On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Bob W <p...@web-options.com> wrote: >> From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On Behalf Of >> Bruce Walker >> >> A sobering essay to ponder: >> >> "As far as I can see — admittedly from ground level — there are two >> possible effects on “serious” photography. >> >> 1. The flowering of photographers leads to millions of people who are >> thinking more visually and whom we may be able to entice to become an >> audience for documentary and photojournalistic images. >> >> 2. We are bombarded with so much visual stimuli via the Web and social >> media that it becomes almost impossible to rise above the flood of >> images. And if everyone likes everything, no one photograph is better >> than another." >> >> http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/in-an-age-of-likes- >> commonplace-images-prevail/ >> > > The situation is not so different from writing. There are probably more > literate people in the world than there are people with cameras, and billions > of emails are written every day - mostly on the PDML, it seems - yet somehow > good writers still come to the fore. I see no reason for photography to be > significantly different, and don't see why it should claim any special status. > > The blogger claims "The question is: How does the photographic community > harness this explosion of visual energy to expand its audience? This is what > needs to be focused on." Yet he does not explain why this needs to be focused > on. > > People who want to be 'literate' photographers will take photographs which > appeal to that audience. Most people do not want to be literate > photographers, just as most writers of emails and postcards don't want to be > literary novelists or magazine writers.
Bob, you say "yet somehow good writers still come to the fore". I believe that the future of this "somehow" is uncertain. Up until now, editors made sure that we read worthwhile writers, but newspapers and magazines are losing their readership. More and more people are depending on the net as their source. Editors of any quality are disappearing and we are subject to the raw feed, so we get things like the PDML. :-) Folks who care are managing to find a few respectable sources, but even editors need to live. There's still no credible business model for this thing. -- -bmw -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
