The bad thing about not publishing in the blog for three months is that stories get piled up.
On the bright side, now it is easier to look behind and see a big panorama. And understand what happened. As you know, we can be in touch in Facebook, too. But things happen faster over there.
During the last months very good things have happened to me: I have taught a class of international photography at the Autonomous University of Barcelona; I have been a web consultant for Demotix; I have done assignments for some new clients and I have started working as a freelance photographer for the European Parliament.
Surprisingly, lots of people think these things happen to me because I carry a camera and some professional lenses in my bag. The assistant of an MEP asked me to take some pictures because my camera was “good”, while his Canon 400D was unable to make the job, he claimed.
I would have loved to explain to him that it is not about the violin, but the violinist. But solving the job seemed more urgent to me.
Professional criteria
The story deserved some thinking. In these times of uncertitude, in which photographers feel unsafe in view of new cameras able to solve so many things on their own (they take panoramic pictures if you throw them on the air; they recongize smiles; they focus everything), I believe we should remind why are we hired. We get hired because we have judgement. Professional criteria.
Owning a camera is important, but knowing how to use it is even more important. And the essential part remains knowing what to use it for. That is, having professional criteria.
Thus, dear friends, dear clients, dear people who came from Google while searching for something else, I present to you the schema that pays my bills, ordered by importance:
I HAVE A CAMERA < I KNOW HOW TO USE IT < I KNOW WHAT TO USE IT FOR
I apologize for the childish simplicity of the idea and for the self-help language. I believe this is important and I wanted to share it with you all.
I am convinced that the third element of the schema is the one that gave me work during these last months. And I suspect professional photography will survive thanks to that, too.
I leave you with a portrait of two designers that I made for Surface Magazine. They published another picture, which I liked less. A matter of criteria, I guess.
Sometimes reality is better than fiction. The Cathedral of Brussels looked yesterday like one of those too-much-ultra-post-treated HDR photos. We had the typical dark sky; we had the typical threatining clouds; and we had light only where we wanted. All the clichés of HDR were there, with no Photoshop.
They are not necessarily dying, but I do think photojournalism and documentary might be drowning.
(…) There is so much information out there… as photographers and editors and curators, there is so much overload. We have access to see so many different projects and so many different images all of the time. So, making things a value I think now it’s what’s important, focusing on things that you are really connected with as a photographer or as a curator or as an editor and driving those things for.
Because it might be easier to get information and put information out there. But what are we saying with that information? And how are we being responsibles as photographers for putting the information out there? Are we making quick projects because we have the tools now to do it, because we have access to do it? Or are we thinking about what will happen with the outcome of putting those projects out there, on the web… What they are saying to the public and what they are saying of ourselves as photographers and how are we contributing to the future of the medium in that way?
Just a quick correction to the post of last friday: my picture of flags was actually published on The Telegraph.
The UK Independence Party Hillingdon had only copied it and pasted it into their site. Now, for some reason, the copied article has been replaced by a reference with a link to the Telegraph.
Maybe they are readers of this blog
In any case I am happy to see the picture published on The Telegraph.
This morning I have been to a press conference given by Howard Gutman, USA ambassador to Belgium. I had already seen him a couple of times in the Belgian media, so I thought it would be useful to go and make some pictures for my archive.
Anyway it is a joy to take pictures of someone who gestures this much. You can check it out by yourselves by watching all the pictures of Howard Gutman:
