photojournalism.co.uk

Autumn leaves

Dominick Tyler - Autumn Leaves

News that Grazia Neri has gone into liquidation after 42 years at the forefront of photojournalism is just the latest in a series of deaths that begins to seem like the falling of autumn leaves. And for the first time I'm feeling a little panicky. I'm not by nature an optimist, even so I've resisted the urge to mourn the death of photojournalism and until now I've held to the conviction that photography is just too powerful a medium to fall victim to market forces (or media trends, or social trends or whatever...). But for heaven's sake, things do look bleak when great agencies like Grazia Neri find their incomes nearly halved in less than a year.

This Editorial over at The Digital Journalist has an novel suggestion about how to save photojournalism (a kind of pump-priming from philanthropic donations until the public awaken from their slumber and become interested in news again) the comments make interesting reading too. Another post I read recently on Photo-Muse bemoans the invisibility of the heirs to Don McCullin, James Nachtwey and Gilles Peres: "Who [now] is doing work of a similar calibre, work as powerful and searing as this and getting it published?"

Everywhere you look there are signs that winter's coming, and it might be a harsh one.

Perpignan survival guide

Dominick Tyler - Fag Ends

Perpignan week is just around the corner, offering its usual intoxicating blend of awkward portfolio moments (is a urinal an inappropriate place for a viewing?), awkward badge-reading moments (Q: What does a black stripe mean this year? A: My agency just died) and, erm, intoxication. Somehow, despite the regular sponsorship crises and constant mutterings about how much more civilized Arles is, Perpignan keeps drawing us back, year after year.

Except this year I'm not going, for a number of reasons to do with family commitments, needing to get some work done and all that but also (and to be honest this is probably the main reason) because I don't like it. And I know we all say that sometimes and then we go and we have a great time, and I have gone, and I have had a great time but I also think I wouldn't mind never going again. It's a Perpignan paradox of attraction and revulsion, an annual gathering of otherwise solitary animals at an overcrowded water-hole to fight for Alpha status and mating (i.e. syndication) rights before limping back to their lonely hunting grounds to lick their wounds and re-do their portfolios. So for this year at least I declare myself out of the photographic gene pool, but for those of you who feel the thrum of hot, heavy blood in your veins and taste the bitter, metal tang of adrenalin as you prepare yourselves, especially if for the first time, to enter the arena, I would like to humbly offer a few tips on how to survive, if not enjoy, the experience.

1. Take a very small portfolio, or better yet none at all: It's an often observed but rarely acted-upon fact that Perpignan must be one of the worst environments to show work. The frenetic pace and awesome quantities of images will take their toll on the most experienced picture editor and presenting a massive portfolio is like dishing up a whole lasagna to someone in the middle of a 12 course banquet. Better to take a small, perfectly formed taste of your work or a single story you want to sell. Make your work the sharp sorbet that clears their palate before they have to wade back into the stodge and you are more likely to be remembered and appreciated. You might reasonably decide not to show anything and use the opportunity to gather contacts to follow up on later, when your work will have a better chance of getting through. You'll have more time to look at the exhibitions too.

2. You won't need all your camera kit: It might seem like carrying 20kg of gear around makes you appear "ready for anything" but, curiously, it often gives the opposite impression.

3. Try to eat well: I'm always mystified by how crap my diet becomes in Perpignan, this is still France for ****'s sake and yet here is another limp sandwich-jambon-fromage and god-awful coffee. It's something to do with the timing of things I think, with the projections cutting into good eating hours in the evenings and the good lunch places packed out. I have tended to choose food and good conversation over photography in the evenings in recent years and as a result I've had a much more productive time. Last year I also found a really good pizza place just over the river from La Poste, got a takeaway and took it into the one evening projection I saw (the Gendarmes on the gate took a couple of slices as "payage" but hey). Also, it's peach season so get your five-a-day, your mum would agree.

4. Don't expect too much: If the most that comes out of it is some inspiration from other works, getting to see a few editors' faces and building up your contacts that's probably pretty good going.

5. Beware the agencies: In recent years the agencies have been chucking around syndication contracts like confetti because, I guess, quantity of images is now almost as important as quality of images. There were a lot of shiny eyed graduates last year signing up as though their dreams had been answered but I wonder whether the deals they got really delivered what they were expecting. If it's a good deal it will still be a good deal the week after the excitement when you've had a chance to study it.

6. Don't order a Negroni at La Poste: I did, it cost €12.

Please add your own tips by commenting.

No pot of gold...this time

Dominick Tyler - Rainbow

I just found out that the BAJ (Big Advertising Job) has fallen through. Apparently there is a different meaning to the phrase "100% certain" in the ad world, well of course there is now that I think about it but I suppose I thought that inaccurate claims and wild exaggerations were only part of the product of ad agencies rather than part of their working practices. Still it doesn't do to bite the hand that may, one day, actually feed, so I shouldn't criticize too much. Live and learn...

Where it's at

Phil Coomes' blog on the BBC website has a really good Q&A with industry people about "Photojournalism Today", prompted in part by the trouble at Gamma.

It's hard to unknit the regular, perennial discussions about the way things have gone downhill since the "golden age" of photojournalism from the real concerns about the way traditional business models have been challenged by the digital media age. The bottom line is that in an age of unrestricted digital diffusion  the image has become more used and less valued. The potential audience for an image I shoot for a magazine today is bigger than ever, thanks to the internet (and the single figure "web fee" attached on to my invoice). The problem is that most of those people are seeing my images for free (and that's why the "web fee" is in single figures).

There's lots of nonsense theorizing about how business models might evolve in this climate, this review of the recent book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price" by Chris Anderson, effectively counters a lot of the more alarming ideas about the value of "content" that used to be called word and pictures. Even so, as a creative professional it's hard to feel comfortable with phrases like "information wants to be free" fighting to become part of the new business lexicon and the vague idea that by charging someone to use your photography you are foolishly clinging to ideas of information ownership that are so outdated as to be laughable.

The Graduates

Dominick Tyer - Banana Camera

Simon Bainbridge of the British Journal of Photography has kicked up a little storm by asking "Are photography courses useful?". Thousands of new photography graduates join the workforce every year and it's not as if there's that much work for established photographers; so common sense might suggest that the chances of success for the newcomers are slim and getting slimmer. Bainbridge also asks why those running and teaching the courses don't make their students more aware of the odds.

I'm often asked where I studied photography (I didn't) and where I'd recommend studying, so this question is one I've often considered. There have even been times when I've felt my work could do with a more rigorous academic foundation (usually after a long work drought) and I've thought about enrolling for an M.A. or something. Then I was asked to do a guest talk for some students at the London College of Communications and it seemed ridiculous to accept and then to apply to be a student.

I've done a few talks at LCC now and aside from the fact that I've learned a lot about my own work from the experience I'm always surprised by the expectations of the students. While they often seem naive about the business of being a photographer, I don't get the sense that they expect it to be an easy life. I often find myself explaining simple, boring, fundamental procedures like getting proposals out and invoicing effectively and it seems to me that not teaching this stuff is a far greater omission than not teaching that photography is an oversubscribed occupation.

Showing off

Dominick Tyler - Skinny-dip

I had a portfolio appointment yesterday, the first in a long time, and in the end it went really well and I even enjoyed it, but it did bring back memories of previous bad experiences. Some of these experiences are part of the reason I've left it so long to look for new clients. I'm not alone in dreading portfolio viewings, someone recently described it as being like a blind date, and it has the same potential for rejection, but at least with a blind date you have a kind of equal relationship, you're starting from the same place. A portfolio viewing is more like a blind date where you know that you are one of hundreds of hopefuls, and you have to strip naked, and name as many foods that begin with the letter J as you can in a minute. I've had a couple that felt like that, mostly towards the beginning of my career I suppose but even now I feel very erm.. exposed when I show my books.

The dread of showing can easily become a classic photographers procrastination: you don't go and see people with your book because you're conscious that it needs updating. You spend months updating it then you don't go and see people because you're nervous about showing the new work. Any negative feedback convinces you that you should re-do it, which takes months and eventually the new work becomes old work and then you feel like it needs updating...

If you manage to actualy get more than a couple of people to see the work in-between stressing about it you're doing well.

Photo District News ran a feature last summer about Review Santa Fe, a big portfolio review organized by Centre in Santa Fe. It's particularly interesting because it uses the diaries of a photographer, Doug Menuez and a reviewer, Debra Klomp Ching of Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn, so you get a feel of the experience from both sides. It's long-ish, linked in full above, but has some good insights including this advice from Debra:

"A word to the wise, photographers need to be articulate about their work, believe in it and be prepared. The most shocking comments I had from photographers were: ‘I’m so disorganized for all this bollocks! (said in jest)”, “So ... what do you do?”, “I shouldn’t be showing you this” and “I’m not going to say anything about my folio and leave it up to you”. I’m astounded that people can go to such lengths to attend these events and not make the most of their time with me. These reviews are my first impression and the conversation is as important as the work I’m looking at."

So no pressure then...