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Chicago Sun Times Swaps iPhone Training For Staff Photographers
frdmfghtr notes (via Cult of Mac) that "the reporters of the Chicago Sun-Times are being given training in iPhone photography, to make up for the firing of the photography staff. From the CoM story: 'The move is part of a growing trend towards publications using the iPhone as a replacement for fancy, expensive DSLRs. It's a also a sign of how traditional journalism is being changed by technology like the iPhone and the advent of digital publishing.'"
Why an iPhone? Why any phone? Why you remove progressional photographers from the equation you'll get amateur quality photography. Next they'll be teaching them how to use photoshop to fix their crap pictures (or even assemble them from stock photos so they don't need to be bothered going out at all).
They replaced their pool of photographers with freelancers (sports, feature stories, breaking news, etc...). In addition, reporters will now carry iPhones in part to capture low resolution video for their website. It's not really the DSLR v iPhone the headline claims.
When you remove professional photographers from the equation you'll get amateur quality photography.
When you remove subscription paying readers from the equation, you get less money to pay professional photographers.
The move is part of a growing trend towards publications using the iPhone as a replacement for fancy, expensive DSLRs.
No, the move is a trend towards replacing trained skilled professionals (in this case, photojournalists) with cheap, unskilled labor (reporters who might be fine reporters, but don't know shit about photography and photojournalism; or even "user submissions" from Joe Random's cellphone). The cost of a DSLR is nothing compared to wages for a professional. Unfortunately, the *results* from dumping the photojournalists are also nothing compared to using the professional --- and it's not a matter of camera quality. A professional photojournalist with an iPhone would produce better photojournalism than non-experts with a DSLR. The Chicago Sun Times isn't throwing away "pixel quality" so much as "journalism quality" --- no wonder newspapers are dying.
And then you lose one more reason for people to subscribe. I think that is the definition of a death spiral.
"You'll get much better shots from an iPhone than you will if you hand over a D4 or a MkIII to a non-photographer."
No, actually, you won't. DSLRs still have "green square mode" which puts the things in automatic. You won't get the results you'd get from the same camera with a decent photographer behind it, but you'll get better results than a camera phone provides.
That's an elitist view.
There is no need for any sort of special professional to press a button on a handled camera device, DSLR or not.
It doesn't take any special skill to pull a trigger either. The skill is in identifying what to shoot and in aiming.
They should have let the reporters go and kept the photographers. The quality of the reporting would probably have stayed about the same.
I shot freelance for a newspaper in Toronto during the 80s and 90s. And although the work was a lot of fun, I think its time is long over. Consider the adage from dead tree papers: If it bleeds it leads. How many different, artistic ways can you shoot the following, that hasn't been done a zillion times in the past: .org.
1) Large or medium-sized structure fire--this was my specialty.
2) Personal injury accident.
3) Victim(s) being transported.
4) Reminder to set clocks ahead/back.
5) Look how Hot/Cold/Snowy/Icy the weather was yesterday!
6) Perp walk or subject under arrest.
7) Politician making a speech on in a media scrum.
8) Drug/weapons seizure evidence on the table.
9) Presentation of a giant cheque to a lottery winner or charitable
10) Devastation after a large natural disaster, governor/official doing official tour
11) Sad kid/parent after a bully stole their lunch money, bicycle or all the toys for Christmas presents at the poor house.
Now. Go fetch today's paper (good doggie!). How many of the above items do you see in the hard news section? Now factor this: If it's a major disaster, fire, accident, etc, the news editor will be fielding calls from hundreds of people with photos of the event. Probably some with pro-sumer levels of kit. If that isn't available they'll buy a wireservice image and run it. Everything else mentioned is shootable with a phonecam or a shirt-pocket cam, and the level of knowledge needed to shoot it is somewhere between "f/8-and-be-there," and "push-here-stupid."
Sports is an entirely different kettle of fish, and I don't know how they're going to handle Bulls/Black Hawks/Bears/Cubs/Sox games. Again, probably just buy freelancers' materials or stuff off the wires.
Gone are the days when a newspaper NEEDS actual photographs. Unless you're living under a rock the audience already knows what the governor looks like, what a perp-walk looks like, a building fire, a traffic accident or the President making a speech. We can get that anywhere. The hard news reporting is what I care about (not that there's all that much of it these days). Pretty pictures I can find online. They made the right call.
Cheers, Peter, W2IRT