@crosscrowdedrooms-blog / crosscrowdedrooms-blog.tumblr.com
A few months ago, I shot a Ninja Camp upstate. Aside from your typical archery, knife, and hand combat training, camp attendees get trained in environment awareness: playing a game where some of the camp's members are dressed and acting like common citizens, except there are minute and subtle details that the other camp members are required to make note of. This can be anywhere from a suspicious person with a gun, a lone backpack, or a houseless man with an expensive watch on.
Two covers and two outtakes. I'ts been just over a year that I've been stringing for Newsday, and those of you that know me know that I'm not one to gloat, but in that time I've gotten at least 15 covers and to me that's mind blowing, even more so when the paper is a Top 20 Circulated Newspaper. Me and the paper may disagree on how pictures should run, or what pictures to run, but I don't think I've ever progressed this much as I have in this past year. I'm eager to see what lies ahead.
My mother walking down the stairs. It continues to get that much more difficult with this project when people pose the question, "what are you trying to say", and it's even more difficult when faced with the question, "explain this project to me". Maybe the results of this project will answer these questions for those who view it.
I just read this craigslist posting and started fuming more or less. And people wonder what's so horrendous about shooting weddings? Dealing with incompetence like this. I won't go off on a tangent but below is an email I had sent:
Hi,
I'm just emailing you to inform you how uninformed, misguided, ignorant, and downright offensive your posting is/was. The role of a wedding photographer has drastically changed to keep up with the pace of amateurs who will shoot weddings for $600. As a result people like yourself have driven the value of great quality imagery down to a point where you would rather settle. As difficult as it is for you to comprehend that photographers are entrepreneurs and most of the time never have a continuous source of income, it's necessary that you understand that working professional photographers depend on this as their livelihood. Those of us that do depend on this as a source of income (to provide for families mind you) require that we charge the prices that we do. You're not paying someone to just "run around taking pictures all day". It's a process. It's still art, albeit a different form. You're not only paying for a few hundred images and a sickeningly adorable photo of you and your grade school sweetheart wrapped up in roses. You're paying for the process, the equipment, the mental preparedness, the photographer's intuition, and his vision (not to mention the 7+ hour work day THEN the subsequent days in selecting, editing, and processing thousands of images). Think of it in a more long term example. If $3,000 for a photographer to shoot your wedding is "wack" I'd assume you'd adore the above price tag of someone shooting your wedding for $600. Fast forward 5+ years: Every shmuck with a camera is now shooting weddings with a price tag of $1,000 or less thus driving down the value and demand for quality professionals who have been in the field for a long time (your logic seems to think it amazing how these photographers have lasted charging what they do!). After some time, what are you left with? A photographic community that has either been completely abandoned and scorned by the professional community who now cannot find work. This photographic community is now made up of amateurs, hobbyists, and those looking to make pocket money and what are you left with? Images that look like shit. This is not a hobby for us. Some may consider it one (and this is not, by all means, a bad thing) but we do not, so we'd appreciate it if you wouldn't treat it as such. -- Johnny Milano www.johnnymilano.com
California
