It’s Saturday morning, the festival is in full swing and after some uncertainty, I think this festival has some gems. This is my last day in DUMBO and I will spend the rest of May 24 weekend digesting what I’ve seen and reporting it back to you. In the meantime, Ronit will carry on.
Without question, these are trying times for the US photography industry. I’ve met a lovely but deflated out-of-work Art Buyer and many photographers, glad-handing with a sense of desperation about them. Evidenced perhaps by the pastoral and serene shot of the Canadians languishing by the water in yesterday’s post, things aren’t as bad in Canada.
But, trying times are also exciting, revolutionary times too. Ronit Novak nabbed powerHouse CEO and NYPH founder Daniel Power and grilled him briefly about that. Listen to the audio here for a glimpse of the future:
Daniel Power. Copyright Ronit Novak
A question lingers about this optimism: Is it just faith or is it actually realistic?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
‘Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.’
– Stanislaw Lem
BTW… how is the new camera?
I wonder if it would be good thing for us to put relentless positivity aside for a while and come to terms with some negativity.
These are trying times across the board so it is hard to be optimistic about the industry. Magazines that have been the brad and butter of many a shooter are folding here and abroad. More shooters fighting for less jobs. I cant tell you how many times I have received bad news emails from shooters saying something along the lines of – one of my main clients is not shooting now, I am not working – and that is Scary. Pile that on top of all the other things that are happening in the industry and it is very hard for many people, infront of and beside the camera, to remain positive. Another factor I think is the influx of festivals. While it is great to network and see inspiring work too much can lead to apathy. I mean we are just coming out of Contact here and as much good as there is in the show there is also a helluva lot of blah blah blah as well. If anyone can have a show under the show banner what draw is that? Why care about the next photo fest when the one you just rolled out of sets the bar so low? Is that harsh? Yes. But really when I see every bar and cafe have a poster in it advertising the show inside I expect work that is different from the usual work I find in cafes. Damn, this comment went off in a different direction! Sorry for the hijack! Or maybe I am baiting!
Please bait away! There is alot of criticism of the NYPH this year. Last year was full of glee and monumental new undertakings for photography. Martin Parr and Erik Kessels and Penelope Umberico were doing an amazing job bringing up hyper-relevant points about vernacular photography and the internet. The stale-est 2008 show was I felt, Kathy Ryan’s curatorial enterprise, that basically went back to the old comparison between painting and 1950s abstract painting. Why not at least compare photo to contemporary painting! With the exception of Chris Boot’s “Gay Men Play” NYPH2009 seems like a rehashing of ideas brought up in last year’s festival, and I feel like we’re kicking a dead horse. I also kind of feel like we’re being dragged along in Daniel Power of powerHouse books publishing’s marketing campaign. There are some good photographers to note here, like Jacob Holdt and Tim Hetherington, but I must say that from an industry standpoint, the prospect of making a living as a photographer seems difficult. And that is what’s relevant to the “future of photography” today, and that issue is not being addressed here.
isn’t it easy to be optimistic when your business model relies on having photographers pay you to publish their books?
it would be great to have people to pay you to publish their work, since there is no market any more for photo books on a commercial scale, but Alan Rapp here is sadly mistaken.