an interesting editorial on the state of photography today

[Frank_E]

here is an excerpt from the Toronto Globe and Mail article in today's paper

This spring, I was an adjudicator of the 2013 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival photography competition. This week, my three fellow judges – all professional photographers and curators – and I announced that we couldn’t find a winner, and won’t be awarding a prize for the first time in 18 years. There isn’t even a runner-up.

and a link to the full article

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/...4086/?page=all

very insightful commentary on the state of photography generally today
worth a read in my opinion

[Wayne]

I sat through a 3 hour slide show on a 15" laptop that showed the "photographer" and all the places they saw and all the people they met and all the beaches and all the bars and all the airports they saw on a 2 month trip. Seriously, there was no editing at all. After 2 hours they said "we're almost done" and it went on for another hour and another 100-200 inane, uninteresting pixographs.

Despite how much bad photography there is today, I think its lame and rather inexcusable that a winner couldn't be chosen when people paid to enter.

[Marc B.]

Frank,
A very good read! Thank you for posting the link.

Marc

[JW Dewdney]

well - seems like it would be a huge boon to those capable of making 'memorable' images it seems? I think traditonal methods are definitely one way to get there, in terms of craft anyway...

[paulr]

Dissenting opinion. That piece was a mountain of clichés and tired, easily skewered assumptions. It could have been written about any medium in any era, by any critic lacking historical perspective or rigor.

[Kirk Gittings]

That could have been said in about three paragraphs.

[Kodachrome25]

Great article that tells it like it is in using lots of much needed examples. I am hearing the same from more and more people everyday....

Despite how much bad photography there is today, I think its lame and rather inexcusable that a winner couldn't be chosen when people paid to enter.

I don't, I think it says the competition is real and all the self indulgent photoshopped garbage is not. It's time for more of these kinds of articles, ones that call it like it is in that through all the sickening circles of mutual flickr-praise, digi-hacks actually think they are good....and they are not.

I bet in ten year's time I am one of the only people left in my town earning a real living off of photography because I am kicking digital anything and Internet everything to the curb, I'll check back in ten years and if this site is even in exsistence, you'll know how it is going...

I have some things to list in the classifieds and then I am done on here too.

[JMB]

The article indeed tells it like it is, and the judges deserve recognition for being brave enough to draw an important line. It is very high time to unmask and reject the “incredible surge in mediocrity” referrred to by Conrad Habing in the article that pervades so much photography and other arts in contemporary culture.

[Robert Langham]

Article is more a condemnation of the quality of people today than anything else. Everyone in a hurry skimming over their lives. Congrats to the judges for withholding prizes they didn't feel were earned.

I loved the line "the stain of the real." I'm not sure that is exactly why young folks are getting all tatted up these days but it applies in other situations.

Life is it's own therapy.

Shiprock

[Wayne]

So who gets the money? Do they return it to the people who paid for a chance to win? Yes much pixelography sucks for all the reasons given but so does fraud and theft. The more ethical thing to do would have been to award a winner, and then be ballsy enough to say their entries sucked.