A few weeks ago, renowned photographer Vincent Laforet wrote an excellent and insightful article about the situation facing professional photographers in today’s digital world.  The article beautifully summed up the impact the digital age is having on the traditional structures of print publishing, and went on to make a few predictions about what the future might hold.

A lot of the summation was pretty depressing reading for anyone hoping to make money out of photography.  The reasons Laforet gives are well trodden ground, briefly summarised it goes something like this …

Online content is the future, and it is, on the whole, free to consume.  Virtually all print publications have websites where they give their content away for free, and consequently we’re seeing a massive reduction, and in all likelihood the eventual death, of print publications.  That’s not the real problem though, as the money gained from actually selling a newspaper or magazine only really covers the cost of the paper it’s printed on.  The real problem lies in the fact that online advertising doesn’t (yet) provide the kind of revenues needed to fund the type of journalism, photographic or otherwise, that the traditional models have supported up until now.  Couple that with the perception from the publishing industry, and the public at large, that photography is somehow easier and cheaper to produce than it used to be, fuelled in part by the proliferation of professionally equipped amateurs willing to work for free, and the problem has compounded; there’s not a lot of money around for your traditional professional photographer these days.

What’s more, people’s tastes appear to be changing …

As newspaper and magazines disappear - so will a lot of the photography - forever. The truth is that while photography is one of the most popular hobbies and growth sectors out there - most people seem to want a richer media experience on the web.

Still photographs will always be around - we will see a slide show on a website 10-20 years from now - but it will likely incorporate video, sound and a variety of other artistic media into something we just haven’t quite seen yet.

…

Photographers will have to think of themselves as visual storytellers - not just as still photographers. Photographers will become much more adept at producing multimedia content - not just boring slide shows w/ music - but ones that are truly engaging and original - basically they need to invent the next generation of storytelling - something we haven’t seen before (i.e. they need to differentiate themselves from HBO Documentaries, and the other broadcast giants - not try to compete with them…) And this is key: Photographers need to brainstorm new ways to connect with their audiences and find new and original ways of generating income with these new “connections.”
‘The Cloud is Falling’ by Vincent Laforet, written for SportsShooter.com

When I first read the article, what popped into my mind immediately was a Magnum photostory that I’d seen a couple of years previously by Simon Wheatley.  It was the first time I’d seen photography presented in this way; the images displayed as a slide-show, narrated by the photographer.  The presentation of the images combined with the heartfelt words behind the stories of those in them was a mesmerising, powerful and inspiring concoction.  I immediately watched a few more, the most memorable of which was Paul Fusco’s incredibly moving story of the effects still being felt by the Chernobyl disaster.

Two days ago I came across the Bombay Flying Club via Bert Stephani’s Confessions of a Photographer blog, and then today I got around to watching some of MediaStorm’s photo-stories.  Both these sites follow a similar pattern - photojournalism told via multimedia slide-shows, with narration and video interviews from photographers, journalists and the subjects of the stories themselves.  It’s a highly intoxicating mix.  I defy anyone to watch the Bombay Flying Club’s “Bucharest Below Ground” and “The Ardoyne Suicides“, and MediaStorm’s “The Marlboro Marine” and not feel engaged and moved.  It’s true that the subject matter of all these photo-stories is immensely weighty, and by their nature alone it’s possible to feel moved, but there’s something about the multimedia nature of these presentations that’s unique and unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

Having watched these presentations, and having gone back to look at the Magnum stories two years after first seeing them to see the level of impact they have had with people who have left comments, all of a sudden Vincent Laforet’s assertion that photographers “need to invent the next generation of storytelling” - “ones that are truly engaging” seems slightly out of date - the next generation of storytelling has already begun, it seems.

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