National Freelancers Photo Project

[Jimmy Jeong]

Hi everyone, I posted lasted week about the opportunity for freelancers to work on a national photo project. I think it would be great to offer some more opportunities and support for the growing number of freelancers in NPAC. Please let us know if you have any comments or advice.
cheers,
Jimmy

[Aaron Hinks]

I won't be participating but as a viewer I would love to see Canadiana. We live in such a diverse country, Canadiana can be shown in so many unique ways, good and bad.

[Kenneth Armstrong]

And really the other four choices could be seen as sub-categories of Canadiana.

Like, the project is Canadiana and each participant brings one shot each of winter, energy, social issues and a portrait to complete it. When everyone's work is completed it would be quite a project.

[Moe Doiron]

From an editor's point of view none of those grab me. If we're to compete with great photojournalism we need to look beyond the contrived and the obvious. Quite frankly all of these option should be related to social issues and how these issues affect the daily life of Canadians. That, is your Canadian connection.

I'd like to see photographers make tough choices, not easy ones. We don't need another portrait series.

Energy is a good start. Others that should be explored: income inequality, single-parent families, older population working longer, is the retirement dream gone?, native issues (many options here), millennials and the workforce, disappearing manufacturing jobs, how layoffs affect families, disappearing cultures, farming, immigration, urban racial issues, rural racial issues, domestic violence ... to name just a few.

[Jimmy Jeong]

Thanks Moe, Aaron and Kenneth. This project is for the NPAC members and I hope everyone feels that they can contribute to the discussion. This has the potential to be a rewarding project if we all take ownership of it. I've added a couple more themes, but please add your voice to this discussion.

[Hannah Yoon]

I agree with Moe. I think going deep into how Canadians experience life and define who they are around the issues that we face would be a good one.

If we have ideas on certain topics to explore, would you start to keep track of it now or see how things come about at the end of the year? Should we letting you know?

How long will this national project last? I can't remember if you had proposed it to be for a year.

[Warren Toda]

Next year, two major things will happen:

1) Shania Twain turns 50
2) A federal election

Let's assume only one of those are of national importance. But since we won't get access to Shania, we're stuck with the election.


In exactly one year and one week from today, we will have a federal election, unless the government decides to call one earlier (possibly next spring). So for now, maybe consider early September 2015 (a month before the election) to be the deadline.

What is important enough to be an election issue?

• The economy:   Most of what we do day to day relates to the economy, (older population working longer, retirement dream gone, disappearing manufacturing jobs, layoffs). (Yes the irony of laid-off photographers doing a story on layoffs).

Canada just a few weeks ago signed a free trade deal with the European Union. Just as you learned to say "NAFTA", you will in 2016 have to learn to say "CETA". The latter has the potential to dwarf the former.

This is a very wide ranging topic.

• Income equality:   Canadian women earn about 68% that of men. US comedian Sarah Silverman last week launched a campaign to "Close the (wage) Gap" in the USA. She has a new video for this which I won't link to but it's easy to find.

• Health care:   This is a wide-open topic and it extends into senior care, long term (critical) care, etc. Current news includes assisted suicide, equal access to services (New Brunswick's new premier just said he will expand access to abortion), patients who have to travel to another city or province for treatment, affordable prescription drugs.

It can be difficult to get media access for stories on medical issues. Nevertheless, stories should be more about people than hospitals, governments or treatments.

• (Cyber)bullying:   is this too narrow of a topic ?

• Communication:   this could include (cyber)bullying. Cellphones, Internet, Facebook, Twitter. I know couples who text each other more than they talk.  Not sure where to go with this.

•  The Age of Aquarius -  made famous in the 1960s by a pop song and associated with free speech, trust, universal understanding and peace. Now, almost 50 years later, where did it all go wrong? Are we worse off today?

• Is the Canadian Dream dead?  What is/was the Canadian Dream (other than owning a Tim Hortons franchise)? This overlaps with economy but this includes both urban and rural, English and French, big cities and small towns, young and old, positive and negative. It's partly about the economy but it's more about hope for the future and the ability of people to adapt to changing times. Changing times often means changing dreams.

Perhaps "Canadiana" is our ability to adapt without losing our Canadian values. We adapt and change paths but we don't lose our sensibilities - we still expect equal opportunity, universal healthcare, a sense of right and wrong, cheap pizza, and maybe even a winning lottery ticket someday.

[Blair Gable]

What would the point of the project be?

Busy work, a feature for the NPAC website?

Attempting to collaborate, curate, edit, pitch, sell, etc. would be an absolute nightmare.

An end goal could help define the theme + effort.

[Jimmy Jeong]

Some kind-of-answers:

Ok, forgive me because I'm new at this. I don't have all the answers but was hoping that we can all come to some mutual understanding and agreement about how far we want to take this project. Really, it's up to the membership. Keep in mind that this particular post was about a proposed idea. And I wanted to hear what topic people would be interested in working on, if at all.

I was hoping that we can set a deadline for March 1, 2015. A shorter timeline will help keep us motivated and on track.
Only one photo per photographer, and each photographer is paired with another photographer. Thought we could do veteran paired with a newer freelancer or we can do east and west. The idea being we help each other and get to know one another. And then the pair produces a diptych on a theme within the larger story/issue. We then try to promote the series by seeing if we can get it published in one of the bigger outlets or photo blogs as well as on our own NPAC site. If we do get it published then we use the proceeds plus the help of sponsorship to get the series printed for display at the NPAC conference.

Again, this is just a proposed idea. If you all hate it then we don't have to do it. And again, what happens with the series really depends on the membership and how it turns out.

What I'm hoping to get are answers to some of these questions from the membership. Any helpful constructive advice is always appreciated. And I will try to answer any questions you might have.

cheers,
Jimmy

[Blair Gable]

Got it. I think that once money is introduced into the equation things will get sticky. Obviously the project would need to be paid for if it is published, otherwise it is just harmful and counter-productive. Putting the monies paid back into NPAC, scholarship, print series, etc. is a good idea.

I am happy to participate, but as for the theme, means, end-goals, whatevs, I am indifferent. Things get ugly if people don't get what they were expecting because expectations weren't managed out of the gate.

[Jimmy Jeong]

Good point Blair. This whole design/decide by committee is a tough process so good that you ask these questions and we try to get it out now. Hopefully people have a desire to contribute to our community and I really do think we can produce a great project.

[Robin Rowland]

Moe said

If we're to compete with great photojournalism we need to look beyond the contrived and the obvious. Quite frankly all of these option should be related to social issues and how these issues affect the daily life of Canadians. That, is your Canadian connection.

I agree it shouldn't be obvious but I disagree with the criterion.  Most of the topics have been done over and over again for decades. Especially Energy. PhotoSensitive did an energy series a few years ago. While there are highly talented Canadian photographers doing long term projects on the bitumen sands, it is such a hot topic that everyone wants to get into the act and recently some Americans announced as if it were new that they're doing major projects around Fort Mac.

Same with Northern Gateway.  You have some highly talented photographers coming up here but they don't stick around for long probably a week at most.  I know that photographers from Chicago, LA and New York have come up here in the past year or two and hired the most expensive guides in town. Yet I've never seen any of that work appear and so I am wondering if it's just "obvious" as Moe says.   At least a dozen people have walked or driven or flown along the Northern Gateway route. Again so far haven't seen much come out of that.

We recently had a tour here in Kitimat of one of the LNG project sites. A reporter from a once great Canadian newspaper used an iphone on the tour. Probably got some good shots of the site but missed the bald eagle and great blue heron overhead or the boats down in the Channel or the LNG site disappearing in the fog and rain. My colleagues had a Canon Rebel and a small Sony point and shoot...both had zooms which the Iphone didn't.

The better idea is that the local photographer whether in a small town or a big city knows what the non-obvious great stories are and that should be the shoot rather trying to put everything into a neat categorized package. Maybe if the partnership idea works out then the partner would find a similar story either in the same or another location.

And since this would be a NPAC project, we don't have to worry about what an outside editor wants at this point.  If the final package is worthwhile, it will find a place outside of our own website.

[Jack Simpson]

Jimmy …. Presumably March 1st, 2015   

Cheers,

Jack