They say an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters will eventually give you Shakespeares plays, and that’s the model (the law of averages) which gleans a few pearls out of an average ocean, when it comes to getting breaking news images off the general public.

But to use that to claim the monkey/typewriter model makes individual amateur photographers somehow intrinsically equal to people who shoot pictures all day, just because we can all now use the same cameras, is just patently ridiculous.

It’s not the cameras (at all), or the images alone which mark people like Kieran out from amateurs. It’s Kieran’s (and Toby’s and Dylan’s) ability to produce cracking images under conditions which would test most amateurs skill, not to mention stamina, and to produce those images time after time.

Of course anybody with a mobile phone or a point’n’shoot can get something if a bus goes ‘boom’ at the end of their street, but part of the reason they can do that is because the infrastructure exists for them to shoot and transmit the image.

But most pictures don’t just present themselves for your convenience while you’re walking down the street, so drop that same person into Darfur, or Afghanistan, or New Orleans after Katrina and you won’t see much.

Why? Because they don’t have the necessary skills to get out and find the story, get the images which tell the story, then figure out how the hell to get ‘em out - to a deadline.

Every day.

It’s THAT which separates professional photographers from amateurs. They don’t have the luxury of shrugging their shoulders when the images ‘just didn’t come out’ - they have a picture editor going totally ballistic and pointing them to the ‘Exit’ door.

If you were writing an originally researched, originally sourced blog piece every day to a deadline, you probably would be threatening a journalists gig.

But most people writing blogs don’t do that.

Because they can’t.

Adam C: “But hey, you have a computer so you must be a writer, right?”

I suppose the ‘professional’ photographers don’t have access to the same affordable, high-tech equipment that these ‘amateurs’ do? Ah yes, they do.

So, I guess the process of taking technically sound photographs is a mystical art, then? According to your evaluation, the camera can do all of this for itself. Machines cannot produce art, but they can supplement technical ability. (Let us not forget these cameras are almost never operated in auto mode in the hands of a pro, anyway.)

What is left, then? The artistry of photography, minus the inhibiting technical learning curve that has been traditionally present. What can you, the professional, sick at the sight of so many young amateurs flooding the market, do?

Impress us with your photographic artistry. You know, that stuff you tout so much to the people just learning. If youre that good, you should have no problem getting your stuff published ahead of other people who are now on a level technical playing field.

What… you cant? Ah, then youre not really as good as you thought? Good thing you can pick up a DSLR for cheap and shoot till your hearts content like the rest of us schmucks, and just wipe the card when youre done.

Now go write some more blogs and make it harder for a real journalist to find a gig, will ya?

The images were all shot with a Pentax K1000 SLR, Olympus rangefinder camera and a few with a Mamiya TLR. I’ve never owned a Nikon in my life! I’m self-taught except for a month or two doing photography as part of a foundation course in art and design.

As a result of this work I was offered (didn’t apply!), and accepted, a job as features editor on a national magazine at one of the biggest publishers in the country. I was then responsible for commissioning work from ‘professional’ artists, writers and photographers.

Editors don’t give two hoots what equipment produced a particular image, providing the quality is up to a certain standard. Nor do they care about qualifications, just that the contributor has a ‘professional’ attitude.

The market is being killed by publishers who won’t pay for photography.

You say “However It has also allowed those who with little or no skill or experience to downgrade the picture quality of our industry.” … this was just as possible before. You might be doing that even now. Similarly, it’s not just your industry.

I suppose my confusion came at the comment ” … you may lose your job or find it harder to get one … ” but I guess I misinterpreted the rest of the comment.

I was overlooking the necessity of abundance of footage in situations where professionals cannot make the scene. Indeed, those are situations where the coverage was greatly enhanced by the digital technology available, and I didn’t think of that. Thanks for the clarification.

Oh, what an age we live in.

Thanks for your response. Sorry for the delay - just getting around to reading it now.

First, I totally agree that the skills of a trained photojournalist are, most of the time, priceless. Look at the work of Nachtwey, Hicks, Silva, etc. and that is readily apparent. But, I’m not talking about an abundance of poor images of an event. I’m talking about zero images of an important event vs. a few amateur ones. Is it not valuable to have amateur video of the tsunami, the virginia tech massacre, etc.? Were it not for the fact that more people have pretty darn good digital technology at their fingertips, we would not have some of those images. Do those images compare to a photo essay of the VT massacre in the days after the attack? Of course not. That’s what the pros are for. But my bottom line is that I would hope that professionals do not sit back and decry the amateurs with cameras as killers of their careers. More cameras in the hands of more people is a GOOD THING and I would hope that pros agree with and recognize that rather than feel threatened by it, because they shouldn’t feel threatened by it. They have talents most people don’t have - they will need to adapt and continue using those talents, possibly in ways they never dreamed of.

My comparison to the record industry was only to allude to the way a whole industry - if it doesn’t adapt - can fail miserably. I agree that one of their failures was to respond by going down the lowest common denominator road indeed, and I’m sure that aspect does not apply to photojournalism.

It’s important to note that having an abundance of images of lesser quality isn’t really a proper replacement for a select choice of images which properly convey the emotion and story of an event. A hyperbole of your statement would be that it’s best to have thousands of photos taken at eye-level for an event, all giving partial, unclear information, albeit in their entirety they may convey slightly more information than a half dozen photographs taken by professionals, each of which properly conveys the entire event.

Phtography and photojournalism actually do involve some amount of skill, and while certainly anyone with a camera can capture some moment of a news story, there’s much more to understanding and properly establishing that story with a single photo than simply dropping $5,000 on equipment and clicking the shutter release (and that’s not even going into issues such as potential libel, conflict of interest, and journalistic integrity).

I also find your comparison to record executives unfair - the recording industry at large (and particularly the big business “dinosaurs” which you seem to be refering to) have essentially given up on true quality (that’s a matter of personal opinion, but it seems you’d agree with me) and work simply towards producing as much bottom-of-the-bucket, lowest common denominator crap as possible (essentially, quantity over quality, much like what you’re trumpeting in your comment).

I’d love to have some response if you read this. I believe this is an important conversation in the modern world of journalism (I’m not even going to get into blogs right now).

Its unimaginable that such pictures can truly be got ..they amaze.Its where my interest in photos come in…