Digital Journalism and Independent Reporting

Here here. As usual, very well put, John. Also, it’s nice to see you back here, even if it’s every once in awhile.

Coincidentally, last night I watched for the second time the film “Good Night and Good Luck”. And since I think the combined prolouge and epilogue of Edward R. Murrow are still relevant today and can easily be applied to print media, I’m going to add the quote below.

Prolouge: This just might do nobody any good. At the end of this discourse a few people may accuse this reporter of fouling his own comfortable nest, and your organization may be accused of having given hospitality to heretical and even dangerous thoughts. But the elaborate structure of networks, advertising agencies and sponsors will not be shaken or altered. It is my desire, if not my duty, to try to talk to you journeymen with some candor about what is happening to radio and television. If what I have to say is responsible, then I alone am responsible for the saying of it. Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.

Epilogue: I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us. Let us dream to the extent of saying that on a given Sunday night the time normally occupied by Ed Sullivan is given over to a clinical survey of the state of American education, and a week or two later the time normally used by Steve Allen is devoted to a thoroughgoing study of American policy in the Middle East. Would the corporate image of their respective sponsors be damaged? Would the stockholders rise up in their wrath and complain? Would anything happen other than that a few million people would have received a little illumination on subjects that may well determine the future of this country, and therefore the future of the corporations? To those who say people wouldn’t look; they wouldn’t be interested; they’re too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter’s opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck.

ok. i’m gonna read this deep topic and get back to you, Jon.

During the last few weeks, this site on global warming came to my attention and I was curious about how the photographer is doing moneywise. The page linked shows how he is funding his project. He does get to publish photos, but it looks like most of his financial support (travel and living) seems to come from private funding, individuals and families.

I have once met a man who was doing work funded privately. His was a one-man operation and he told me he had a number of sponsors for his non-profit work. At that time I was not very impressed with the man, so I did not find out much about his MO. It was before the Internet, and I don`t even remember his name, so I cannot find out how he is doing right now. I may have written down somewhere, but I have recently thrown out a lot of old private writing of mine, so his name may have been lost forever.

Sometimes musicians will form a non-profit entity while individuals in it might have employment (normally teaching at college level) and performances are funded by individual donation or some grants. Sometimes it is easier to get funded as an entity rather than an individual.

Tomoko, why don’t you email Gary? I think he is very approachable and has curated a show here for the NOLA Photo Alliance.

Hello Jon. Recently I post something about the same issue in a spanish spoken forum named Nuestra Mirada. I asking myself all the time how to get time and founds to do the work I would like to do. But apparently there are not much choices or creative methods. You put all the ways in the beginning of this post, Salgado or Delahaye. But this are for people that are really brillant in business and art merchandising (not only in photojournalism). And as you mention, sometime you have to have some luck in the right time. I think in this time we have some things to comunicate more easy at simple glance. But all the media we have at the same time are our perdition. See all the wasted media full of things that are a distraction. We live in a mediatic cacophony. And the repetition is all about buy, spend, need things or about what we can´t have, a strange form of desire. A perfect body, a perfect soul, a perfect house, a perfect camera. I think that with all the media and technology never was so difficult to comunicate something important with all the messages around. Think about the publicity in the pages. I think the last world press photo awards were not far about the simple fact that you need heavy use of photoshop in order to compete with the advertising campaigns. But there are not news about tell other stories. All the big media agenda in general. To mirror your comment about drink wine i am ending a bottle of a good cavernet sauvignon. These, apart of the family and the friends, can be a good support in between we found the answers. Sorry if I made mistakes, i write well in spanish.

Lets all take a moment to reflect and then get to producing, fostering the shift and forming this new paradigm. Thanks Jon.

-M

OK, the moments up. Jon makes a lot of good points. Everything is starting to look the same— thats a huge problem and something that we all need to address. The other problem is that everything is micro-analyzed and photographed. In the past we could find a story in the NY Times, go out and shoot that story, even if it meant flying to Timbuktu, and still be able to market that to Time or Newsweek, Life, etc. There no longer is a immediate secondary market, and there are now competent photographers all over. Finding new and interesting material is harder than ever. Its like people scouring through a garbage heap looking for treasure.

OK, off to the lab.

Hernan, amigo mio, no te desesperes. ¿Soy famoso yo? No. Y donde vivo? En una isla que no cuenta pa’ na’. Pero he logrado conseguir algunas becas y sigo en eso. El truco es que hay que comenzar con las becas pequeñas y al paso crecer su fama y su reputación por ser “confiable.” Hay que pegarte a tu camino, aunque sea solito, y no coger la vereda ofrecida por el “establishment.” Pero, ya sabes, estoy de acuerdo contigo. Es dificil. Así que, abre esa botella de Cabernet o de Malbec y sigue tu camino!!!!! (ay dios, ese vino de Argentina, no hay mejor!!!!!!)

What Jon is saying is that there are small opportunities for regional photographers but that it is possible, even for one who is not famous, to establish a good reputation and gradually build on that—and I agree with that.

Andy is totally correct here. The internet is a total God send of access, information, and resources that us older folks never had in the past. The downside is that this same resource opens the flood gates for everyone who thinks he’s a photog to post total crap and upend the serious pro community. Too much stuff,even here on LS, looks the same. Fine tune the work more, make it yours more, and maybe the phone will ring more.Maybe? A thought.

PS…My response has nothing to do with photojournalism. I’m not a PJ. Just common sense.

Yes, Greg, I think that those are important ideas to get across…..think before you upload to DR, LS, wherever. Putting out less than your best is never in your interest…if you look at those who are getting invited to Magnum, and vii, these photographers are keeping their stuff very very tight. If you have three great shots don’t surround them with seconds just to get them out there— never, ever.

John, I like your remarks about writing – I’m a writer first, and a photographer second… some days. Other days its the opposite. Or both. They’re just two ways of expressing myself (I have others!), and I don’t really seperate them so much. They’re tools in my bag.

As someone who’s sort of drifted into photography, I’m sometimes embarrassed by conversations where I don’t recognise the name of someone famous. On the other hand, I do get a sense – here on LS occasionally, but more likely elsewhere – that there’s a lot of people running arnd worrying about what photography should be like, or what photojournalism should be. Why not decide for oneself what photojournalism “is”, and then pursue it? Surely it’s more original, personal that way? Did Capa, Cartier-Bresson etc. fret about the validity of what they were doing, or did they just go do it? I don’t know…

There’s a quote I found on Wikipedia:
“Don’t keep the label of a surrealist photographer. Be a photojournalist. If not you will fall into mannerism. Keep surrealism in your little heart, my dear. Don’t fidget. Get moving!” (Capa to Cartier Bresson?)

To me that’s deciding what you’re going to be is a bit like yanking the elephant from the wrong end. One doesn’t decided to be a painter because one is a fan of Gaugin or Van Gogh. One is driven to express, and if painting, or sculpture, or writing, or music, or photography or dancing or whatever seems to be the correct medium for that time and place or that period of one’s life, then so be it.

I’ll quit gabbing now. But I’ll leave you with Heinlein:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

-Robert A. Heinlein

YEah, me too Dave, I really dont know what I am. If I were a better musician I would add that into the mix. Text has always been easy for me, I started reading at a very early age, so I consider writing a snap and in fact that is how I earn most of my living these days, though finally am getting to mix it up a bit more and do pieces that involve both text and imagery (look for me in the Miami Herald, among others). But really I believe we all need to think outside the box more. There were complaints on this forum about the trend of papers to send out their text people with point and shoots and thus save on personnel. Well, that works both ways. No reason why we cant carry along pen and paper and do some reporting — it is easier than fussing with a recorder and getting oral history. Writing is easy, really. No need to be a genius when you write for the papers, just learn basic journo style. Then of course you can be more creative and conceive of it as another challenge and another means of getting your ideas out there. Just read a little bit of Larry Towell, or Gene Smith or Gene Richards and you will instantly see how well text can be made to work with imagery and that it only takes a bit of imagination. And reading. Good lord, you should all be reading, constantly. Hell, all the energy spent in blah, blah, blahing here on LS could easily be channeled into textual reporting.

Love that Heinlein quote by the way. And he is right. I am not doing too badly I guess: I´ve changed diapers, dressed wounds, given and taken orders, comforted the dying (and the living), butchered chickens and cattle, shot guns and loosed arrows, analyzed more than my share of problems, programed computers, cooked thousands of meals, fought a few too many battles, and am about to build my first house. Havent died yet, thank god.

As far as worrying about what the photography should look like, my saving grace as a photographer may just be the fact that I dont have a clue what it should look like. I feel so ridiculous with a camera round my neck that shooting is often a painful experience. When I was a college student, I was very interested in Art History and I wanted to learn to paint or draw or whatever — so I enrolled in a drawing class and I remember working with a group on a live model, the teacher wandering round behind us sizing up our progress. He commented on everyone’s work except mine, because I guess it was just so bad. I never got over that. I am a photographer who feels he has no innate photographic feeling or talent. And yet, I like my pix, maybe just because they tell the story I want to tell. YOu know, I had a bout of amnesia at one point this year, and when this brief and terrifying but interesting moment passed I immediately reviewed all the family foto albums, first off, to make sure the connections were all still there, and then I went to my own fotos and reviewed them all. I decided that in fact I wasnt really too bad a photographer!

Andy as usual has good advice too. Definitely keep it tight, keep close control over your material, publish less that says more. I remember when I was at Black Star and saw how some photographers bridled at the editing, but they didnt realize that there was no good reason for dumping the whole load in the library, it just diluted the material and made you look bad. Pick the best, stick with that. If the imagery is good no one will tire of seeing it. My website hasnt been updated for quite some time, but those few essays do the trick. People see it, they know where I stand, they know what they are getting and I never cease to get compliments on it. Actually, now that I have a little time I will be editing the old Dark Horse site, and changing some of the imagery as well as adding maybe one or two new things. But basically I believe in keeping it short and sweet.

Though there is another model you might wish to consider: John VInk conceives of his site as a kind of library of all his stories, and frankly I love that site, you can get lost wandering around in all that wonderful material. So there is another side to this, but I would say that unless you are an established photog of long experience with many good stories to tell, you are probably better off keeping it short and sweet. Alot of sites I see are full of chaff — give me the wheat, man.

The dynamic nature of one’s abilities described by Jon and in the quote from Heinlein is exactly where we should be looking. As a photographer, collecting visual moments and editing them together in some sequence to tell a story one is writing, one is pulling together elements of a certain ‘grammar’ to communicate a theme, some information, some affective vibe to whoever takes the time to read/look/gaze upon it, or at least that’s what we’re trying to do, right? So, what of adding new modes to that mix? What of sound? What of the combination of the two to tell a story, to communicate some information, to transpose some sort of affective vibe about a moment in time? That’s where the power of multimedia, the collision of multiple media forms into one space – a new form – lies. All of a sudden, we can not only tell stories as a combination of textual passage and visual representation, but with the addition of the sound of a human voice, the sound of a crowd cheering, the sound of a bomb reverberating through a city… the textual, the visual, the audible and the movement of video can be in one space and can collide with each other in both predictable and unpredictable ways.

Our opportunity is to explore these new potential forms and to see how they can work, to see how we can bring the communicative traditions of modern photojournalism into this new space… On the other hand, however, our scourge is that we’re the ones practicing at this moment of great shift – while the potential to create new works in new modes is there, old modes of professional support are drying up and so who’s gonna buy so we can produce more of it? Only time, and the pressure of professional producers pushing the envelope and pushing media organisations to pay fair rates for the time such works take to produce well, will tell.

One factor that could hold huge sway for the future of (now) interactive visual journalism, really what photojournalism is now becoming, is for currently influential agencies and collectives to jump on the online bandwagon and get busy producing/pushing good multimedia content on similar grounds to the model used for singles and photographic essays of the modern era of photojournalism. World Picture News (to an extent) and Magnum in Motion are two bodies that are beginning to do this, but how successfully their content is selling is another story. Aurora Photos has advertised a position for a New Media intern on their website, so obviously they’re planning on expanding into this area. What about Reuters, AP, etc on this front? Haven’t seen anything myself… But, the potential for that is there. But, then this jumps back to an old conundrum, the direction of one’s work through an institutional structure, a series of editorial gatekeepers who may or may not approve, who may or may not edit and cut one’s work in a way that it becomes something other than that intended by the original producer. So, perhaps pushing one’s own work through one’s own potential online channels is the way forward? But, then, who pays?

Here we reach the point of requiring a critical mass, a certain force of ‘so many’ committed photojournalist-multimedia producer-videographer-writers producing ‘interactive visual journalistic multimedia stories’ (or whatever you want to call them… I like the ambiguity of these new forms in name, I must admit). Imagine if even half the photographers on Lightstalkers each produced one good multimedia photo essay – what are there, 19 000 of us now? What an archive that would be… However, this critical mass required is multi-pronged. Not only does there need to be supply in the market, but demand also. Would the web divisions of TIME, The New York Times, The Independent, The Sydney Morning Herald, Newsweek, Mediastorm, etc etc etc, start accepting (and paying fair rates for) freelancers’ multimedia works? Perhaps… maybe they already are and I’m misinformed.

So, the potential for a new age of visual journalistic storytelling is right here, right now… but the support structures for professionals in this field are not yet in place. Or, at least, not anywhere near the structures that support magazine contract photographers and so on…

But now, Jon, we come back to an interesting meeting with the beginning of this thread. I’ve produced a couple of multimedia photo essays. Nothing too flash, but a bit here and there, and mostly with tools I consider a little agricultural, a little clumsy, to be using on a tight news deadline {(then again, maybe I’m just too slow so far)}. An SLR or two, a mic bolted to the top of one camera body, ala videography, or in my pocket ready for quick-draw-mcgraw style audio recording, and a non-linear video editing software suite like Final Cut Pro. Now, while jamming all this content together in this way works and can produce some cool results, it’s very very time consuming… There are faster ways of producing these works, in particular by using something like Soundslides, but I don’t like the way this forces me to produce my audio track away from my images, not allowing me to edit them both simultaneously and play with synchronising or contrasting the two.

So, there are issues with equipment, but on the other hand of all this I like the experimental nature of these forms and the physicality of producing them… But in a commercial arena that kind of mucking about won’t really cut it. So, back to the drawing board or maybe just more practice. Problems… solution = experimentation.

But, ultimately I agree, Jon. The key is not tools or the D70000 or the new audio-something-something recorder, but the new modes of storytelling that are made available in this moment. I think, in this arena, we should all take a little of Brian Massumi’s approach to writing:

“Take joy in your digressions. Because that is where the unexpected arises. That is the experimental aspect. If you know where you will end up when you begin, nothing has happened in the meantime. You have to be willing to surprise yourself writing things that you didn’t think you thought… You have to let yourself get so caught up in the flow of your own writing that it ceases at moments to be recognisable to yourself as your own. This means you have to be prepared for failure. For with inattention comes risk: of silliness or even outbreaks of stupidity. But perhaps in order to write experimentally, you have to be willing to "affirm” even your own stupidity." (Massumi, ‘Parables of the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation’, 2002).

for me there are two areas to concentrate on these days.the first is good old film.shoot film,make prints,keep photography a highly skilled craft.dont invest thousands of euros every year on soon to be obsolete equipment,invest it in a darkroom and giving yourself time to travel and work.sell prints,do long term stories on film that can have their own look.

the second area is video.any half decent photographer can operate a video cam,you just need to spend a bit of time learning the language of moving images.you can go to work,film some instantly forgettable footage(usually) fot the tv,go home and forget about it,leaving your energy for photography untouched.

Well Michael, you started with “for me” but proceeded to tell us what we should not do. I’m ecstatic that it works for you but it would bankrupt my stupid bank. Film, digital, video, who cares? As Jon said in the header post: “The thing that counts is your vision”.

yes,jon did say that.but he said a plenty of other things as well.

and i am not telling anyone what to do,i am just telling it how i see it.works for me,if you dont agree,work your way.

at least i actually gave an opinion about jons ideas,which is more than the great majority do.its not gospel mate,its just opinions and ideas.we all have our own.

My opinion on it ain’t worth writing or reading. Instead, I’m trying to come up with just one stupid snap worth a thousand words.

Jon :))

welcome “return” Prodigal Brother ! ;))))…i enjoyed reading the post very much and am in sync with almost everything you’ve written. sadly, i too spend very little time here at LS any more for many of reasons you’ve sited instead spending most of my ‘on-line’ time at the dah blog, where the tembre is about storytelling, photography, community and harnessing new methods of not only social networking in order to conjure and distribute stories, but also to transcend the mere tech talk….the truth is, i’ve never ever understood either the old (now new) nomenclatura nor their language and synthesis of ideas. The truth is that we’re all more properly and more ably equipped now, more than ever, to embed within the stories that we hope to speak upon and share. I, in truth, have felt remarkably emancipated over the last 5 years. Some of this comes from the good fortune, like you, of being both a writer and a photographer and seeing how seemlessly they converge and diverge enabling stories to be gathered and told in increasingly more interesting and expansive ways. Adding additional tools (film, sound, research, sociology, history, interactivity with subjects and readers) has simply made it increasingly more challenging and rewarding for me as a story teller. Remember, when i first joined LS more than 3 years ago, it seemed than the you and i were the dudes trying to get folk to consider themselves not as photographers but singers of narratives, songs, tales. As with you, money has always been a major bane in our life (family with child, both parents being artists), but we’ve made do by working (teaching for example), selling work, getting grands, finding $$$ somewhere, networking, all of which seems to me to be no different that the variety of modes of story telling. How is getting money any different? That’s the key, at least for me: to REIMAGINE. not to confine, either in the sourcing of projects nor in the away those projects are told. im working on a book now with words, images and poems, funded from lots of different corners, covering an array of forms (i hope not too many), and i hope when finish, the book will also speak about the possibility for each of us: narratively, photographically, experientially….

the future lay, as it always has, with the continual reinvention and reimagination of ourselves. while all the clever tech stuff is nice (the cameras, the software, the hardware, the blogs, the social networks, the tricks) they are all just still secondarily to the drum-beat of self-invention, self-negotiation…the place and the story in the end as always been, from day one when we licked up ourselves from the bottom of the bog, has been imagination and the mind, the mind, the mind, the mind….what i loved the most about your project (the website) on the Dominican Republic and the cane workers, the religion, the migrant lives and colonial history (present and past) was that it eclipsed it’s own sense of self: photography, history, sociology, narration….

OUR BIGGEST TOOL IS OUR MIND, OUR IMAGINATION…let us not slip-shot past that fundamental point, not ever…we harness the tools which harness us so that we are still the inventors, even if it means annihilating our own sense of selves…..WALL-E ;)))….

burn all bridges with tongues of fire, joy racings closely below….

soon will post (when i finish) a new essay encorporating language, images and something else ;))

the new world is bigger than Multimedia: it’s bigger than connectivity, it’s about the endless infinite fertility of our minds and the stories therein contained…

go gettem Jon Anderson! :))

hugs
bob

“while all the clever tech stuff is nice (the cameras, the software, the hardware, the blogs, the social networks, the tricks) they are all just still secondarily to the drum-beat of self-invention, self-negotiation…the place and the story in the end as always been, from day one when we licked up ourselves from the bottom of the bog, has been imagination and the mind, the mind, the mind, the mind….”

ok,. bob, totally agree. but, surely, if we don’t understand these new tools on a level of their actual functions then how can we test and explore their potentials in the arena of imagination, storytelling and communication? did capa and cartier-bresson pick up their at-the-time-revolutionary 35mm cameras and know them innately? i doubt it… more likely they undertook a process of communciative AND technical experimentation, testing the limits and potentials of their new tools before they mastered them and in turn set up (with others, of course) an entire set of socio-cultural conventions that we now know as photojournalism.

tools of communication are tools of expression, and what is possible right now are entirely and very exciting new modes of communication and expression – modes of channeling ideas and imagination.

“the new world is bigger than Multimedia: it’s bigger than connectivity, it’s about the endless infinite fertility of our minds and the stories therein contained…”

BAM! so let’s figure out how we can break some rules and set up new vessels for the channeling of ideas, of imagination, of the content carried by photojournalism (and journalism broadly) up till now that is so important.

Hey everybody, check out this related SportsShooter article by Vincent Laforet:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2014

Here are some excerpts..

“One of the other challenges big media companies face is that they’re run by people in their 50s and 60s – who just really aren’t hip to the current trends, and the internet – relative to the 12-30 year olds that are fueling the growth and evolution of the web, not to mention overall trends.”

“Do you know that there are more than 20,000 graduates with degrees in photography released EACH year in the U.S. alone by colleges/universities? Contrast that to the negative 100 or so staff jobs opening up each year (that’s a total guess on my part) and you do the math… The freelance market is becoming incredibly over saturated… and that worries me a LOT.”

“Photographers will have to think of themselves as visual storytellers – not just as still photographers. Photographers will becomes much more adept at producing multimedia content – not just boring slide shows w/ music – but ones that are truly engaging and original – basically they need to invent the next generation of storytelling – something we haven’t seen before (i.e. they need to differentiate themselves from HBO Documentaries, and the other broadcast giants – not try to compete with them…) And this is key: Photographers need to brainstorm new ways to connect with their audiences and find new and original ways of generating income with these new "connections.” Photographers need to be ACTIVELY involved in thinking up new ways of generating income in a fashion that will be acceptable to their modern, hip audience."

“I think that diversification is the trick to long-term survival in this new market.”

“If I were 22-years old right out of college looking for a job or a career path, I wouldn’t be focusing on working on x newspaper to get to y newspaper and then eventually z magazine with my 20 image portfolio that contains 2 spot news photos, 4 sports pix, 4 feature photos, and a 10 picture story. That model is dead – to put it bluntly. I’d be thinking big – realizing that I have a chance to be a pioneer in this new world of opportunity. Trying to think up of the next big thing.”

“The next best way that photography and visual journalism can be shared with others and a way of packaging it and delivering it that has yet to exist. I’d be excited. Perhaps I’d consider creating my own web publication, and finding news ways to promote it and to generate income – as opposed to relying on the media giants that rely on the "old world business models” and rights-grabbing contracts."

“If you harness the power of the web you’ve cut out the single biggest expense and are far, far ahead of these media giants. The World Wide Web is your oyster.”

Vince Laforet has been one of my journalism idols for years,
apparently we share a consensus of opinion!

Where’s Sion?

Nice one Pat, I’ll read it in full and get back to you on this post asap!

Patrick, I appreciate your attitude. I can tell you that many people are trying to create this new model and have been for awhile, and that almost no one has managed to make money at this…..some of them are here on LS. Look at Ball Sall for example, Blue Eyes, Dispatches, Daylight magazine, etc. So far there is no money in this, and the work is very time consuming.

Thanks Andy. I know most nobody is making money at this. I saw that coming a long time ago.
If I’m not mistaken, even Mediastorm makes most of its income off of PR work.

I make my income through a “diversified” skillset.
I can design websites, edit videos, write copy, animate motion graphics, do voiceovers, et cetera.

I gave up on trying to make money on photojournalism years ago.
Things I do photojournalism related typically are not for the money,
but rather for personal reasons.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, or that I haven’t tried my best to think up solutions for the industry,
but multimedia literacy does provide income opportunities throughout a variety of market sectors.

Not just editorial.

Thank you, Jon, for a thoughtful, well-written, thought provoking essay. I actually wrote a long reply which was inadvertently erased. I began by asking Andy how his own alternative activities worked for him, referring to the Mardi Gras project that I almost participated in. It seemed to be a great way to inject life into a personal project, potentially get some income, help to train new generations of photographers, and use photography in a public way.

I wonder about the ability of community based networks to support alternative cultural and pj projects. Certainly it may become a new way of getting work out there to large numbers of people, if the corporate behemoths don´t figure a way to privatize them or otherwise curtailing public access. There was an important conference on Media Freedom in Minneapolis a short while ago, an event that will be repeated every year, I understand. Perhaps it´s worth keeping an eye on and participating in.

I also had a wonderful experience hanging a show on Native Maize (Pueblos de maíz) in the local marketplace in Cusco, Perú at a conference I attended. I decided that I wanted the public at large to see the show, and not just the congress goers. The dialogue was colorful, and I was able to see the response of people to the images. They were drawn in by the presence of objects not normally in that space. Though the public is small, the direct contact is wonderful, far different from webbased media.

Jon´s essay opens the floor for lots of creative thinking as to how to construct narratives. The responses and the overall quality of peoples´reflections on the theme are encouraging. I had written lots more, but that´s sort of the gist of what I said originally.

I also mentioned working with NGOs as a way to do meaningful work and as a way to keep working. I think we need to be looking for mutually beneficial relationships.

Eso es todo de momento. Mucho gusto, Jon. y Salud!

David, the project went well, but the balance between financial realities, both my own and those of the teachers and students is tough to work out. Also, I have some stories that I want to shoot and thats a priority for me right now.

Well, it is good to see that I am provoking some thoughtful commentary, even though, due to my present intermittent connection to the internet, I cannot really respond in kind to everything here.

“Take joy in your digressions. Because that is where the unexpected arises. That is the experimental aspect.”

RIGHT ON. I couldnt think of a better definition for my own storytelling practice, whether it be writing or shooting. I like to give myself over entirely to the process, not think about it all, go intuitive, surrender yourself to image and metaphor and let those forces direct you. You edit later, that is where conscious thought comes in, but it shouldnt be given too much sway. And the beautiful irony of it all is that both writing and shooting are governed by this supreme paradox: both,if you let them be, are demonic possessive processes, but they are also EMPIRICAL. They are tied to reality. Think about that. A wonderful paradox.

Ed raises excellent points. If we are to innovate, and I totally agree with Laforet on this, whom Patrick cites, then we need sophisticated tools like Final Cut. Soundslides just doesnt cut it, for all the reasons that Ed outlines so ably. Though I will be using it for one or two of the slideshows I have planned for the Dominican Batey site, the main feature will certainly be composed out of Final Cut or my older combo (iMovie,etc, tutorial can be seen here on LS). I also agree with Laforet that we shouldnt be competing with HBO but creating a vision of our own as to how we might create new storytelling forms. We also have problems facing us with regard to distributing the material, because although the web promises us the best and broadest distribution ever, we still have problems with webstreaming that significantly restrict our ability to deliver high tech, massive files. And let’s not forget that many of us are lagging behind in the digital gap — I am not the only one who has problems with reliable fast internet connections. John Vink in Cambodia has complained on LS about this as well. And i am luckier than he is: in fact DR has good telecommunications, but it is prohibitively expensive and since we have constant blackouts, it is very hard to work here. There are many other related problems that hamper my ability to work on line. So I tend not to download the slideshows and other multimedia stuff, because it just takes so long and completely destroys the effect. Think about that when you consider pulling out all the bells and whistles. your audience might not be able to access any of it.

Which is why I would caution that we not throw out the baby with the bath water, and remember that narrative sophistication is not restricted to our new technological forms — have a look at Homer’s Iliad, friends, a close look, and you will see a piece of literature that is composed merely of words but is so complex, the narrative is one of the most sophisticated ever created. Or try the Bible. Just read Genesis once. If you read it without the usual religious prejudices, and just focus on the structure, you will be amazed. Hey, there is no new thing under the sun. My point is that while we oooo and aaaahh over our new tools, we cannot afford to ignore the fact that the tried and true narrative forms of the past still have all the power we need to communicate. Also, remember that writing, for example, is music — Right? A well turned phrase, a sentence composed not according to Prof. Dryasdust’s grammatical requirements, but as a musical phrase with rhythm and rhyme and themes and variations — such a sentence can do a helluva lot to make a strong statement. Compare John Donne’s “periods” (not sentences at all in our sense) or read Proust, James, Conrad, whoever — these guys dont write sentences, they write musical phrases. YOu get lost in their prose.

But my love of literary tradition doesnt mean that I wouldnt forge ahead with our new materials. But we have to be realistic. Good production values mean time consuming work, as Ed points out. So how do we get clients to pay for that and wait for that, when, at least for our editors, the whole point of digital is convenience and speed, which unfortunately may tend to dumb down our product rather than amplify it. Well we need to examine pay and publication arrangements from the past and see what we can glean from it all — remember that news photogs have always been hampered by deadlines,s o swift turnover of material is nothing new. But the web has made available to us a new model for the photo essay, as we can see on Mediastorm for example. More indepth documentary material. will the Mediastorm model take hold, grow, spawn competitors? Or will the timid approach taken so far by the media giants, which in my view, are pretty much hidebound, be the model for the future? I am getting requests now for multimedia submissions, but the truth is what they want is just a slideshow and a bit of soundtrack, not at all what i think is warranted and what is possible. We will need to come up with a model that retains high production values, learns from Hollywood filmmaking (and Hollywood financing too maybe), but somehow manages to satisfy the peculiar requirements of our chosen field: journalism. Which means that our documentaries may never acquire the density or depth of a full length feature — but maybe that is not a bad thing. Concision is the key to what we will be doing, certainly; laconic productions can perhaps be even more powerful than long movies. One of the problems with some of the soundtracks I have listened to over the past year is that the “authors” dont edit them down properly, so yes while we get a visceral thrill from hearing live sound, live voices, we are bored to tears by their interminable blah blah blah. Veracity is one thing; but life needs to be edited.

Sorry, this is a bit rambling and unclear, and I gotta fly. But I will be back with more if the thread continues to unwind.