Monday, September 14, 2009

Photojournalism and the cash crisis

Photojournalism is a tough industry. There’s next to no money to be made.

You can discuss amongst yourselves the reasons for this. Fewer and fewer printed outlets for photo essays, reduced editorial budgets, lack of appetite from readers.

This last reason has always confused me. People always seem to be interested in photo essays when they published in newspaper and magazines, yet an increasing number of magazines are ditching this content in favour of lifestyle and celebrity pieces. Perhaps it’s just me who despairs at the wishy-washy stuff while being mesmerised by brilliant pictures.

Anyway, the truth is most of the people making money out of photography do weddings.

Examine the winners at the various awards ceremonies which take place around the world, Arles or Perpignan for example, and you’ll be surprised at how many of those stories honoured have failed to be published.

This has forced photojournalists to be ever more inventive in how their work is promoted. Sometimes a cult magazine like Vice comes along to promote the art on its pages.

There’s a brilliant magazine called vewd which is doing its best for photojournalism. As with all things innovative, it is backed up by a strongly designed website and includes the facility to download paid-for pdf versions of the magazine.

While vice is superb example of a free magazine succeeding around the world, it is not that easy to get hold of. There is a pay subscription option on the vice website - but who wants to pay £35 in the UK (or £60 for the rest of the world) for something that most others get for free just because they live in a big city?

No comments: