Mind of the Photo Editor

I was there. I enjoyed seeing the personal work of Christopher Morris. The editor from the Daily News was a hoot, which kind of put the Daily News into a little better perspective for me. I went there hoping to learn a bit about how photo editors find new photographers, specifically young un knowns. They touched upon this a tiny bit, but not much. They talked about the internal process of how a story goes from the commisioning of the photographer, to the end edit just before it hits the press.

It was certainly worthwhile, Im sorry you missed it. It was a packed house!

what did everyone else think?

I attended the seminar/lecture as well. I had pretty the same impression as michael. I liked that the Daily News guy made a Mort Zuckerman reference (the poor man’s Rupert Murdoch). I can’t really say I learned anything I haven’t heard before but it was interesting. Christopher Morris said something about his presentation that I particularly liked, which was basically that what isn’t published today will be seen as valuable 20 years from now and perhaps will be published then. Photographers might be shooting for the future while editors are only looking at the next deadline.

i enjoyed it very much. i found it interesting that the daily news guy consistantly picked the worst photos out of the selects to run in the paper. as a struggling photographer i also wanted to hear more about the process of going from just a portfolio sitting on the desk to an assignment in hand. i think that the truth of the matter is that photo editors give assignments to people they know…friends and friends friends… and everythign else is just about being in the right place at the right time…… i’m not as bitter as i sound, i promise… it was very interesting and i came away inspired by seeing christophers work…..enough that i want to try to become an embed myself… so if anyone has any toughts on how to do that, feel free to write.

who was the editor from the DNews that was there?

I had a sit down with an editor there. I’m 36, married with two youngsters, well educated and experienced and, some suggest, talented.
I was offered $100 per day. That’s pathetic. Screw the Daily News.
[PAULTREACY.COM]

$100 a day? what? you can’t make a living on that? come on, don’t you do it for the LOVE of the craft? it’s funny, people always think that phrases like “we will give you credit” or “you can use it for your book” will work…
the problem is that there are simply too many people that WILL do it for a hundred bucks. i’m seriously wrestling with the idea of finding a new living. this is an interesting interview : What does a serious photojournalist have to say about
   the business when the business is shifting towards
   celebrity gossip photography?  Hear an NPR interview
   with Mary Ellen Mark at http://tinyurl.com/d7nbe on
   WBUR.

It’s a bitch isn’t it? People are always asking me to volunteer my services for “good causes”. I say, “well, is the designer going to layout your material for free and the printer print it for free, or at least give you free print and paper? I think not. So piss off and don’t bother me”.

yeah, all you can do is fight the good fight, choose which hill to die on and try to remember why you got into photography in the first place.

Someone up the chain is picking the pictures anyway, and the last thing the picture editor wants is to get a picture rejected taken by a photographer that the Managing Editor has not heard of. So they tend to stick to the known photographers— this is nothing new, though.

Along the same lines, there has been a big move in the past ten years to get a homogeneity, for lack of a better word, in which the photographers are interchangable…….so that the publications are not dependent on any particular group of photographers. The NYTimes is a great example. The level of their stringer work has become so low, that they can find someone in any small city to shot a piece for low pay and bad rights.

As y’all know the best way to get into the Daily News is the same way it was in 1980, spot news your way in. With the only difference being that in 1980 there were like 5 photographers with scanners, and now there are probably a 300, or more? New York City is overrun with photographers at the same time there is even less work than ever.

I chickened out. :) If you’all read the unedited version of the above, its our secret, OK? :)

Wish I’d seen the unedited post.

You did mate. Christ, how did that happen? I am going to re-edit it.

Hah. I did too & wondered what the heck you’d revised. Thought my own personal senility was settling in for the long haul. Thanks for the reassurance.