[Leica] What, me worry?

[Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net>]

Dan Post opinned, relative to Gates and god:

>I may be missing something, but why all the razzing on ole Bill? I have better things to worry about! We all do!
SNIP
> Most of what we take for granted now is the result of man's efforts in the last few centuries, and I don't think in the long run that a man like Bill Gates, or Bill Clinton will make all that much difference in what we can and will become! 

Dan,
Those of us who work to make a living at commercial and editorial
photography DO have to worry.  Those of you who appreciate what
photography does in recording history should be worrying too.  

But bottom line of the "New" economic model is to discourage
photographers from making a living.  I can no longer recommend, unless a
person is independently wealthy, a carrer in photography.  

It comes down to this:  Publications, including newspapers and magazines
(and book publishers, too) used to be run by people with a passion for
what they did.  Their decisions were balanced between making money and
doing service.  My father was a case in point.  He mostly worked on
small newspapers.  He said he believed that small towns deserved the
same quality of journalism as large ones, and he lived his beliefs. 
Today, most publications are owned by corporations whose moral direction
is governed by attorneys and accountants and boards of directors
responsible not to readers, but to stockholders and other corporations
in the conglomerate.  

The same conditions have taken over the stock photo business.  I've seen
the attitudes of editors at stock agencies change dramatically over the
last few years.  Most agencies (according to what I read and numerous
conversations with photographers) now consider photographers a bit of a
bother, and make editorial decisions that can make or break careers on
what seems like whimsy, and care little for the photographers except as
they are sheep for the slaughter, only caring for the agency and the
stockholders.  

The commercial agency behavior won't affect the lives of most people,
but the effect on editorial photography affects us all.  The agencies,
with brutally lopsided contracts they are trying to strong arm
photographers into signing, will leave few photographers with the
wherewithall or incentive to do what they do best:  record history, 
confronting all of us with the consequences of our actions (good and
bad) and creating work that is more than just the commercial-like
assignments promoting pop culture or other business interests.  

ol' Bill doesn't have a social conscience.  Do you want him in charge of
the information flow?  The irony for me is that what the corporate
agencies are doing may not be in their own best long term interests.  Do
you save money by not putting enough oil in the car??  How smart is
that?  

The deeper fear, of course, is that we are developing eccentially a
corporate-run media.  In some ways this is even more dangerous than
something like TASS or other state-run media, in that the appearance is
of a free press with a free flow of information.  

Corbis and Getty that now have merged commercial and editorial identies,
mimicing the merger of entertainment, news and corporate corporate
interests in the media and blurring the line between news gathering and
advertising.

Am I crying wolf?  I think we should be crying Tyrantasaurus-Rex. 
Either way, we are being eaten like sheep.

On the other hand, you can just go along, entertained by all those
generic eye-candy pictures, and say, "what, me worry?"

donal

__________
Donal Philby
San Diego
www.donalphilby.com