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Author Topic: So... You wanna be a photographer?  (Read 20451 times)

Rob C

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #40 on: June 02, 2013, 09:41:02 am »

This is how the world ends - robots take all the jobs, people have no money to buy the goods & services the robots provide, the robots get laid off, then Skynet becomes self-aware. Let's just hope Sarah Connor has her act together.




Don't bank on saviours: Arnold has already had a heart event and I think Rambo has gone to ground again.

But yes, I do think that the world has been blind. It was too easy and oh, so fashionable to blame the Luddites for everything, but I saw this coming a long time ago. Not only with the demise of different work opportunities, but also with the failure of design and art to retain its value in society. Look at the 50s US car industry and now: I saw a newish black Cadillac the other day - a very rare even here - but it was not large, it was squarish from the back, and the only marque indicator was the Cadillac script on the tail... would a '58 or '59 have been so utterly anonymous? I don't think so. Look at current Mercedes cars, too: bars of soap. With all of them, you guess where the front and rear might be. That's design improvement, you understand. Extend the thought to cameras: what looks sexy now? Nothing. When did anyone in the first world last take a toaster to the shop for a repair? Throw everything out and buy more crap.

As we have fought for the newest everything, we have sacrificed true value and reliability born of experience and the time to make evolutionary corrections to products. It's bling before common sense and usefulness. An image of a half-eaten apple is more desired than any alternative that works as well; it even sells stuff that isn't absolutely necessary but hell, that makes more sense than spending the same on good food instead of fast.

I guess there's a common death wish abroad.

Rob C
« Last Edit: June 02, 2013, 09:43:23 am by Rob C »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #41 on: June 02, 2013, 02:23:02 pm »

I was passing by a religious bookshop in my downtown, when I noticed this sign in the window. It seems to express well what the 28 laid-off guys must be feeling right now (and not just them). I am not so sure about the offered solution, though.  ;)

I wonder if sending this to them might help? Ironically, I took the photo with my iPhone.

Chairman Bill

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #42 on: June 02, 2013, 02:37:58 pm »

I'd guess that praying to any of the million-odd gods posited to exist at some point in human history, or even praying to a can of baked beans, would potentially work as well as not praying at all. Frankly, if I was after work, I'd look for something more useful to do with my hands, and my time.

Robert Roaldi

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #43 on: June 02, 2013, 09:24:31 pm »

Maybe there's a placebo effect.
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #44 on: June 28, 2013, 01:28:35 pm »

As reported by Mike Johnston, The Online Photographer, this is what you get with Sun Times' iPhone "freelancers" vs. Chicago Tribune's professional photographers:

http://suntimesdarktimes.tumblr.com/post/53967466726/front-pages-june-26-2013

Isaac

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #45 on: July 04, 2013, 02:50:03 am »

Quote
[Newsday senior digital photo and video editor] says that all reporters will be trained to shoot video, and that the first person on the scene of a story needs to be thinking about the visuals at the same time as he is taking out his pen and notepad.

"A decade ago, when I first started, visuals were a distant second place in this business, but that has forever changed. Now editors will stress that the visuals drive the story," he said.

...

Pick up any of the newspapers or magazines you currently read and you will find an online version, and that version will undoubtedly offer a rich array of video content. The journalists who survive will be those who adapt to this powerful storytelling medium.

p155 The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens, Stephen Apkon, 2013.
« Last Edit: July 04, 2013, 12:04:53 pm by Isaac »
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Rand47

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #46 on: July 08, 2013, 08:55:03 am »

As the consensus shifts from seeing mankind as unique, to merely another animal, we have begun to abandon our penchant for storytelling and are rapidly moving in the direction of brute "signaling" as animals do. 

The decay of language skills, the insistence on politically correct terminology (sending the right signal - as opposed to discussion of issues), and the elevation of the happy-snap as reportage, are all merely symptoms of our devolution.

I would also include the mimic-ography of endless repetition of landscape icons in this.  We're getting to the place were the only thing distinctive about the human species of animal is his narcissism. 

Rand
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Isaac

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #47 on: July 08, 2013, 01:55:55 pm »

As the consensus shifts from seeing mankind as unique, to merely another animal...

The consensus shifted to seeing mankind as unique, and still another animal.

"Honest signals are behaviors that are so expensive or so directly connected to the underlying biology that they become reliable indicators that others use to guide their own behavior. People possess these same signals in addition to conscious language."
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Rand47

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #48 on: July 08, 2013, 02:05:10 pm »

The consensus shifted to seeing mankind as unique, and still another animal.

"Honest signals are behaviors that are so expensive or so directly connected to the underlying biology that they become reliable indicators that others use to guide their own behavior. People possess these same signals in addition to conscious language."

Interesting perspective.  Wrong, but interesting.   ;D
This kind of naturalism-come-utopia, laden with meaning (in a fundamentally meaningless existence) is just another sop for the masses dressed up as hip and scientific.
The signals that humans use are loaded with context from language.  As we lose language, we'll lose meaning for these signals and devolve into more primitive kinds.

Rand
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #49 on: July 08, 2013, 02:15:19 pm »

As the consensus shifts from seeing mankind as unique, to merely another animal, we have begun to abandon our penchant for storytelling and are rapidly moving in the direction of brute "signaling" as animals do. 

The decay of language skills, the insistence on politically correct terminology (sending the right signal - as opposed to discussion of issues), and the elevation of the happy-snap as reportage, are all merely symptoms of our devolution.

I would also include the mimic-ography of endless repetition of landscape icons in this.  We're getting to the place were the only thing distinctive about the human species of animal is his narcissism. 

Rand

So nice to stumble on a different and new angle (for me, at least). Thanks for that.

tom b

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #50 on: July 10, 2013, 06:33:12 pm »

For 14 years I bought the local broadsheet and read it with a coffee before work. It would be a very rare occasion if I spotted a typo.

Two years ago I started reading that broadsheet's online edition. What was once a rare event has become normal. It is now quite common to see a typo in an article and I spotted five in a recent one. I get the feeling that editors are a dying breed.

The other thing that I have noticed is the increased use of stock images, what was one rare is now very common. Staff photographers are going the way of editors.

One interesting thing that I have noticed is that the British Guardian newspaper now has an Australian online edition. I have been reading British and American news articles as well as local ones and it is interesting how reporters from different countries describe the same news item.

Cheers,
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Rob C

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #51 on: July 11, 2013, 03:59:39 am »


One interesting thing that I have noticed is that the British Guardian newspaper now has an Australian online edition. I have been reading British and American news articles as well as local ones and it is interesting how reporters from different countries describe the same news item.Cheers,


Hence the difficulty about 'truth' and what that might be.

But you only need to read two different UK newspapers to find conflicting reporting aobut the same things... it's called political slant or bias. That nations see things differently is hardly surprising.

Trouble seems to be that folks don't like to use their own heads to figure out basic realities - they prefer to let someone else, preferrably a political or religious power group, tell them what to think. Pretty much the only thing anyone needs to understand is that in life you get nothing for nothing other than your mother's milk. For a while. Everything else becomes a trade, and the older you get the harder the deal.

Rob C

Rand47

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #52 on: July 11, 2013, 10:23:46 am »

Quote
Pretty much the only thing anyone needs to understand is that in life you get nothing for nothing other than your mother's milk. For a while. Everything else becomes a trade, and the older you get the harder the deal.

While there is some truth in this, it certainly is a sad and poverty stricken view of life.  At the risk of seeming condescending, I ache for you. 

Rand
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Rob C

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #53 on: July 11, 2013, 12:02:44 pm »

While there is some truth in this, it certainly is a sad and poverty stricken view of life.  At the risk of seeming condescending, I ache for you.  

Rand



Though I appreciate your concern, save your sympathy: I certainly don't ache nor do I feel emotionally poverty-stricken!

I do feel frustrated, but that's nothing to do with my realizations about life - just geography and a dead house market. Also, when you don't expect much from people, the very occasional time when something nice unexpectedly comes along, you sure appreciate it!

Makes me think of the old saw: it's not what you do for people that they remember, it's what you don't do for them. Gratitude is mostly a short-lived beast. You know, I have several guys around my own age with whom I spend chatting time now and again; every one of them has either a wife, an ex-wife or more, child or children, or the entire complement; each one has a problem with one of the factors in his personal equation with the rest of his group. Great joy seems pretty thin on the ground. Can't buy me love applies to family as to business... what's sweet is sweet, and what's sour has possibly curdled. Pray there's no rennin in your kitchen.

Some say that luck is what brings success; nonsense: it's that tree in the garden - the one I shake every morning and then pick up the fifty-euro note that falls.

;-)

Rob C

Isaac

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #54 on: July 11, 2013, 12:17:16 pm »

Pretty much the only thing anyone needs to understand is that in life you get nothing for nothing ...

You get the whole world.
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Rob C

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #55 on: July 11, 2013, 03:36:44 pm »

You get the whole world.


For nothing?

Rob C

Isaac

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #56 on: July 11, 2013, 04:32:44 pm »

Who did you pay for that breath?
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Rob C

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #57 on: July 12, 2013, 04:34:48 am »

Who did you pay for that breath?


The same system that I have to pay for my food, my lodgings, my health, my clothes and heating, my entertainment and, eventually, my death: the nature of life.

Take away money earned, stolen or found, and you die. Pretending that anything, even the air you breath is free, is ridiculous, as you well know. A semantic fib is all it is.

Rob C

Isaac

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #58 on: July 12, 2013, 01:04:40 pm »

Pretending that anything, even the air you breath is free, is ridiculous, as you well know. A semantic fib is all it is.

The air you breath is still a commons, as you well know.

You take your life to be a given and don't acknowledge the gift.
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RSL

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Re: So... You wanna be a photographer?
« Reply #59 on: July 12, 2013, 01:39:01 pm »

I agree with Isaac on this one. You were created for free, and, having been dumped into the world and having survived because of your parents' willingness, on their own dime, to bring you to a point where you can survive on your own, you then face what Rob's talking about. The air is free, the sunshine is free, the rain is free, but if you want to survive you have to work. At that point it's up to you. The world is your oyster if you want to work your butt off and if you're intelligent enough that your work will pay off. If not, you're SOL.
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