Is professional documentary photography dead?

Miguel M.

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I'm the editor of an online magazine of photography, focusing on documentary photography and photojournalism, F8Magazine. You can download it for free on their website: F8Magazine: documentary photography & photojournalism magazine

One of my personal motivations for editing the magazine is my interest in documentary photography. Because of widespread access to digital photography, many amateur photographers have access to high quality photographic material, and many of them can take photos of higher quality. Every day the market is more saturated with photographers who make reportage.

In the era of digital photography, citizen journalism, YouTube, Flickr and thousands of websites, the figure of a hired documentary photographer feels like a lonely dinosaur in danger of extinction.

I believe that the editors or curators will be professional artists of tomorrow. What do you think about the future of documentary photography? Is there still a place for professionals? can we discover new values in documentary photography through amateur photographers?

What do you think? Would like to share your thoughts on the matter?
 
Well, without being too long-winded, I would say that the hired documentary photographer isn't going to go extinct, even though the playing field will indeed change.

Documentary photographers that are truly good at what they do will always be a minority in the frothing ocean of individuals that own a D-SLR. It's not just about having capable equipment, nor is it about getting a decent documentary photograph here or there... it's about consistently and reliably getting great shots and relying as little as possible upon luck. That can only come from a combination of natural talent and learned skill.

The result of having so many individuals out there with cameras probably will mean that documentary photography will actually increase in quality, since the individuals that really weren't all that good will, in time, succumb to the prevalent competition and be edged out of the industry. Competition, as with business or evolution, will probably produce better documentary photography as time goes on...

One thing that will change (or that already has changed, rather) is that people will not be limited to what comes to us from a handful of professionals. We can watch all kinds of amateur videos and see millions of amateur photographs using websites like YouTube and Flickr. So, undoubtedly, we will all have access to more documentary multimedia than ever before. But I don't think that the prevalence of shaky videos and sub-standard photographs will every eliminate the need for the skilled documentary photographer.
 
Not to mention the fact that documentary photography is about a story - not all pictures tell one. Not all people holding a camera can identify where the story in a scene lives. Documentary Photography is safe. I agree with JG: "Competition ... will probably produce better documentary photography...".
 

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