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VII Seminar - The first day and a dispute about philosophy

Today was the first day of the seminar organized by the VII photo agency held at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
When I heard about the seminar orignally it was clear I had to go there. But it was $ 175 for two days... A lot if you aren't earning any money. I contacted VII and asked for the $ 75 student fee although I am not a student. They had a heart for a poor Magnum intern and got me in for the student price.

Frankly I didn't have too high expectations since I knew that this is not going to be a small workshop but a seminar with hundrets of participants. I registered for three different panels today. The first one was called "Inside Assignments", the second one "New Directions in Photography" and the third one "Philosophical Photojournalism". Promising titels...

"Inside Assignments" was a really good one hour and 45 minutes discussion on assignments with VII photographers Joachim Ladefoged, Antonin Kratochvil as well as Kira Pollack (Photo Editor) and Kathy Ryan (Debuty Photo Editor), both from the New York Times Magazine. It was a insightfull discussions on assignments given out by the New York Times Magazine, struggles photographers have to deal with, funny stories and details about certain assignments and a talk about giving young talented photographers a chance. So if you are a really good photographer but do not have any experience in the magazine or newspaper market go ahead and send your portfolio to the New York Times Magazine.

After this panel there was the next one called "New Directions in Photography" which was certainly interesting to a lot of people but not necessarily for me since it's topic was the internet and multimedia use in photography. Actually what I am doing with Magnum In Motion. So there haven't really been any new insights or informations for me but I met Brian Storm from MediaStorm which is a multimedia production company. They are about to launch a new website with very promising content. Multimedia stories with the use of photography and audio.

Well and there was the promising "Philosophical Photojournalism" panel with three VII photographers and two former photo editors. The photographers have been John Stanmeyer, Antonin Kratochvil and Joachim Ladefoged. The former photo editors have been Kent Kobersteen from National Geographic and Robert Stevens from TIME. Mr. Stevens now also teaches photography at the School of Visual Arts.

So the discussion started with the introduction of all participants sitting in front. After a couple of minutes Mr. Stevens started to talk about the internet. That it's a great medium, offering endless possibilites and new revenue possibilities for photographers. He told us a percentage of people in the US and Europe which use the internet. This number was way too low. And then he brought up an example. We should imagin if only 8 million people come to visit our website and everybody pays only 10 cents to view the photographs we are able to make $ 80.000 out of it. Well, considering that it would take 20 years to reach this number of visitors if you have 33.333 Unique Visitors each month... I totally agree with the basic concept that the internet is a very important medium, it's a great way to get your photography published, there are new ways (multimedia) to show your work but I think the internet shouldn't be overestimated. Do not forget that there is a large amount of people in the world who don't have access to a computer nor to the internet, who can't afford to buy one. And those people will still not have the chance to see important work on social and political topics. But isn't getting these stories to the public the most important thing?
And regarding money: I think you might have a chance to earn some money through the internet but I definitely don't think it's going to be a big revenue market for photographers.

Anyway, the discussion about the internet and similar stuff went on and we talked about everything else then the philosophical aspect of photojournalism. I tried to make my point but due to the large amount of visitors I didn't get my go. Personally I had the feeling that this panel wasn't prepared that well.

Well and after this panel I was talking to Joachim Ladefoged. He knew already that I wanted to interview him for my photographers interviews series and since he is going to leave New York on Tuesday we agreed on doing the interview tomorrow. I am very much looking forward to it and have the feeling that this will be a very interesting conversation.

Posted by Martin Fuchs on October 15, 2005 11:49 PM