Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 17:11 30/11/1998 EST, Nigel B Watson wrote: >Evidently the feeling amongst those in the know >is that the end of silver-based news photography will come hand-in-hand >with the end of printed newspapers as they are replaced by internet >on-line "subscriptions" which will represent much more profit efficiency >for the publishers. This will be a horrible world. Actually I don't believe in such prophesies. Most readers don't care about "profit efficiency for the publishers." Streamlined, chewed, commercial "news" are good tools for the power, for the brain washers. Like the TV "news" circus, and the rest of the TV rubbish. What about newspapers? They are getting superficial as well, but they still have a place in our lives. On-line services are not flexible enough. You can't bring them in your pocket anywhere, you can't go to a bar with them, you can't read the internet on-line nonsense lying at the beach, or floating in the Dead Sea, or sitting on an island in the sun with a glass of rhum, or relaxing after making love. You can't light your stove with them. The "visionaries" told us that the book would disappear. We still have books. Books are flexible, handy, easy to bring anywhere. They are certainly produced differently today, but we still have them, and we'll still have them for years. Silver-based, commercial news photography might disappear within a few years. But there will still be newspapers for a long time. There will always be resistance, people like some of us, documentary photographers and others working with traditional tools and traditional supports. It will be so as long as these are better and cheaper. There will still be Leicas and similar cameras around for a while. If there are no films, or paper left, we could always start our own factory... Oddmund