Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/02/13

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: The Decisive Moment or...sounds like another of those God Damn commie photographers is on some sort of socialist tear again!;-)
From: Tarek Charara <tarek.charara@wanadoo.fr>
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 07:18:39 +0100

le 14.02.2002 2:42, Eric à ericm@pobox.com a écrit :

> But here's the bigger question...  Can you express in dollars the gains a
> newspaper would see in increased circulation if the images aren't just
> acceptable but instead are worthy of hanging in galleries?  Does a magazine
> or newspaper's circulation really vary with image quality, once a certain
> level has been reached?
> 
> If you're interested in selling your work to a business--shouldn't matter
> what your work is or what that business is--if the business can't increase
> their revenues by much more than what they pay for your services, why should
> they buy what you're selling?  If they can get the same value to them by
> buying pictures from inexperienced photographers who are willing to work for
> peanuts, then why should they hire experienced photographers who cost more?
> 
> Which brings me back to my original point.  Why would you choose to compete
> on price?  If photojournalism has become nothing more than an easily traded
> commodity, then why continue to pursue it?  If enough photojournalists leave
> to do something else, the market will eventually swing back.  Supply and
> demand and all that.

I don't know about the circulation vs. picture quality ratio, but I know
that magazines make most of their revenue with advertising. So sometimes an
article just is not published because it might offend an advertiser. Most
magazines are about "making money". The editorial contents in them is there
as an excuse to bring advertising to the "masses" and in the end it doesn't
matter if it (the contents) lacks a bit of quality as long as it is cheap.
I work for a magazine that is "given away" with the sunday paper. No
problem, I like the work and all of the staff does it's best to do a good
job, but sometimes it can get really frustrating! Editorial contents is
chosen as to attract potential advertisers or at least to prevent potential
advertisers from running away. :-)


Tarek (Early morning questions about my job...)

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Replies: Reply from S Dimitrov <sld@earthlink.net> (Re: [Leica] Re: The Decisive Moment or...sounds like another ofthose God Damn commie photographers is on some sort of socialist tearagain!;-))