What 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 RitchinIn fact, the new malleability of the image may eventually lead to a profound undermining of photography's status as an inherently truthful pictorial form... If even a minimal confidence in photography does not survive, it is questionable whether many pictures will have meaning anymore, not only as symbols but as evidence.
Fred RitchinThe slideshow "is a very primitive form that quickly becomes predictable and repetitive."
Fred RitchinI hope that many visual journalists will be hired or funded along the way as well - we urgently need their perspectives.
Fred RitchinPhotographs need to demand the viewer's attention, often implicitly, posing questions as to the nature of what is being depicted. Photographs are not there to show us the world, but to show us a version of what may be happening.
Fred Ritchin