Michael Kamber is an award winning photographer who currently works for the New York Times, here he outlines his view of the State of journalism today.
This is the first of a series of articles that will be published this week, each by a different author, watching world of photojournalism, from a number of points of view.
"I remember arriving in New York in 1985, only to discover that I had arrived too late: photojournalism was dead. This was common knowledge-everyone has said so. Life, Look and The Saturday Evening Post had gone and photojournalists were struggling to find new markets and new ways to finance their work and reach the audience. The murderer was television. The evil had reduced attention spans and created a hunger for constant motion – something we photographers we would never be the same.photo prospered. "
"Scratched my way in the profession with a generation of men and women, now approaching 50 years of age. We shot our demonstrations on specific films in the bathroom souped, Reuters or AP Photos sold for $ 25, sleeping in groups on plans for the hotel room in Port-au-Prince and Mexico City.
"And behold, we scratched a living as a photojournalist. Some of us have done quite well. True, the journals of great pictures were gone, but Time, Newsweek, U.s. News, and most major credit cards in the United States had photographers on assignment all over the world. Sygma, Sipa, range and other agencies of
"Now, 25 years later, I am the one saying that photojournalism is dead. And died, as Neil Burgess is notoriously emphasized; at least as we know it.
"I was in Baghdad covering elections this winter-a historic election marks a turning point in the conflict of the past decade. Ten years ago there would have been 20 photojournalists there. There was another Western photographer that I am aware-Andrea Bruce, who had arrived in large part on its own.
"I have the luxury of working on contract for the New York Times, probably the only remaining card in the world with the budget and a commitment to finance large-scale photojournalism. And I'm proud of my book-we've covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from top to bottom, beginning to end. Three hundred people were recently laid off, but the NYT foreign offices remain open.
"Yet we are the last diehards; my friends of photojournalist in mainstream newspapers say that their budget travel are gone. The LA Times, Newsweek and US News seem to be sliding toward bankruptcy; The Washington Post closed nearly all its foreign offices; Time is a shadow of itself.
Is photojournalism dead "but really? When my mentors in 1985 lamented the passing of photojournalism, what they were really marking was the passage of their system, their model. And it was a great model. And the model that we reinvented in 1980s and 1990s was too darn good. Now is the turn of my generation to lament the passage. But again, what is dead is not photojournalism-what is dead is the particular culture of Photojournalism that has supported us over the last 30 years.
"Today there is a new way, a new system. I meet young photographers constantly: idealistic, naive, creative, excited. They may have missed on the magic of Baryta paper in a tray of Dektol developer, but love positive anyway. And as has been said of nausea, are focusing on new models for the collection of money for doing projects-grants, workshops, focus agency, partnerships with non-governmental organisations (which I find disturbing for reasons not detail here) and others. I am using the accent to raise funds for a book project.
"And, of course, a photojournalist today must be more than just a global journalist-written pieces, video and multimedia are critical for stitching to live together.
"Like this new model of development? Not much. Allows a photographer to obtain the job security, raising a family with health insurance, I know someone will evacuate him or her if injured in a war zone? Absolutely not.
"But this model of development is what we got and we have to work with it, there is no other option. What troubles me is that we are becoming ghettoised. As the mainstream press is dying a slow death and ugly, increasingly we work for each other-for community worship of photo Festival and workshops, awards & bursaries, hobby press shops. And this new model will certainly exacerbate something I deplore about photojournalism: is increasingly a community of people preferred to white. I was amazed a few years ago to sit at a ceremony in Amsterdam with about 300 other photographers and editors. There was exactly one African and perhaps one or two Latinos in the room, although probably 75% of the ' subjects ' were people of color.
"It is up to the community of photo to come out of this new model, democratize and reach a new audience. I can see that happening already. And even if I don't like the business model, the bottom line is this: there is a new generation out there shooting images in the corners of the world every day.
"Undoubtedly, 35 years from now, there will be yet another new model. This will allow the youth of today their well-deserved round to lament the death of Photojournalism. "
You can see more of Michael's work on its website. [Warning: the site contains photographs of war and violence graphic.]
Tomorrow, David Campbell, consultant, writer and producer, will talk about photography in the age of mass media and plenty of image.
Related posts:David Campbell on photojournalism in the era of abundance of image
Adrian Evans on financing the future of Photojournalism
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