This month’s Digital Journalist is up, with the Dallas Morning News on the cover and some fairly bold predictions from Dirck Halstead, the driving force behind the site (and, arguably, much of the reinvention of photojournalism).
Dirck first. In his column, The Coming Earthquake in Photography, he predicts that within 10 years not only will photojournalism be primarily concerned with video, but the very shape of the beast will have changed, going from the 4:3 proportions of the 35mm frame to the 16:9 proportions of wide screen video. Even for stills.
There’s a lot more to the column, including this:
With video becoming the prime tool of acquisition, audio of course now enters into the picture. In fact, it becomes as important as the video. This means that a whole new set of skills must be developed by the photographer. Every photographer has already become a computer technician, spending more time on the “post” process, such as Photoshop, than on taking the picture. In the future, editing will be done in such programs as Final Cut Pro. All of this means that photographers will have to be smarter.
What remains, of course, is the eye, something that seems to be overlooked too often in the discussion about “good” newspaper video, citizen photojournalism and all the other evolutionary development chewing up legacy media.
The Dallas Morning News is featured because it is the leading newspaper in the conversion of photojournalism. The primary shooting mode is video and still shots are frame grabs. It opens up the storytelling possibilities but, more interestingly, it brings the aesthetic of the still photographer to video, creating something new. Dirck has an article about that, as does Leslie White, the director of photography at the Morning News. I recommend both of them to you.
And take some time for the video report, too, that shows not just the photographer in action, but some very wise words from David Leeson (about the midway mark in the video) directed to the Dallas shooters. (The articles, the video and a gallery of Dallas work, can all be accessed from here.)
If you’re doing photojournalism, want to be a photojournalist, or just care about what’s happening with the art of visual storytelling, you really should spend some time with all of these. Like Dirck, I firmly believe these are pointing to the immediate future.
TAGS: PHOTOJOURNALISM, DIRCK HALSTEAD, DALLAS MORNING NEWS
