The scene of last week's sad sacking of all 28 photojournalists from the Chicago Sun-Times, as seen through the expendable lens of erstwhile Sun-Times staff photographer Al Podgorski.
In the center of the frame is Pulitzer prize-winner John H. White, mentor to many of the other photographers laid off. In the wake of the layoff, White said his assignment is not from the Sun-Times, but from God. "Lamplighters to the world," he calls photographers.
The Sun-Times is reportedly training its reporters to take picures and make video. Meanwhile, the true communicators among the photographers laid off will go on doing what they've always done, somehow.
"Every time I capure a moment, it's timeless," White told CNN's Howard Kurtz, clicking his camera twice. "It's forever. It's like a light. It cannot be contained. … We're there for people. We're their eyes."
Communicators communicate, whether you pay them or not.
(Pay them.)
I think part of the problem is that technology has gotten good enough to make the line between devoted amateur and true professional VERY blurry. Add to that that most people don’t know what “good” is anymore, and you’ve got a problem for both the professionals and the people who know what good is — they’re not going to get PAID for “good” when “good enough” is available.
A good point, Amy. But when people see the sort of photography reporters produce, they WILL know the difference. Aside from being word-oriented people rather than image-oriented (my dad was both, but most people aren’t) … reporters are focused on logical storytelling, rational narrative. To ask them to put their notepad away and create an image that represents the poetic pathos of the situation they’re trying to rassle into a 500-word story … in most cases, for most reporters, it’s gonna be asking too much.
As a reporter, I LOVE it when the photographer arrives on the scene. I’ve been trying to capture whatever madness and eccentricity in words, and now some help has arrived.
Do I think photojournalists are as irreplaceable as writers? I don’t. (Imagine firing the writers and trying to teach the photogs how to write.)
But words and images work best together when two separate kinds of geniuses work together.