Newsmaker: Digital eyes on the digital evolution

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Do you shoot some things in film, or do you shoot all in digital?
Richards: I'm sorry, what was that thing called again? No, just kidding. You know I'm a photojournalist. Historically, I started off in Afghanistan 20-something years ago, and obviously I did shoot film for many years, but I'm no longer attached to film at all.

I find it baffling, baffling that anyone would get into the romance of film. Everybody has different opinions, but to me it's like...In life these days, Moore's Law is predicting things and I think in photography it's even more so. It's just so strikingly so. Sure, there are some things we cannot do that we could do in film now, but they're so minor, and Moore's Law predicts that that will change anyway. It's just like having this piece of clay that you could turn into anything, and I find that marvelous, I think.

Film, I found was far more limiting. As an artist I don't want to be limited. I found my medium, and I'm just so happy I took to this thing.

When did you make the switch?
Richards: As soon as I could, way too early, way too early, 2000.

What was your first digital camera?
Richards: My first real digital things that I did in two-page spreads were in People magazine and Mako Magazine with a Canon D30, which was 3 megapixels. But, you could do amazing things even then.

Anyway, this project would not have happened without it (digital photography).

Why don't you go into a little bit about why?
Richards: Because the project was based upon the premise of beautiful computers, which if you just say that phrase, it doesn't really roll off your lips and inspire anybody. It took a long time to convince people, and the access was difficult for these machines in some cases. But just having the ability with a small digital camera to move around, get to the different angles, the machines made it easier A, and B, when you shoot with a digital the way I do and a lot of people do, you shoot linked to a computer. So, you shoot the frame; you see it on the computer. It's just like a Polaroid, except way more accurate and you can zoom in and yada, yada, yada.

It's so scary being professional right now because the economic model is in some cases a dollar per stock photo.

The Polaroid would have killed you in pricing. You couldn't afford it. And just the fact of looking, taking a three-dimensional space and turning it into two-dimensional, then using that two-dimensional space on the computer screen to edit--you really see far better than you would. I mean, some people can do it, you know, maybe just look it through. I'm not that person.

What did you use for this project?
Richards: The Canon 1Ds Mark II with the camera, the Canon 5D...There are a couple of cameras...The Canon 1Ds are all full frame 35mm. The Canons are just way ahead of everybody, I think.

You mean at the professional level?
Richards: Yeah, and I mean the Nikon is still not full frame because as far as I last checked, their lenses were made by Sony. I'm sure that Sony does it and it may have changed, but you know Canon--it's much bigger in the infrastructure.

So, I guess that answers my Canon or Nikon question.
Richards: Yeah, but you know what, I'm a runner as well, and I recently just got a little pocket camera, which shoots in what they call raw. I just can't believe the quality.

Which one do you have?
Richards: It's the Ricoh GX100. It's really a cool camera. I take it along with me on vacations, and I'm carrying it right now.

What are your plans for the future? Are you going to stick to this, or are you going to photograph maybe other types of technology?
Richards: We're in a new phase. Photographers practiced a craft before that invoked scarcity, the economic model of scarcity, and that's no longer true. Photographers are right now kind of as scarce as a six-pack of beer at a 7-Eleven. So, I think from an economic standpoint and an artistic standpoint, I need to define something that probably is going to follow this.

What do you think about how we've progressed so quickly from digital photography technology with 3-megapixel professional cameras? Now anyone can get that on a point-and-shoot, and with Picasa and Flickr and all these sharing sites and voting on photos, it seems like everyone's a photographer.
Richards: I'll just put it this way. It's so scary being professional right now because the economic model is in some cases a dollar per stock photo. Now these tend to be lower end, but Moore's Law predicts that it will go upper in the sense of more sophisticated equipment, better photos, yada, yada, yada. And the feedback loop is, "You know, I can go on iStock Photo right now, just look at all these photos, and then just copy one that I think is really good," in some cases. It's not all the cases, but yeah, it's very distressing. You cannot stop progress. I profit from it as well, but economically for professional photographers, I don't know what the future is. It's not good so far.

There is this whole amateur thing where they're just giving away rights to large companies. Hopefully, people will realize what they're giving away, but I kind of doubt it.

What do you think of these stock photo houses now, where anyone can say, "Hey, yeah, I want to join and an advertiser can use my photos for free, and here's the raw copy."
Richards: Well, economics dictates that I don't have any say in it. I mean, if I was an amateur working a job, you know, I'd probably want to do this, but I think they're being taken to the cleaners. I mean, when I see people on some of these boards saying how great it is that someone uses their stuff in advertising, I just think, there goes that model out the window because it degrades everybody's pricing.

How do people like you distinguish themselves now from these photographers?
Richards: I think I have to define something where there's a scarcity. If you cannot define scarcity, you cannot define economics. Doctors do it and lawyers do it through, you know, having a license that's hard to get. If photographers don't define the scarcity space, they are screwed. Economics is the arbitrator of us all. So I don't know, that's one thing I'm going to try to do, and every time I figure it out, it just goes away.

Was there anything else you wanted to add or talk about?
Richards: It's just very scary, but I'm not the first one to say this. I mean, you know how many jobs have been outsourced for other reasons.  

More Newsmakers

[fed_up]

Long Transition Period

It's true, things will never be the same, but they'll come back around eventually. What we'll see though, is a raising of the bar and even greater challenges for the professional photographer. Vigilance and taking an acticve part in the shaping of things to come are crucial now, too. Sitting around hoping for the best, while mostly just reacting doesn't work very well. Just take a look at most newspapers today. While worrying about the jump into full pagination and direct-to-press technology, focus should of been mostly in online devolpment. Print is pretty much dead as far as journalism goes, while corporations now buy up content farms of live stock manure. Traditional concepts have changed a lot lately, but quality will return to the top, as the crap runs off in overflows. Right now, good photo journalists would be better off establishing themselves as major, stand-alone online presences that dominate over lower quality offerings, instead of trying to make money the old ways. A big company won't pay well for what they can get for cheap or even free, until it's established that much better work is what they really need to compete. If you're beating them at their game already by delivering what they cannot steal, they'll come back. This man interviewed proves that quality trumps quantity and whether working for a big company or not, he's stil a fine photo journalist. Cheap labor equals poor products and if that's the course these companies follow, they will suffer accordingly, as will everyone. The enchantment and entrancemnet of it all will wear off fiarly soon, but fresh waves of non-professionals added to the mix daily do prove daunting. Conceptual creativity and cunning seem key in establishing the future of photo journalism, in a freed society.

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