Toronto Star Big Picture Month

[Warren Toda]

Sadly, the Toronto Star has killed its annual "Big Picture of the Month" feature which used to run daily each August. I guess photography isn't worth celebrating any more.

It's too bad there wasn't some sort of  –  oh, I don't know  –  big sports event happening. If you could somehow get the world's best athletes together, that might help create some interesting and inspiring photos. The paper could celebrate photography that celebrates human achievement.

Failing that, it's too bad the Star is just a start-up. Imagine if the paper was, say, 120 years old. Think of the pictures it could pull from its archive! Each day in August, maybe it could rerun a picture from the corresponding day somewhere in the past 120 years.

What if the paper could figure out a way to involve the little people? Sorry, I forget their names .... it's those people we take for granted .... the folks who give us their daily loose change. Oh yeah, the readers.

 

Aside: The Star used to run an annual photo contest for readers and it was a big deal. Now, the paper continues to run only its writing contest. But that's a good thing because today, anyone can take a great picture: just push a button and let the digital camera do all the work. No talent required, just Hipstamatic. But writing! Reasonably good spelling is not enough. Apparently, getting the words in the right order requires a lot of work.

 

If only school kids had some spare time during the summer. Then, it might be possible to have a photo contest for them: "What I did on my summer vacation", "What inspires me", "The best thing about my neighbourhood", "What needs to be changed".

Imagine if the city of Toronto had a photo archive. Imagine having ~156 years worth of *free* pictures to choose from. Each day in August, the paper could run an old picture alongside the exact same view today.


Oh well. Pictures are a waste of time anyway. All they do is take up space. It's not like anyone looks at them. The fact that Rupert Murdoch's The Daily just announced it's closing its entire editorial department, and minimizing its sports department, in favour of boosting its use of visuals (graphics, photography and video) because it's been proven that visuals, not text, draw readers, doesn't really mean anything.

[Jack Simpson]

Was that sarcasm Mr. Today?

 

Jack

[Ken Gigliotti]

  Biblical , an Eye for and Eye ,the “eye's have it”. Eye-yeye-eye ! 1900 paid up news photographers , wow.
  The spelling of photographer , geez with so many bad spellers  like mayself it is surprising the profession would have so many letters . It reminds me of the Spanish language with so many words and names starting with the letter "j" , a letter that has no sound .
  Life must be too  good and there are too many pictures in the "product" - Just what do we call it again ? The thing that holds all the content .Used to be called  a newspaper  or an online thing-a-mabobber , what do we call both in singular. That would be a good project for people who can argue for an hour the placement of a comma . The  whole thing sounds like more of a word problem .Will print ever get a handle on pictures ? Not in my lifetime .
  Why are problems at the Star so much bigger than anywhere else? Why?  I know , nobody care what I think .
  Really nobody cares , what I think. I think that  is sad.
   We have a picture feature that for years was called  , the Year in Pictures .( would sneak some unpublished pics in to snag a clip  for the contest , under the old rules )  Each photog would put up a portfolio  of the last 12 months . It would run on the web as a slide show and some on a page or two during the  Christmas , New Years  week . (Did I say Christmas ?)  Somehow it got changed to the ,Photographers Favourites , and on the picture marketing spot , Photographer's Fav's . The first year was a disaster , with all the news pictures and tragedy .After protests and comments , it again somehow reappeared  the next year unchanged . Maybe next year.Surprisingly many cute , nice and pretty pictures were displayed .Offering pictures for sale seems like a good idea when they are kids and sports pics but there ARE “those other pictures' , hum .