Originally published in East & West Magazine
When I was about ten years old my second cousin was working on a photography job in his Los Angeles studio. He had set up the shot, a product of some sort, and the camera was on the tripod ready to go. At his invitation I pushed the shutter release and the flash fired and an image was created. I still remember my cousin then wondering aloud to the other adults in the room about the nature of creativity and who should actually be given credit for the photo that I had just made. He had procured the job, he had signed the contract, he owned the equipment, he had set up the shot, loaded the camera, adjusted the settings and calibrated the lighting. But in the end it was I who actually took the photo. (this being the days of 35mm slide film we wouldn’t know whether the photo was even worth taking credit for until sometime later.)
Of course many photographers have stylists, producers, assistants and other assorted staff, all contributing in their own way to the process of creating images. So then what is a photographer, really? The individual who pushes the button? Is a photographer merely someone with the means and the technical know-how to create a photograph or is there something more to it? And in the digital age when almost everyone has access to the means to create, manipulate and distribute original content does it really even matter anymore?
Has photography, like some much in these digital days, become just another commodity?
I bought my first digital camera in 1998 for about $1,300. It took decent photos, but at 3.1 megapixels they were not useful for much more than sharing pixelated snapshots via email. Today you can buy a camera that fits comfortably in your pocket and takes amazing high-resolution images for under $200. Someday soon that same camera will be half the price and a better, even smaller camera with more features will have taken its place. This in addition to the multitude of cell phones and mobile devices out there, also with digital cameras embedded. With each day that passes cameras are becoming better, cheaper and more ubiquitous.
Consider the number of people in the last decade for whom photography has gone from an occasional hobby to a staple of everyday life. There are currently about six billion people on the planet and more and more of them are getting their hands on good quality digital cameras every day. So how much content is being generated by these billions of people with billions of cameras and where it is all going? We have to assume that at least some percentage of the content is commercially viable, even just as stock. A few years ago a friend of mine won an all-expenses-paid trip for two to New York City in a photography contest with a photo she had taken accidentally at a Cirque Du Soleil show using a cheap consumer point and shoot camera. Accidental excellence. Are we seeing the Infinite Monkey Theorem in practice before our eyes?
The barrier to entry represented by the high price of camera equipment, film and processing used to be one of the primary dividing lines between the professional and the recreational photographer. If you weren’t planning to make a living with it there was really no reason for anyone to make the investment in the expensive equipment needed to be a serious photographer. Once you had the equipment the rest becomes subjective, so who is to say that you’re not a photographer if that’s what you say you are? The term “f8 and be there” is a tongue-in-cheek way that photojournalists summarize their craft, meaning that most of being a successful shooter is being in the right place at the right time.
So if being there is half the battle, then why not use images from people who are already there? Especially in these days of declining newspaper and magazine distribution and ad revenues, how can a publication justify sending a western photojournalist to a war zone when there are untold number of people with high-resolution cameras already there and already shooting free of charge, without hazard pay, expensive life insurance plans, plane tickets or the burden of worrying about one of your staff being hurt or killed. CNN often uses footage from non-staff, labeling it as “amateur video” or an “iReport”. User-generated content is making its way more and more into television news broadcasts, just as it has in print media. This radical change in the paradigm of what it means to be a professional photographer in the digital age once again challenges our traditional notions of who creates content and who consumes it, just as it has shaken our view of what a book is. The irony is that as cameras keep getting cheaper and better at taking high res images our appetite for print-ready imagery is declining along with print media itself as more and more people view images on screens instead of on paper.
When I was about ten years old my second cousin was working on a photography job in his Los Angeles studio. He had set up the shot, a product of some sort, and the camera was on the tripod ready to go. At his invitation I pushed the shutter release and the flash fired and an image was created. I still remember my cousin then wondering aloud to the other adults in the room about the nature of creativity and who should actually be given credit for the photo that I had just made. He had procured the job, he had signed the contract, he owned the equipment, he had set up the shot, loaded the camera, adjusted the settings and calibrated the lighting. But in the end it was I who actually took the photo. (this being the days of 35mm slide film we wouldn’t know whether the photo was even worth taking credit for until sometime later.)
Of course many photographers have stylists, producers, assistants and other assorted staff, all contributing in their own way to the process of creating images. So then what is a photographer, really? The individual who pushes the button? Is a photographer merely someone with the means and the technical know-how to create a photograph or is there something more to it? And in the digital age when almost everyone has access to the means to create, manipulate and distribute original content does it really even matter anymore?
Has photography, like some much in these digital days, become just another commodity?
I bought my first digital camera in 1998 for about $1,300. It took decent photos, but at 3.1 megapixels they were not useful for much more than sharing pixelated snapshots via email. Today you can buy a camera that fits comfortably in your pocket and takes amazing high-resolution images for under $200. Someday soon that same camera will be half the price and a better, even smaller camera with more features will have taken its place. This in addition to the multitude of cell phones and mobile devices out there, also with digital cameras embedded. With each day that passes cameras are becoming better, cheaper and more ubiquitous.
Consider the number of people in the last decade for whom photography has gone from an occasional hobby to a staple of everyday life. There are currently about six billion people on the planet and more and more of them are getting their hands on good quality digital cameras every day. So how much content is being generated by these billions of people with billions of cameras and where it is all going? We have to assume that at least some percentage of the content is commercially viable, even just as stock. A few years ago a friend of mine won an all-expenses-paid trip for two to New York City in a photography contest with a photo she had taken accidentally at a Cirque Du Soleil show using a cheap consumer point and shoot camera. Accidental excellence. Are we seeing the Infinite Monkey Theorem in practice before our eyes?
The barrier to entry represented by the high price of camera equipment, film and processing used to be one of the primary dividing lines between the professional and the recreational photographer. If you weren’t planning to make a living with it there was really no reason for anyone to make the investment in the expensive equipment needed to be a serious photographer. Once you had the equipment the rest becomes subjective, so who is to say that you’re not a photographer if that’s what you say you are? The term “f8 and be there” is a tongue-in-cheek way that photojournalists summarize their craft, meaning that most of being a successful shooter is being in the right place at the right time.
So if being there is half the battle, then why not use images from people who are already there? Especially in these days of declining newspaper and magazine distribution and ad revenues, how can a publication justify sending a western photojournalist to a war zone when there are untold number of people with high-resolution cameras already there and already shooting free of charge, without hazard pay, expensive life insurance plans, plane tickets or the burden of worrying about one of your staff being hurt or killed. CNN often uses footage from non-staff, labeling it as “amateur video” or an “iReport”. User-generated content is making its way more and more into television news broadcasts, just as it has in print media. This radical change in the paradigm of what it means to be a professional photographer in the digital age once again challenges our traditional notions of who creates content and who consumes it, just as it has shaken our view of what a book is. The irony is that as cameras keep getting cheaper and better at taking high res images our appetite for print-ready imagery is declining along with print media itself as more and more people view images on screens instead of on paper.
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