Can a business facing as many challenges as it now faces have so little response ? Is the product so perfect that it just cannot be improved ? Is it destine to exist in a lifeless perfect form like some Egyptian mummy in some future iMuseum ?
Is there ever been a business so hand tied by side deals that it can no longer move or change or charge for service?
Is there no new technology or approach that can breathe life into a product that has always transformed itself in the past ,every time it has been threatened.
Every new media has brought fundamental change to the newspaper industry . Maybe it has reached it's zenith . Still we are business that depends on people reading and enjoying visual content. Nothing has changed there. The fundamentals of reading ,seeing the world around us are stronger than ever. This is not the typewriter business . This is the information business .It is adaptable .
Our people move directly into harms way to report breaking and ongoing news.There is no shortage of courageous people to do that .
This is a business that continues to attract the best , brightest and most idealistic of all generations . Other companies wish for those people .
Photography has always embraced innovation .We have seen periods of development in improved formats when photographers embraced 35mm cameras. This innovation created pictures that no other cameras could match .
There was a lens revolution , fast and long , 300 f2.8 , 400 f2.8 , 200 mm f1.8 , wide , and super wide again all f2.8 .
Fast films could not fully function and smart and innovative photographers used powerful flash units in places like Maple Leaf Gardens for 50 years . Flash technology coupled with automatic cameras with fool proof metering systems were all technological innovations .They all gave us better images , the public was not frightened or fooled.
I don't remember anyone saying a 400 f2.8 was bringing low light action too far , the way motion picture cameras frightened theatre goers when a steam locomotive was ran seemingly off the big screen into the laps of movie goers . These innovations were accepted because they produced better pictures.
Digital images , the mere ideas of being able to manipulate a picture created fear that was shrugged off because they could be sent faster and faster to the public.
With digital came fear . The fear has created a conservative state that is stifling innovation at a critical time .
The need to create better pictures will always exist and technology will always lead.
What adaptions have we seen in the editorial product?
The idea that news photographers do not set up pictures surely comes into question . Adding lighting has produced a different look . The control of light creates a sense of style and changes the editorial feel . Lighting was something that commercial photographers used exclusively. It was borrowed and adapted by news photographers . Sure it was used for necessity, but it is routinely used to establish a particular style . An editorial , photographic style . Why do we fear ,style so much. Was this the last innovation .
Lighting has become an acceptable norm , it gives the reader something different . It gives subjects that may not have any , or enough visual content on their own a different sensibility. The business photo is a good example .It mean imposing a style onto the subject , and that has become acceptable .
Lighting merges the photographers vision and joins it with technical ability . There was skeptical opposition to it at first .The reader is not fooled into thinking that the lighting is somehow natural. Give people credit.
With lens, camera , and frame quality seemingly at maximums , where is innovation going?
Capability drives creativity . When anything new is introduced creativity goes up.
The funny thing is that opposition seems automatic in a way that didn't exist before. The images created are not the issue , they have to deal with side issues . Side issues have caused paralysis in the newspaper business. Is the public going to fooled ?, is a very lame excuse . The real problem is redistribution of images and how they are used after they go on the web or in the paper . Visual Innovation has a governor , and the governor is not fussy about innovation. It would be nice if everything stayed the same . If everything stays the same we are done in ten years. The images themselves suit the medium and tech savvy public are already into it. I suppose the innovations will simply overwhelm common practice . Common practice as a label has been earned honestly . Can newspaper journalists lead ?, we really do need to lead . This is about choice and style and everything that makes product different .Newspapers were never meant to be generic.
Where should visual innovation take place if not at the level of individual photographers working at individual papers. Our companies handed most of us video cameras and alot of very innovative video has been created . Non TV news content. People in TV news respect our video approach.
If the public does not accept todays new app technology , then maybe the next new app will suceed. Only a few photographers will be burned at the stake. Big deal , they may only be freelancers and students anyway.
The future innovations will not come from faster smaller lens , faster motor drives , but will come from those things we will do on our laptops or what ever the next thing is . .
For example -
The idea that a distortion free wide angle lens has not been achieved by any lens will open up great possibilities for photographers at big events . Eye level vistas instead of distorted overhead or balcony pictures could be revolutionary . That alone will provide , the bigness of events that has eluded photographers that have ever witnessed them .
The newspaper businesses will depend of visual innovation and the photographers vision for survival in what ever form that takes. It isn't happening on TV. Reporters seem to be shy about change . How far into the future is 3d or 4d or SuperJPG for news gathering .
Topic: Histamatic App -Really (Read 1239 times)