The decisive moment, the popular Henri Cartier-Bresson approach to photography in which a scene is stopped and depicted at a certain point of high visual drama, is now possible to achieve at any time. One's photographs, years later, may be retroactively rephotographed by repositioning the photographer or the subject of the photograph, or by adding elements that were never there before but now are made to exist concurrently in a newly elastic sense of space and time.
Fred RitchinI hope that many visual journalists will be hired or funded along the way as well - we urgently need their perspectives.
Fred RitchinWe have faith in the photograph not only because it works on a physically descriptive level, but in a broader sense because it confirms our sense of omnipresence as well as the validity of the material world.
Fred RitchinOne cannot always summarize massive issues by looking at the life of one person or one family, or even one community.
Fred RitchinThe photograph that discovers and uncovers the world is harder to simulate than an image that simply illustrates one's ideas about it.
Fred RitchinThe inherent non-linearity of the digital allows for more input from others, including the subject and reader as collaborators. The top-down, bedtime-style story is of limited use. A non-linear narrative that allows for increased complexity and depth, and encourages both subject and reader to have greater involvement, will eventually emerge more fully from the digital environment. This, in a sense, is the more profound democratization of media.
Fred RitchinWhat does a professional photojournalist do that others cannot? Depicting photo opportunities as if they are authentic, covering press conferences, or making subjects play their assigned roles (the poor as passive victims, celebrities as glamorous) are hardly adequate responses. In fact, these might be reasons to ask for the help of amateurs who do not know how to stylize their imagery and are not interested in making a publication seem more palatable to its potential consumers.
Fred Ritchin