Today's San Francisco Chronicle has a story on the very front page of their business section about hobbyists taking work from professional photographers. It's
here if you can bare to read it. I guess the chronicle - which is near the top of the death watch list for major metro daily newspapers - got tired or writing about the fall of newspapers and decided to focus on the the economy of free and the future of still photographers.
"It'd be nice to get paid, but I don't really care," said the San Francisco resident. "What are they going to pay me, a hundred dollars? I'd rather get copies and show them to my friends."
The software engineer they interviewed had given his photo to 7x7 Magazine in exchange for a few copies of the magazine. 7x7 has never been a lucrative client but they have been a great display space for San Francisco photographers and they have financed some great portfolio development projects for photographers including
Erik Almas.With an entire issue filled with images they found on
Flikr and plans for more such issues one has to wonder what value of the magazine is delivering. I would have to say it's value is about what they are paying for images $0. If they are just republishing work you can find yourself on
Flikr then the publication isn't
contributing much more then paper and ink. Free certainly has to be an enticing prospect for any publisher but I don't see the payoff f0r readers or advertisers. 7x7 is a style and lifestyle magazine. Their job is to be ahead of the public, finding trends and reporting on them in a beautiful way that also provides gorgeous display space for
advertisers. How well can they do this by scouring
Flikr for your old photos. It's not that there aren't lots of nice photos on
Flikr its that I don't see how this strategy makes the magazine relevant.
My parents were here in SF visiting over Thanksgiving so I used some of my precious and aging supply of Type 55 to make some portraits of them. Being that they are my parents they are willing but not necessarily agreeable portrait subjects.
This was a happy Gowlandflex accident. My finger slipped while cocking the shutter. I was going to dump this but instead made a second exposure and processed it out. I caught my dad smiling and looking tough on one piece of film. He always wants to look super serious in photos.
I don't think my dad will like this picture but hopefully he won't be too mad that I posted it. I love shooting this close with the Gowlandflex. It's a challenge because the parallax adjustment on the camera can't compensate at this distance, so the composition is always a guess. Seeing how well the Rodenstock 150mm lens performs this close you know it's worth fussing a bit with the camera to make it work.
While I'm talking about my parents I should give them a little blog shout out. They are fantastic artists you can see their work here and here.
This last photo is also with the Gowlandflex but it's on Fuji 160s not Type 55. You can see why so many people loved the Type 55. It's just as sharp as you can imagine but with an incredible soft tonality and the Polaroid x-factor that is hard to match.
