Host:
Simon
Walker, Founder & CEO, Glopho
Panel Members:
Roger
Tooth, Head of Photography, The Guardian
Olivier Laurent,
News & Online Editor, British Journal of Photography
Justin
Sutcliffe, Freelance Photographer
Simon, our CEO & Founder, kicked off the
discussion by firstly introducing the rest of the panel followed by defining photojournalism and giving a quick overview of the impact of technology on the industry.
Technology Changes Everything
Technology has changed the craft of
professional photojournalism immensely in the last 20 years or so, shifting
from b/w to colour, from film to digital, almost mechanical Muirhead wire
machines to laptops and satellite phones. Today technology delivers images
almost instantaneously to the front pages of news titles that are themselves
published across a range of new digital platforms.
And in the same way, the technology available
to the consumer has impacted on the volume and availability of immediate event
coverage in pictures and video.
And of course, the proliferation of cameras
leads to the proliferation of pictures. Some 300 million pictures a day are
shared on Facebook. But how many of them would count as news? And how many of
them are of any real interest beyond the immediate network of the person
uploading? Even a picture of a news-event may not, in the hands of the layman,
contain the qualities of the same shot, using the same equipment, that an
experienced photojournalist would capture.
Perhaps then the smartphone represents a
benefit for the professional, providing an ever-ready piece of equipment to
take anywhere, to be everywhere, and available to capture any moment.
Quality
Image quality naturally enough came into the discussion
from both a technical perspective and
also from one of expertise reference was made to the iPhone images from Dan
Chung of The Guardian covering the Olympics with a number of ingenious
attachments (including binoculars) to a collection of smartphones.
In truth most agreed that those images would not stand up next to similar images taken by world-class sports photographers on more orthodox equipment, and most iPhone owners cannot be expected to reach the same heights of a photographer like Dan.
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| Dan Chung |
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| Dan Chung |
In truth most agreed that those images would not stand up next to similar images taken by world-class sports photographers on more orthodox equipment, and most iPhone owners cannot be expected to reach the same heights of a photographer like Dan.
Just be there
Or perhaps this was just a value shift? Whilst the art & craft of photography
will continue, being there remains
perhaps the most essential ingredient to a great news picture, and the lay-user
can be there in more places, more
often, than the commissioned bands of professional photographers.
Another great example offered was the
comparison of the cover of Time Magazine’s November issue. This
photo, depicting a wave that hit Coney Island during Hurricane Sandy, was taken
by a professional photojournalist, Benjamin Lowy, on an iPhone 4s without the
use of any sophisticated lens just using the app. It was felt that this was a limiting tool and
published more as a marketing exercise than through any qualified selection of
the best image available depicting the events.
iPhone the world’s most popular camera
A fact that was shared by Justin was that the
iPhone is now officially the most used camera in the world and 10% of all the
pictures ever taken were last year, most of which are of no relevance to the
reporting of news.
However another advantage of the smartphone is to
allow for far greater discretion and intimacy when used in delicate
circumstances, and a few occasions were shared with the audience of instances
that a professional photographer with recognisable equipment would be
prohibited (or worse) from taking pictures – whereas the mobile phone is
carried discretely and without the same fear of oppression in some
circumstances.
Credibility and provenance
With proliferation of technology has come the
proliferation of the hoaxers – we have almost all certainly been subjected to
manipulated images purporting to be genuine, and famous examples exist of
doctored or posed images making their way into the mainstream press such as that by Adnan Hajj (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Adnan_Hajj_Beirut_photo_comparison.jpg)
Or in another case of manipulation to sensationalise, The Citizen added dead bodies to a photo of a suicide attack scene before publishing, only to be exposed by one of their own staff (http://mg.co.za/article/2012-09-27-citizen-fires-whistleblower-of-doctored-cover-photo)
Roger Tooth and his team at The Guardian typically look at over 13,000 photos every day and to date he has only ever used a smartphone image in a small number of occasions, citing the difficulty in proving the images’ source alongside other quality issues as a key reason.
Or in another case of manipulation to sensationalise, The Citizen added dead bodies to a photo of a suicide attack scene before publishing, only to be exposed by one of their own staff (http://mg.co.za/article/2012-09-27-citizen-fires-whistleblower-of-doctored-cover-photo)
Roger Tooth and his team at The Guardian typically look at over 13,000 photos every day and to date he has only ever used a smartphone image in a small number of occasions, citing the difficulty in proving the images’ source alongside other quality issues as a key reason.
All in all a thoroughly interesting debate and
as a conclusion the overriding feeling was that whilst the smartphone was not
killing photojournalism, perhaps the news proprietors and their choices of news
were having at least as big an impact. After all, technology has been changing
the face of the news for many years already, and will continue to do so in the
years to come.
