someone I knew once referred to the current digital era as the golden age of
photography ..
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/06/06/fired-sun-times-photographers-protest-outside-newspaper/
I know our major state newspaper is also planning on laying off staff and I
understand the photographers are likely to go. Why not when the accountants
figure you can just arm every journalist with a smart phone ? I said this
years back on PF, phones were going to kick the stuffing out of conventional
cameras.
Here in West Oz, the major players in the pro photo game bailed out long
ago, their studios, once purpose built to photograph Haulpaks, service the
mining industry and record modern technological marvels were seeing less and
less work even during boomtimes until they found themselves attempting to
compete with ever cheapening competitors prices and called it a day. The
fashion shoots went to the more populous East, distributors pull stock
photos from manufacturers websites.. sure there is plenty of work for
weddings and events but the dollars changing hands are woeful.. and I have
made a hobby of colelcting some of the less than spectacular results.
This someone had not experienced the 80's boom, where even a hack, tabletop
catalogue shooter could make the average weekly wage in a day ,so he had no
real frame of reference and was happy with the idea of collecting 1/2 a days
wage to produce an rather nice image that adorned billboards and contributed
to selling land in a multimillion dollar development.
Asked recently to do a shoot, I was offered slightly more than a cleaner
gets, and only for the time spent shooting - they really wanted me to do the
shoot, they sought me out.. but they still wanted a cheap job and ended up
going elsewhere for less then impressive pictures.
I don't lecture any more, I don't shoot professionally any more - none of
this really affects me these days, but I do feel for some of the last
remaining staff photographers who are deemed redundant in this golden age of
photography
k
