Bombay Flying Club

I just came across this link today as I was reading one of my favorite blogs, The Travel Photographer. I don't know much about the group, but I will say that I like the site put together by the Bombay Flying Club. It looks something like MediaStorm, which has quickly become THE site for multi-media content.  I especially enjoyed the piece on Romanian families living in the sewers of Bucharest.

As I have mentioned before, I really think that this is the future of photography. As radio, television and print media continue to converge, I think we will one day go to NPR, National Public Radio in the U.S., or the New York Times Channel to watch short photojournalism oriented documentaries on demand. It makes perfect sense.

More Good News

After spending ten days in the Sahara desert without my cellular phone, email or any other outside world contact, I arrived on Monday night to some good news. I won a scholarship to the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop in Mexico City in June. 

I found out I was a finalist before I left for Libya, but the best part was to find that VII photographer Ron Haviv chose the scholarship winners is a incredible honor.

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

Yes, sad it is, but I won my first major photography competition, Travel Photographer of the Year, and everyone likes a little recognition.

Here's an article from the Times online and the photos at TPOTY.

The NY Times sees positive results from online slide shows

So the other day I exchanged emails with a friend of mine, Mark Lubell.  I've known Mark for a long time, way before I got interested in photography and before he became the executive director of Magnum. 

He was recently in Barcelona for business so we were able to get a chance to sit down over lunch and really talk shop. We spoke about the future of documentary or reportage photography, his vision for Magnum in Motion, the potential of online marketplaces like DRR, PhotoShelter, and even the potential of Flickr but more than anything else we talked about the potential of multi-media. I had just seen the highly publicized piece entitled "The Marlboro Man" by Luis Sinco which was published by Media Storm, so I knew we were on to something, but then we got some really good news! 

The New York Times announced on beet tv that they were seeing increased interest in their online content every since they started using a new multimedia template. You can see the interview here. So for a nice change the Times sees the value of photo essays and with their web presence they can deliver this content in a way that they can no longer afford to do so in print.  When I shared this news with Mark he was exstatic.  

He gave me permission to share his email here:

"When I first met with the Times....they moved out the entire Times.com into another building. It was a real war between the physical paper and the web. Now the web is back in the same building and everyone understands it is the future. 

The fact their slide shows makes up 7% of all traffic is amazing....because yes they rarely are good. They increased their web traffic by 30% after eliminating a fee....can you say hello Advertising money! I am sure the increase in 30% traffic made up three times what they were making in subscriptions. AOL did the same thing.

I agree the Times should be commended for their actions......now we must see if the market really cares about quality!"

Of course it's early to say anything based on such short term statistics but this is promising news for the documentary photographer.  

I'm putting an audio recorder on my Christmas list.

Adapt or perish

You don't have to be a regular reader of lightstalkers to hear the collective groaning in the photojournalism communities around the world. In every meeting and seminar I attend related to photography here in Barcelona I always hear the same sob stories from photographers.

Let's face it though, the traditional news media is at a crossroads because it is in fierce competition with free print media, television and online content. Simply put, people are buying fewer newspapers and magazines and classified advertising has gone to places like craigslist. We read new articles everyday about staff cuts and job losses at major newspapers.  Here's one from the New York Times. The way I see it we have two options, adapt or perish. 

Some photographers have taken this challenge head on and plowed forward into the world of multimedia. If you want to take a look at some great stories that are just as short and effective as documentary films take a look at some of the stories at MediaStorm.

My favorites are Luis Sinco's "The Marlboro Marine" and Ed Kashi's "Iraqi Kurdistan".

First day on the job...

This is my first day activating the blog dokumentary fotografr, where I will try to post the most interesting content I find that relates to documentary photography and photography in general.