenses after weeks of productive work. this is where we are at. Talking about business models for photojournalists with business gurus of our time only reassured me that there is no way to get around this and that we will just have to hope (while working hard for no money ) that at the bottom of the pit people still care a bit, just enough, to want people like us go out there, with an independent mind, trying to do something. I do give a damn about photojournalism because i do give a damn about people like I am sure all of us in this industry do.
I still believe that pretty pictures with little content don’t mean much. I am guilty though, as I am sure many here, of being slightly detached from what’s really going on where we live. After all, i stopped watching TV in 1997 and I’m 31. I always lived in large cities and had conversations of what I cared about which is certainly not gossip. We are all slightly anachronistic. Perhaps people really don’t give a damn. Certainly the people who used to finance the editorial industry don’t.
who gives a fuck about the bullshit self-labeling ? i mean, really. it’s sterile, petty infighting that has led nowhere. to me, it looks more on a deep lack of knowledge of the contemporary art world, and what constitutes and can be labeled as contemporary art. i cringe when i hear irrelevant idiocy like “i’m going to make big prints because i’m an artist”, or “i shoot medium / large format / holgas / pinholes / polaroid transfer and that makes me an artist”. you think the world of print media is full of cronyism, frauds, and crooks ? wait until you meet the art world.
it’s time for all of us to work towards stopping the back-stabbing, retrograde ignorance that seems to be favored in certain circles, and move towards a few much more important goals. for one, photojournalism needs to move towards contemporary art. this isn’t because it’s an economically viable exit, since it is not on the scale photojournalism needs to function, but because the degree of conceptual freedom within allows approaches that are much more in phase with the current landscape, both political and “philosophical” than the slow evolution of 1930’s aesthetics that seems prevalent. you simply cannot represent afghanistan, or somalia, like you represented WW2 or viet-nâm. this is not to say that the iconography from the period isn’t absolutely fantastic, it is to say that our world has changed, and it’s time to adapt. not to play bad book title puns, but this is war! is history*. One of the fundamental questions is how to deal with tectonic shift in the public perception of the real – not that long ago, people still didn’t understand that photographs, even photographs of real things, even photographs of wars, were the product of historical, social, and formal norms, and not just a representation of what was in front of the lens. in other words, that they are a construct. now, how do you deal with that ? my answer has been to say that a first step needs to be to acknowledge the construct by embracing it, and representing it. there are others, but i can think of none that can be achieved by adding a layer of photoshop to the abstraction of blurry black and white to try to plug into the audience’s reptilian mind and elicit an emotional reaction.
*n.b : i’m talking about the original this is war, not the witness to man’s destruction’s.
p.s : i also disagree with the gloom. more photography books are published than ever before. we have a wonderful, knowledgeable, audience that loves photography, in all of its forms. flickr gets millions of hits. so does luminous landscape. thousands of people with an incredible wealth of knowledge are talking about photography in hundreds of forums. these aren’t only competitors, or deluded idiots who are persuaded that a more expensive camera or a better lens is why their pictures aren’t good enough : they are also colleagues with a tremendous wealth of both photographic (i’m delighted to have people obsess about the best way to sharpen a picture, process a raw file or push for improvements to the gear i use) and non-photographic knowledge. They are also potential customers, viewers, buyers, and, most precious of all, critics and fact-checkers who can keep us on our toes. Stop bitching about when Time Magazine buys stale iconography at cut-rate prices, and start demonstrating how you can do better, and why Time is better than that. People don’t give a damn ? Find a way to make them give a damn. Because that’s your damn job.
Guy, your thoughtful words led me to your website and to your pictures of Ethiopia. I lived there for some time when I was working for the BBC. It’s wonderful, wonderful, deeply moving work, that captures Ethiopia with a rare depth of feeling and respect for the people. I just want to take my hat off to you and say, maybe if less photographers had chased the myth, the grim money shots, then this debate would be dead before it started.
Magazines editors in their detachment from the realities of the developing world have fed audiences a two dimensional and acutely nihilistic vision. No-one really noticed, few cared. Along the way a lot of context has been lost that might have given meaning to such shots. Photography did not devalue itself, those values never really existed. Photography is in pain because the world is in pain.
Maybe some photographers made a mistake in thinking that because they paid you, it meant something to them.
Totally agree with Matthias, of course. If we deserve more respect, lets show what we can do…..and a lot of people are doing so…..as I said over on 100Eyes, the $500,000 MacArthur Genuis Grant went to a photojournalist, the Prix Pictet went to my friend Munem Wasif last year, and Munem is doing a great job without throwing everyone under the bus, spitting in the soup, whatever.
Photojournalism, documentary photography is going to have a voice and there will be money for it in the future…….and I am sure that those who are now “artists” or “editorialists” will be back to being “photojournalists” when it suits them.
The “we” word when used in a mea culpa, can be damning indeed. To quote the Indian Tonto by way of Frank Rich from the Times, “what do you mean, we, white man?”
And the rest of us ‘we’… lets start supporting one another rather than backstabbing and bitching.
I have been hanging on by a thread this year and the last thing I need is to feel that the folks who do the same shit I do don’t care about what we do. I mean there are people like Andy, David Harvey and Gary Knight who are trying to keep us going in their own way and there are a few outlets out there like Duckrabbit doing some stuff as well and trying to develope multi-media into a real industry.
Its not over til the fat lady sings and well its not the finale yet, she may just have lost a little weight at the moment!
What we need is to get more organized, fight back, create our own destinies a bit more. Anyone that has read my post on the Northern Territory Intervention which I have had to keep private for fear of being sued into submission and the post about the KIA ruling in Afghanistan knows that the right to report the truth of the world is being more and more eroded NOT by communist countries but our own democratic countries bureaucracies.
Which is more frightening than anything else.
Lets save the energy it takes to enter all those competitions and put it into doing something constructive to save ourselves, like setting up INTERNATIONAL legal bodies that can assist us with anything from copyright to fighting laws that restrict photojournalists from publishing what the governements are really doing by hiding behind terrorism laws and in my particular case ‘cultural protocols’ that have been manipulated to suit their agendas. Or what the corporations are doing with the rights grab of images.
We have much to fight for… perhaps we should also start up an International fund to assist photojournalists that are injured or held captive during the course of their work.
There is lots of stuff that we can discuss other than Chris Anderson’s metamorphsis into an ‘Artiste’ and ‘death to photojouranlism’ so lets just get on with it hey?
To quote Simon Norfolk:
“[photojournalism] its intellectually bankrupt, locked in a mode of operating that came to an end in the 50’s, it’s heyday. Like an old bloke that still listens to the records he got into when he was eighteen, photojournalism is unable to unhinge itself from the modes it learnt in its puberty.”
Dismissing photojournalism as a “fraud” rather than making a constructive argument about how the industry needs to try and reinvent itself, isn’t particularly helpful. Especially coming from someone who sits very high on the ladder.
“We created an industry where photography is like big-game hunting. We created an industry of contests that reinforce a hyper-dramatic view of the world.”
This is just a guess, but it seems that this sentence was very methodical in it’s development. Sounds like he is blaming the people who have shaped the industry, not necessarily those in it, and he certainly seems to be including himself in the blame. While conflicts, natural disaster and exotic locations make for some dramatic moments that lead to more exposure and awards. One of the interesting comments from the last Photographer of the Year awards was that there was a recurring theme of a photographer going to an exotic location and shooting.
I can’t see how photographers had much to do with this. You put down a piece of cheese, mice come flocking. Move the cheese, mice will follow. The big-game hunting is just a bunch of mice trying to chase the cheese.
“The industry has been a fraud for some time.”
I don’t think he’s calling photographers frauds, but the industry.
i almost read everyone s view on the Mr. Anderson and the future of the photojournalism, well guess business is more evolving with multimedia than print ways, and yes some way true there are lots of contest minded self centric phographers in the field it s good to keep yourself with some aim but do not make that your life— at the end you talk about humanity and social documentary and what you do aiming on your own ego. so that s i can say. about myself— probbably i have less years in the business than most of you, i do not want to give up and dont like too but also i frankly should say i even look for other jobs other than media related now media is dying for sometimes and i am sure many people will be jobless— photo schools madly trying to bring out new photographers coz the damn photo companies are so f… greedy to make more and more money. so the popularity of photography is up. schools should realize there is no need a hungry photographer on the field.
dunno if i make some sense very late time in turkey now and i read lots of view.. and agree with Mr Calaf we should help and suggest each other rather than fighting.
I would prefer that Chris Anderson simply explain his comments right here on Lightstalkers.
I am certain that he doesn’t think that any of us are frauds…..and I have redacted my earlier remarks mentioning any possible specific connection with our colleagues, aside from himself.
But I am mystified that he can read these comments….(yes Chris) and not respond for himself, as I originally had requested of him before any of the this.
lisa hogben, Hmm, good idea. How about a nation “independent” organization of visual journalists? Free to report on the world at large but beholden to no one country or political ideal. Photojournalists without borders.
1851 H. MELVILLE Moby-Dick lxxxv. 411 That for six thousand years..the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep.
I have no issues with Chris’ comment…more or less I agree.
As a whole the industry is horribly nepotistic, insatiably bound to the idea of witnessing, and rather ineffective at evolving. That is not to say there is an absence of value, rather that like everything else the industry is imperfect and driven by independent motives.
I’ll include myself in my next statement.
Far too many photographers spend too much time romantically involved in the societal conception of the value of a photograph. Copying others as if there was some sort of intrinsic knowledge locked in the process and blindly failing to see the basic motivation of the medium; expression.
I admit that I was moved to photography by the (inject cliché) “Nachtwey motivation”, trauma and poverty shopping (inject cynicism) my lens around the globe to exotic locales in the hopes that the subject matter would add value to my work (inject ego) in the hopes that I would “make it” (inject ego again). How tremendously callous and foolish I was. I added nothing more to the dialog of these subjects, offered no solutions in the end, and I began to question my own humanity as a result of these voyeuristic pursuits (inject existentialism). I was convinced that my intentions and motivations were honorable (inject fraud; motivated by self). I learned far more about myself in those situations than I did my subjects or photography and realize now that the past works are more reflective of my need to know than a “bearing witness” need to show.
Curiously enough my photographer friends and colleagues always complimented my efforts and congratulated me on return. Not a drop of constructive criticism or commentary on the subject. Just questions about technique and where to get a beer in country. Open valved sunshine pumping.
Actually Matt I was thinking it was a parody of what Chris said… Was I wrong? Is it satire? Damn -got to get back to re-reading the dictionary now I appear to be single again. Always find a night in bed with the dictionary does wonders for my sense of humor! (hehehehe…now I reckon that was satire!)
Yeah Barry, I would like to see a bit more of a ‘Photo-Reporters Without Borders’ kind of approach to whats happening to everybody right across the industry. With lots of particpation from photojournalists. Imagine if the something like 5000 PJ’s who enter WPP all spent some time working out ways of getting organized so that we could actually make some money out of our work then I am sure we would be on to something. I had an opportunity to be at a talk with Michael Coyne, Jack Piccone, David Dare Parker and Tim Page today chaired by Mike Bowers and it was a joy to know these very esteemed war photogs still have a passion for the concept that you can make a difference in people’s opinions. So not caring about the future of photojournalism would seem to me to be giving up on trying to ‘see a wrong and try to right it’
I can’t bear the thought of that and the moral bankruptcy of not trying to stop all the shit that goes down by doing something… OK so we pick up cameras and take photos and thats the job we do, but other people demonstrate or do medicine or drive trucks with food on it or take boats out and drag people into them to stop them from drowning… So does that make emergency service people fraudulent if they win a bravery medal or something?
No, like I said before while it would be nice if Chris Anderson would chime in here I don’t think its necessary. As I said before I think it just seems like he was having a bad day when he made that comment. At least I hope so, cos also as I said before there are some of us that do still believe that caring about telling stories is actually still relevant.
I do not think that Chris should have to defend this statement. It is a small part of a larger interview about his work, and while I was initially surprised by it in isolation, I am standing by my overall (longstanding) impression of Chris Anderson, the photographer. He is a very hard working and talented guy, his second book is by all accounts being well received, he is a member-in-waiting at Magnum and he is a nominee for next week’s Prix Pictet. While he may have uttered something in passing which has been cause for some interesting discussions and reactions, ultimately he is doing solid work and carving out an admirable path for himself. I chalk this comment up to what comes with the territory of being a rising talent.
For the most part I agree. Chris is clearly very brilliant. Brilliant people and brilliant ideas tend to be naturally provocative – especially when they’re right.
Perhaps more Magnum photographers would chime in with what they really think if they weren’t so terrified of being punished by the internet’s masses.
Me and Chris may not agree about everything (i.e. unpaid internships) but I thoroughly enjoy reading his thoughts about things.
He’s not going to share his thoughts as candidly to a rabid mob.
I mean, fuck, there’s a reason why I for one stopped trying to save the media people. Think about it.
Chris believes that many of us are making a difference and has said as much to me. And I apologize for lashing out at him personally.
He somehow thinks that he himself has been a fraud, and has told me so….I have no idea why, as he is adamant that the many folks that are I mentioned by name are not frauds— Robert Pledge, Tony Suau, Mary Anne Golan, James Nachtwey, World Press, many of the people that I associate with photojournalism anyway. I can only hope, and I really believe from his pictures— that he is not.
In fact, I really don’t think that he meant any it, except the general characterization of the “industry” whatever than means, but that the words sort of stumbled out, were taken out of context as Frank says, and I and other have taken it very personally, when it was meant only generally.
I hope thats a fair characterization of all of this.
Incidentally, I think that movie clip is all wrong on a lot of levels, and empowering those with pitchforks is definitely not on anyone’s agenda….not mine, and not Anderson’s.
Duckrabbit, you don’t even have a real name…..you post anonymously and attack me and everyone else, without an identity?
Of all the dumbass bullshit, this takes the cake…….what is the worst advert for photojournalists is jackasses posting using names like Duckrabbit and pretending to have some serious purpose, or saying something of consequence?
This is absolutely insane. You can say anything you want without any consequence because you have no identity…..and I have to defend my integrity against that?
Credibility means credibilty. I use my name, and you are a troll. Do you know what a troll is? Its someone who posts under a fake name and takes shots a people……what a farce that is.
C’mon jackass, what have you got to come back? Zero, nada……you come on here to get people angry, thats your only goal.
Not only that you EDITED your post to make yourself look good…….dude, have the balls to leave your comments up there. You got me to respond and then you edited your remark?
You aren’t a duck, you are a chicken (shit) I should say.
Maybe I’m wrong Andy, but I think, in my humble opinion, you might have got slightly worked up by Chris’ thought provoking interview.
But actually according to you it’s not nearly as bad as shock horror, someone using a pseudonym because of ‘all the dumbass bullshit that ’takes the cake’.
After reading that I would like to apologise unreservedly for taking you seriously.
Dude, don’t apologize…..you EDITED your nasty post, so that this reads nicely. This has nothing to do with photojournalism and EVERYTHING to do with blogging. You write under a fake name, make statements and edit them after I have responded and have not mentioned that.
Therefore your credibility as a blogger which is what we do here, is zero.
Of course I got worked up by it the remarks…..the post you nastily attacked me for making was basically a fucking apology.
Andy, Duckrabbit is a multi-media site and its founders are Ben Chesterton and David White.
They, like you, do really great work and I contribute to them with words and pics as I would to you as well once I have something suitable. I’d love to send that story on Yuendumu to you but you know why I can’t.
(The mining companies that run the show in the Northern Territory of Australia, who want to exploit the uranium aren’t going to allow images of vibrant happy people to come out of the ‘prohibited’ areas. They want the government to force the local Traditional Owners into signing 99 year leases for their land. So they don’t want anything at all to show anyone in the world the truth of what its like in a remote community and why the people don’t want to sell out their land. Thats another story though…)
Now the very ironic thing about Andy and Ben having a go at one another is that I personally have huge respect for both of them as intelligent humane and forward thinking blokes. And while money is disappearing from the industry at a huge rate of knots both these guys are developing new venues for work to be seen in and hopefully to be paid for by sponsors eventually.
Or maybe even when Murdoch brings in pay for internet content EVERYONE in the entire world will follow suit. Which I think is likely- remember they said paid TV wouldn’t work either…
What seems to have happened here is that Chris Anderson has said stuff that has come across badly and obviously he feels disillusioned by what appears as how the industry is evolving. OK so he is pissed off as I am sure as we all are, but if we start ripping one another to pieces because we have become ghettoised by financial, political and physical control then we have to get some balls and fight back.
We need to unite and not divide on what it is we are trying to do…
It was inspiring to hear Tim Page speak the other day, after his life he still believes he can make a difference and he only got back from missing being blown up in Afghanistan the other day. Tim for those that don’t know was one of the Vietnam photogs…
Anyway lets get beyond this and start using our networks to support the 100eyes and Duckrabbits of this world. They both have strange hybrid type names and are run by people with real heart and minds… We don’t need another competition, we need more venues for our work to be seen by the general population who make up the voting world to change governments and corporations to be more accountable…
We are the eyes of the world folks and can see beyond what someone carrying a mobile phone can’t… remember that…
“I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling going on in this establishment!”
I find Anderson’s comments honest and refreshing. He’s being self-questioning and iconoclastic. Good for him. But I’m surprised people are acting so upset…seems a bit affected. I mean, come on. Photojournalism has always been fraught with moral complexity; questioning the rightness or wrongness of the very act of making pictures at a scene of conflict and suffering used to be par for the course. (Nevermind then selling the stuff.) In Bosnia in the early 90s it was something many, if not all, PJs openly discussed, regularly. A major theme in Ant Loyd’s Bosnia book “My war gone by I miss it so” is the “war tourism” aspect of journalism. When the wire guy pays you cash for a clipped neg before the bodies have fully cooled it is hard to avoid dealing with the “blood money” aspect of the work. Yet going by some of the comments above, it seems as though some in the industry have put these issues to rest and moved on. That’s what really surprises me. Maybe I’m reading this wrong.
So Anderson dislikes the “self-important, self-congratulatory, hypocritical part of photojournalism.” Are people upset because they DO like this part? Surely not. So they must not believe that this part exists?
Er, really?
As I said, maybe I’m reading this wrong. But I honestly find it hard to believe people are actually personally wounded by the suggestion that there are elements—perhaps large elements—of the industry that are self-serving and disingenuous (ie, given the “truth-telling” foundation that legitimizes modern journalism, “fraudulent”.)
I wonder if looking for longtime through a squared limited viewfinder does cause serious damages in perception …
So you have here words, radical and polemic (that I agree with), extracted from an interview that with a little effort with your mouse you can link at and get the general contest; instead you just stop on the mere evidence and instead of focusing on the deep and serious subject of what is stated, you throw stones and blame against the one, C. Anderson, who has had the strength and power to declare the King is bare, and say he splits on the soup he has eaten: but whoelse, if not him who has been well inside and know the taste, have the know how to recognize the poison of the soup and say it loud and clear? And why should he chime in this discussion? Can’t we just start from his words for an enlarged and wise discussion on the subject, being critical, destructive and constructive too? Should lightstalkers be a forum to just talk about leica versus canon versus nikon and blablabla?
“Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention….To take a picture is to have an interest in things as they are, in the staus quo remaining unchanged (at least for as long as it takes to get a ‘good’ picture), to be in complicity with whatever makes a subject interesting, worth photographing – including, when that is the interest, another person’s pain or misfortune….Photography is an elegiac art, a twightlight art. Most subjects photographed are, just by virtue of being photographed, touched with Pathos. An ugly or grotesque subject may be moving because it has been dignified by the attention of the photographer. A beautiful subject can be the object of rueful feelings, because it has aged, or decayed or no longer exists. ALL photographs are MEMENTOMORI.” Susan Sontag, on photography 1977
Very interesting thread. Of course, in a lot of ways, photojournalism is dead, because the media outlets that supported its classical forms are dying out. And as for “big-game hunting”, it seems to me that Cartier-Bresson actually did that for a while before taking up photography, so photojournalism’s (and Magnum’s) penchant for it are understandable, I guess. But glossy magazine and contest photojournalism are far from being the most important part of photojournalism. And Anderson is right; hyper-dramatic and hyperbolic images are a distortion, and may be a distraction from things which are more mundane, but which might be more important for people to focus their attention on. I interned at Magnum, many years ago, and always found that the most interesting stuff was in the tearsheet portfolios and contact sheet binders, often of stories that were not earth shaking at all. I thought that stories that gave some sort of a connection to real people and their real problems were more interesting and affecting. I still think so. When I’m teaching or talking about Cambodia or Laos, for example, I always like to show photos of markets, vehicles people drive, people engaged in farming or other work, children in school, and other day-to-day things, and it never ceases to amaze me how, if you engage Americans (particularly young ones) in a discussion of such images, how surprised they are that there is ordinary life in such impoverished or war torn places. Imagine, people in these places have to deal with UXO, landmines, terrible legacies of wars or grinding poverty, yet they work, love, smile, have children and make dinner every night. That should not surprise anyone, but it does. Of course, there is little market for such photos, and that’s too bad. It seems to me sometimes that democratic nations often make bad foreign policy because their people forget that the “foreigners” are just people like themselves. Perhaps the emphasis on images of things dramatic or terrible, or just dramatically terrible, in our magazines and newspapers contribute to this. If that is the part of photojournalism that dies, then RIP.
Listen, let’s just admit it, at least those of us who have tasted it:
You may have picked up a camera for any sort of reasons, personal, political, historical, romantic, academic, whatever. You found that you were good at it. You found that other people, people in a position to assign and pay you, thought that you were good it.
So you started to make a living doing what you love. You were finally able to tell your parents or anyone else who had thought you were crazy, that you can have your cake and eat it too. That no, you need not go to law school or business school, that there will be time enough in life to do all that things you want to do, and fulfill your obligations and responsibilities, because you really are one of the luckiest people on earth, that you actually made at least some of your dreams come true.
And it didn’t hurt that part of that was flying business class and eating at great restaurants, and staying in 5-star hotels, and that was justified because the rest of the time you were sleeping in trenches, eating things even your immigrant parents wouldn’t eat, flying on sketchy helicopters of Third World armies, genuinely giving it all you have to make those pictures, to be there, and to make those pictures not just for yourself (even though you would do that anyway) but for a mass audience, that, however imperceptibly, at times your photos would influence thousands, even millions of people. And some of these people would be the people in power with the ability to affect the story you’re working on.
That in essence, was the “dream of the photojournalist,” globe-trotting, jet-setting, James Bond, Jacques Cousteau, Jack Kerouac all rolled into one. Sensitive, yet aggressive. Filled with passion, yet calm and reasoned. World weary but always curious and adventurous. Three weeks in Afghanistan or Bosnia or the West Bank, a week or two off to spend with family or friends or lovers, another week shooting a fashion show, a day shooting a portrait of a CEO, then back on the next airplane to Singapore or Sarajevo. And even if you weren’t making a lot of money, you made enough. Enough for an “average” middle-class life in a home city like New York or Paris. Enough to have a decent apartment (nothing fancy, but comfortable), a decent car (a Honda, not a Mercedes), maybe put a child or two through school. Enough to go on a nice vacation every now and then (Greek Islands, or Tuscan hill towns), even if staying at 2-star and not 5-star hotels on your own money.
From 1945 until now, that was the model. And I don’t mean just for the superstars. Even just for decent, solid, good photographers. People who aren’t famous, who didn’t win awards, or so many of them. But who did serious and dedicated work, who covered not just wars and revolutions but also the Indy 500 or local politicians, who cared about what they did, were happy to see it in print, and who never thought that the whole system would wither and die.
And as a lot of writers on this thread, including myself, have said, it wasn’t always great. In fact it rarely was. Lots of fluff, rot, propaganda, and self-interest. Lots of stupidity, ignorance, and conservatism. But we made a living loving what we do.
That is the crucial point. The system, which sucked or not, in so many ways, is dying. Not just the good or bad aspects of it, but all of it. I, for one, DON’T want to make videos. I DON’T celebrate the dissolution of a mass audience into a thousand niche websites, however great they may be. I DON’T want to make my living doing something else to fund my personal projects (even though that’s what we’re already doing and always did to an extent.)
ENOUGH of the system was good that you wanted to be part of that good part, to fight for it, to push, to care. That good part was tiny compared to the whole. But losing that is what we’re worried about, really, not losing the crap, which we won’t miss at all.
So the ultimate question is, what ARE we going to do? Re-inventing things, innovation, all great…but we’re not there yet, and won’t be for a while. It’s exciting to be part of this process, to be a pioneer, in a sense, going forward. It will force us to make better work, of that I have no doubt.
But never again will this be a world where the mere fact that you’re on assignment for the New York Times, or Paris Match, or Time or Newsweek or whatever, open all doors for you, where you don’t care at all how much money you’re spending, where you feel not just free but empowered to do all that you want to do without any worry that the institution that assigned you may not exist by the time you file your pictures.
“But never again will this be a world where the mere fact that you’re on assignment for the New York Times, or Paris Match, or Time or Newsweek or whatever, open all doors for you, where you don’t care at all how much money you’re spending, where you feel not just free but empowered to do all that you want to do without any worry that the institution that assigned you may not exist by the time you file your pictures.”
All is said. And more it was not really a worthy dream.
You are right to emphasize WAS. I did read or wrote to quickly. I mixed times.
Note : I must recognize that today New York Times is still worthy dream. John G Morris does think so saying it is maybe the best place left for photojournalism.
Alan you DID nail it, as lisa said. I thoroughly agree on videos, too. Most are learning to do it (me, too) but it’s not really what I want to do. Or weddings. Thanks, Alan you are almost always spot-on but in this case you really said what I’ve been thinking but couldn’t possibly say the way you did.
Nov 6 2009 For some reason, I am not able to post on the thread you started called, “I don’t care about Photojournalism”. Had I been able to, this is what I would have replied: "GET PERSONAL! I’m a photographer, I have no choice but to go on. In the end, it does not matter to me what anyone says, what is the new way forward in terms of technology or what outlets are dying and new ones are opening up… It matters that in the hell of my abusive childhood, other realities as depicted in the pages of magazines and newspapers in the 70’s and 80’s moved me to look deeper within my self, to relate to the possible world, not the abusive one, the TV one and had it been around back then, sure as hell not this human waste can called the internet. That’s right, photography saved my life. I have NEVER gone the same direction as the masses. I could have cared less about awards even though I won them. There STILL IS a brilliance that unfolds in this life before us that can be truthfully rendered. There is no fraud in you if you see the way forward within your self, so there is no fraud, period. I don’t come here often because just like everything else on the internet, it gets in the way of real life. I don’t want to see video on a story when I just want to READ about it and see a photo or two. I don’t CARE about TMZ Hollywood crap. I don’t want to see all the supplied weather photos from “Our Readers” on the nightly news program. I don’t want to see “Your Shot” in National Geographic. I want to see the depth I saw years ago when I first realized that there is a better life out there and a bigger picture to consider….through the single image, through the photo essay, through passionate visionaries that simply surrendered to whom they were to be. And the raw spirit of the image and the story it has told, the way it affected me then, what I see now does nearly nothing for me. Even from the greats of those era’s, if they are still producing, it all seems a shallow shell of the uncharted visual territory of what had been done by them decades ago. We use cameras that can record images in the dark, but what does that amount to? We went to the moon in 1969 and have not done shit since. For most intents and purposes, photography made today does very, very little for me. Maybe it is due to the digital / photoshop age…I think that has some to do with it….I just don’t trust it. Somehow, the power of the image to evoke bold intrepidness has lost it self in a sea of chaotic "Content"…..the hype is nauseating….deafening, it almost can’t be turned off for Christ’s sake! So I do things like the “Kodachrome Project” to keep remotely sane as I continue to seek the deeper meaning that spawned my vision to turn on some 34 years ago. I wish I could do more editorial work but it is not the industry I want to work with right now, so for now, I Get Personal. I do my commercial work, stock, which is not so hot either by the way in terms of business and outside of that I GETPERSONAL!!! Technology has given us the means to accomplish a lot in this day and age, but it has not and will not give me two things I value most: 1. More time in a single day than 24 hours. 2. The insight to ponder, to seek and to self reflect. So if you don’t want to be on a sinking ship, you had damn well better start building a new one, a better one or at least learn how to swim. And I don’t think you are going to do that with technology or by constantly re-hashing the same old crap on this or other sites. I think you are going to have to do that through close and careful self examination, by distancing your self from the internet and above all, by becoming the photographer you never even considered you could be. So the first step is you have to Get Personal… So I really don’t know or even care who Chris Anderson is, certainly not what he says, right or wrong. That’s because I do my thing, I do it as well as I can, I do it with integrity and through it all, it works for me, it pays off and even pays bills. Don’t tell me I am right, don’t tell me I am wrong, don’t say I “Nailed it” just get off of this POS idiot box and get real, get personal. Then when you have something before you that you can’t believe is even a photograph, let alone by you and it moves you like nothing before, you will have something worth sharing with the world, worth publishing. You will have a photograph that is worth more than the masses of “content” that are pushing the oceans aside with mediocrity. That is how you save photojournalism, with photography that gets down to business like it damn well used to…"
from Dan Bayer ( Reply | Delete )
i can definitely identify with the feeling that photojournalism is a fraud. presented in attractive packaging, it claims to open your eyes to the world, when it usually ends up pulling the wool over your eyes. i don’t know what to do about it!
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