Photography 2.0? Panel

The idea of Photography 2.0, or at least for a permutation of photography as it has historically been known to become a new and independent medium with its own set of hopefully broken boundaries has been in Fred Ritchin’s mind since the late 1980’s, and first published in his prophetic book, In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography. I have had the completely praise-worthy opportunity of studying with Fred, and consider him to be one of the people to be thinking most hard about the potentials of contemporary, and future photographic practice.

That said, this panel was incredibly strange. Fred who is no stranger to critical public discussion [video example on a separate topic], took the role of the moderator and introduced a cast of opposing views; the young technocrat Jake Dobkin of The Gothamist, hyper intelligent photo editor from Getty Images Pancho Bernasconi, the photojournalism educator Kenny Irby of the Poynter Institute, sadly to say corporate defender of the professionals Mark Lubell of Magnum Photos and Jeffrey Scales, New York Times photo editor, and new media workhorse from FotoLog.com Warren Habib. The limited documentation I have encountered generally places Ritchin on the defensive (as is the case with most radical ideas that end up coming true) showing him on the Today Show in the early 90’s, all the way to a recent Open Source online broadcast discussion (listen), and at the end of this month in conjunction with the Musée de l’Elysée, in Lausanne, Switzerland a conference surrounding their exhibition of the increased scope of photographic participantion - We Are All Photographers Now! This panel, and the upcoming conference in Switzerland to me seems to signal that Ritchin can finally be on the offensive, to shape and make clear his points to an audience that is positive in a manner of being ready to explore the intricacies of what is happening in the world of visual recording.

The initial flaw then in my often sluggish coal train of a logic, is that this panel passed over the groundwork of establishing that what we are seeing in the practice of digitally rendering photographs is in essence something different than before (whatever that means). Mark Lubell, the consummate business mind of Magnum Photos presented an amazing set of statistics that demonstrated how the model of photographic production and distribution has completely revolutionized itself from within in the last ten years, from about a 1:1 ratio of producer to distributor, to now;. 40 million people are “seriously” taking pictures, and while the traditional distribution points that number around 10,000 nationally still hold steady, everyone is circumventing these publications and putting work on the internet, self publishing books, etc.

That aside, a comedy of errors served as a great foil for our human ineptitude in understanding the sweeping technological changes revolutionizing our culture… the panelists had trouble operating the wall size projected web browser for access their support materials on this most glorious of internet. Once they got down to business, the dialogue of a panel of opposing viewpoints did not stimulate the group to step outside of their rhetoric, and the volley of non-exploration took over. Scales and Lubell took the stance of protecting the trained photographer as one who could consistently sustain the production of depth through his or her finely tuned technique, where Warren Habib defended the ability of the citizen journalist to relate stories that are often overlooked by the constant pressure of rapid reporting of all events worldwide.

The youthful attitude inside me wants to grab it all and push so hard in the theoretical “progressive” mode, but for my age group of 80’s babies, the technology is almost so assumed that we barely realize the transitional generation that we are a part of. Jake Dobkin of The Gothamist was the no holds barred boy of speed and technology, but his excitement over it all just left me feeling a bit queasy and wishing for a hill or a holler to hide away in with my family and real life friends till the end comes down. One way or another things aren’t slowing down any time soon, and these issues are far from clarified (if that is even possible when you are in the moment).

*nothing new was said in these notes that helps either, I hope for revisions soon

also, I have recently hooked up to flickr…a test of my resolve for all of this

This American Life - Chris Ware Animation on young digitalers

Blind Camera

We Are All Photographers Now!