Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/04/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Eric wrote, >Look at the recent issues of LIFE magazine, or >the new National Geographic Adventure magazine. Talk about a lack of >respect by editors and illustrators for photos! They're "design" >elements. I think you are overstating the case Eric. I was proud to have a double page spread in last month's Life (March p14-15, taken with Leica M6 and Summicron 50 on Astia for those who care) and cannot see how that is any more of a 'design element' than a double page in Life would have been in the 1950s or whenever the good old days were (granted, they aren't these days). I do not think the 'respect' problem is new: photographers have been moaning about it since photojournalism began. Now that the print media is largely sidelined to TV as far as influence is concerned we photographers are keen to blame all and sundry for our perceived loss of relative importance: Life and its ilk used to be the network news of its day and whether it did a better job than todays TV news is clearly a matter of opinion. There is also an underlying assumption that this job is to inform and influence rather than to simply entertain and I think that is flawed. Personally I think that anyone who relies on TV and photographs as the primary source of information upon which they base important decisions is at least naive and most probably stupid, since they can hardly fail to be aware of the superficial nature of such 'coverage'. Perhaps such people really exist... Bests Adrian Adrian Bradshaw Editorial and Corporate Photography Shanghai, China