[gfurm]

5.3 Liter V8 engine is powerful compared to a 1.8 liter 4 cylinder engine.

Not necesearlly: 6L v8 from Chevrolet Silverado got 360 BHP, 2L 4 cyl from Mercedes A45 AMG got 360HP. So it really depends what kind of V8 or 4 cylinder . Just saying

[gaweidert]

Staff photographers for any type of news are pretty much a thing of the past. Even National Geographic hasn't had staff photographers for years now. i don't think Sprots Illustrated has has any any for years either.

There is simply no need for that skill level anymore for 90% of the shots. When using film, especially reversal film, you have a narrow exposure window. This skill and experience of the photographer was needed to insure good images. Not only that you had very few images to choose from. Even if the pro took 100 rolls of film with him that is only 3,600 shots. Today you can pack many images on that with a few memory cards.

I went digital almost 4 years ago. I have shot more digital images in that time frame than I ever have before. My most prolific film shooting event was a 5 week cross country trip with the family in 1991. I shot off 33 rolls of reversal film. That is 1188 images. That was considered a lot of images at the time. And we hit 19 national parks/monuments during that trip. That would be chump change by today's standards. I maybe shot 3 or 4 images of Old Faithful erupting.

A fan with a decent camera and burst mode is going to get a good enough shot for a news organization to run with. And they will do it for a credit line. A member here just got a full back page cover of one of his shots published in the Sky and Telescope's Family Viewing Guide for 2016.

Like it or not professional photojournalism at the local level is dying off. Go to Facebook, grab an image, give a credit line and go with it. The funny thing is that we are taking at least 100x more images that were taken even 20 years ago, yet in 50 years almost none of them will be around. Yet my 1991 Kodachromes from Yellowstone will still be around in hard form and almost as good, or bad, as the day I shot them.

Historians of the future will have very little in the way of letters or images to comb through when they study this era. Maybe we need to get back to clay tablets.

[normhead]

Overall, print media -- magazines, etc has withered away. Same with newspapers. People have filled that void with free stuff on the internet and I guess a lot of the bills are then paid by advertising, but it seems like photographers have gotten lost in the shuffle.

Tell that to these guys.....
Master Glass | Toronto Star

Toronto Star photographers one and all.

[monochrome]

* I know, Semantics. But it just hits the ear wrong to say that a Nikon is more powerful than a Leica. Is the Nikon SP RF more powerful than the Leica M6? no, they are just different cameras.

What Killed Discrete use of English Words?

[Digitalis]

What Killed Discrete use of English Words?

people who in conversation, excessively use the word "like" in the quotative sense.

[normhead]

What Killed Discrete use of English Words?

Was that something we were supposed to aspire to?

[monochrome]

Was that something we were supposed to aspire to?

Only if you aspire to communicate with precision.

[normhead]

Only if you aspire to communicating with precision.

That only works if you're talking to someone else with the same aspirations.

[monochrome]

That only works if you're talking to someone else with the same aspirations.

OK - only if you aspire to speak with precision to someone who aspires to understand with precision.

Some years ago those aspirations were somewhat more common than they seem to be today.

[monochrome]

Ahem.

[RGlasel]

Toronto Star

Torstar, Jurassic Park of print media. Most places in the Western world, broadsheet dailies with a blatant allegiance to a single political party went out of fashion at least half a century ago. Coincidentally (or perhaps not) Joseph Atkinson started working for the Star in December 1899 and the Atkinson Foundation prevented its sale to owners with a different political bent when Atkinson died in 1948, enforcing Atkinson Principles on this newspaper every since.

The underlying problem with photo-journalism is that access trumps skill in either photography or journalism. Whether the entity controlling access is ISIS, IBM or the Cleveland Indians, the gatekeepers have an agenda that must be met and anyone who earns money doing photo-journalism is indebted to them.

---------- Post added 12-06-15 at 01:43 PM ----------

Ahem.

It's Sunday and I'm going to rest from being agreeable with strangers. I disagree wholeheartedly with Agreement #2, no one lives in a vacuum, people who live without adjusting their perceived reality to avoid conflict with others are mentally ill and the majority of needless suffering in this world is self-inflicted. Real transformation comes from loving others as we love ourselves, which is in disagreement with Agreement #3.

[tim60]

How could anyone hope to make a living from sports. There are only a small number of major events, of a level that anyone would pay more than a few dollars for, in any city. To follow all the events in a league would add travel to the expense side, so would add t the difficulty in making money.

Also, if a publisher has a list of freelancers who provide content for selection and sometimes get a reasonable payment it saves much cost and organisation but the freelancers really need something else to pay the bills.

So what is the effect of the democratisation of the ability to make reasonable images: a huge flood of poor stuff which detunes the appreciation of most people of photography as a medium to be viewed carefully. Therefore, in news like-media a decrease in the careful selection of images that will become iconic, and probably a significant drop in the concept of iconic images because the public are getting their image feed from many different sources.

[monochrome]

This might have something to do with it - or at least be a symptom of the same disease:

The Sports Bubble Is About To Pop

St. Louis should let the Rams move on to LA - actually, St. Louis should show Stan Kroenke the scenery on I-70 West beyond Columbia, MO. All the way west.

[tim60]

Very interested. I ceased to be interested in sport when the AFL (Australia) expanded to be national in the late 80s. Why? The gladiators of one business did stylised battle with the gladiators of the other business. Before that the model I had known was the club in a particular area, with part-time professionals (or maybe FT) playing a similar team from across town. The result was that there was the fun of the rivalry at the office through the week and a sense of can our lot do better than theirs. But with the businesses, why should I get emotional about supported some rich guy's business.

Interesting what the effect will be. It could go two ways: some kind of reversion to sport as an activity done by people who have a passion for the sport and their community in a league where the spectators can at least commute to every game, with ticket prices they can afford to attend most weeks of the season, and perhaps representative team competitions over wider areas, such a state representative teams playing in a national playoff, the old way; or sport will fade into a minority interest activity.

The former would be good for lower level professional photographers because there would be whole local leagues with local people wanting the pictures and video in local media, and the media would need to create, at least local division to cover the local sports or further marginalise themselves to the internet enthusiasts doing those activities in local areas.

[skierd]

Seems to be the common theme among modern photographers. Adapt, or find another career. Still, it is a shame that there is little physical value in capturing the defining moments of athletic endeavors. Where would the world be without shots like this?

Bob Martin: I think the decline in editorial sports photography is far more in the States than in Europe. It’s a shame the way it is, but we have to evolve and change—we can’t become dinosaurs. The difference between today and 10 years ago: then you were asked to shoot an image based on your style and today your assignment is a fixed concept or based on a green screen and Photoshop. Fifteen years ago, my syndicated picture sales were 30 percent of my yearly income and 50 percent were editorial commissions and 20 percent were commercial shoots. Now, only 5 percent is stock photo sales, 15 percent is editorial photography, and 40 percent is now commercial or sponsor-supported photography—so I am either working for a sponsor or the event organizer. Advertising photography is still 10 percent, and the balance would be consulting fees.
Read more at What Killed Editorial Sports Photography?: You?ve Got To Hustle As A Sports Shooter These Days | Shutterbug