What a Marvelous Post

This is a post with a long quote from David Leeson, Dallas Morning News. His short, but extremely powerful post on the changing world of Photojournalism gives us a wide-eyed glimpse into the shifting paradigms and new challenges facing shooters. The entire post is worthy of reading several times, but these two paragraphs stand out as reminders that what we held for granted may not be so carved in stone.

I knew that still photos would remain forever - the undisputed champion for visual reporting. Actually, it could be the victor of ALL forms of journalistic reports. But, of course, I am prejudiced to the eloquence of the unmoving image that seems to move hearts and minds better than any.

And taking a look at how the Photojournalists are dealing with change (or not) gives those of us in commercial and personal shooting a measuring stick for our own areas. Have you started shooting video? Do you carry a point-and-shoot (some are really amazing, you know)? Have you started offering other products / services to clients? Have we taken the time to discover what those services may be? Lots of questions to think about. This paragraph really drives home what happens when an industry becomes myopic and navel gazing begins to be the mantra.

If you're still struggling with this then take a look at your average construction worker paid to build a house. Imagine showing up at the job site with only a circular saw. You walk around discussing RPM and torque. You talk about a recent seminar you attended about proper saw techniques. But, then, the boss approaches and asks you to hammer a nail. Unfortunately, you don't have a hammer and your beloved circular saw won't do the job. The moral of the story is that the purpose of the job was to get a house built and not to cut some wood.

And from Multimediashooter:

We are at an exciting crossroads in photojournalism, so why are we just creating bad TV for the web? I have the utmost respect for our TV brethren, but I think the broadcast model is broken FOR THE WEB. So why are we following it? I believe this is our only chance to shake things up. This has nothing to do with talking heads or even video for that matter. Even our ass (audio slide shows) are boring, filled with voice of God narrators or the subjects themselves telling us about the story, instead of us showing the story.

I think this post should make us all, designers, photographers and writers, think a bit more about what we do. Some of us may reflect, research and come to the conclusion that we are fine right where we are. Some may discover ideas and tools to add to our arsenal of offerings. Both results are certainly good ones... because we stopped navel gazing and started a dialogue (internally and externally) about what we are and what we do.