Photojournalism and ‘What is the point of ‘exclusivity’ these days?’
Written by David WhiteLike many, I have been glued to my computer watching the epic events in Egypt unfold. Images coming in from all over, different views every day, a plethora of images.
Visually I have a great handle on things thanks to the amazing power of the tintertwizzle.
I noticed Time shouting that they had an exclusive set of images from Dominic Nahr. Now, don’t get me wrong, Dominic is a quality photographer. He knows his shallots from his red onions. I’m not talking about him. The point is, what value is there, in an online environment, from having an exclusive set of news pictures? Especially if they come a few days after all the live stuff people have seen?
The power of an immediate, maybe blurry, a bit noisy, but live image snapped on a ‘phone as it happens totally beats the crap out of a beautiful image posted online a few days later.
Totally.
I can understand exclusive access, a unique story…that has a value to me.
A set of images, however good, however exclusive after an event now seems a bit pointless.
You can’t leverage the exclusivity to get punters to buy your product…they are free, online.
Discussion (4 Comments)
You are right but though they might seem pointless now, at the end of the year or end of the decade the better photos will be worth more than the less good?
You’re right Harry. I’m just talking really about making a big deal about an exclusive on a story that many, many other people are covering.
“The power of an immediate, maybe blurry, a bit noisy, but live image snapped on a ‘phone as it happens totally beats the crap out of a beautiful image posted online a few days later.”
They paid a Magnum photographer to do the job so probably felt they’d better ‘big it up’.
I too have spent the last week glued to the Al Jazeera live feed and my feeling like I’m very well informed about the situation in Egypt has made me more critical of the photos coming out of it.
Perhaps a more interesting at this time, when we have great live feeds coming out of Egypt, is work like Anastasia Taylor-Lind’s portraits of Egyptian bloggers or even older work by Jason Larkin about Egypt’s museums
Unfortunately, many still believe in Intellectual Property Rights.
I think the deeper problem, though, is the confusion of “order” and “control”.