Just as the Times-Picayune laid off many of their staff and then decided not to sell the newspaper for reasons unknown to most of us, the Chicago Sun Times just laid off all of their photography staff - their reason being that they would train reporters to be photographers and videographers using iPhones and other smaller handheld devices. I can only assume it is for a budget cut. Even for an amateur photographer, like myself, it's a very sad trend that seems to be happening.
I remember as a child my own brother was photographed for LIFE Magazine at his elementary school while he was playing the violin. My parents have a copy of this issue at their house. It's the one with Princess Diana on the front, in case you're interested.
My father is who I learned all of my photography skills and interests from. My boyfriend also used to be a professional photographer, but like these other newspaper employees, was laid off from a paper in North Carolina. To me photography is a way to let everyone else to see what you are seeing. So many times I have wished that I even had a camera in my eyeball - which sounds very strange I know - just to take a picture or capture an image or a scene for an instant that I caught from something in nature or a cultural experience that I can't even get with a camera lens.
Certainly the quality of photography that will come from cell phone photographers or cell phone video or whatever tablet with a built in camera - even though the mega pixels are slowly getting up there, and yes for the medium that it is a cell phone or a tablet it is taking a really nice pictures - however, with all of the types of lenses or settings you can put and use on your camera and the zoom and the macro and all other kinds of focus speed and lighting, etc. you will never get the quality a photograph as you could from an actual camera. I still have my cameras, my sister-in-law collects old cameras, and my dad has a few, too. It's sad that it's a dying art. Everything is about cutting cost these days but it's also cutting the beauty and the eye of the beholder and the whole art form out of everything. Everything is getting cheaper and cheaper and less and less valuable to us as a society and I find it quite depressing.
I remember as a child my own brother was photographed for LIFE Magazine at his elementary school while he was playing the violin. My parents have a copy of this issue at their house. It's the one with Princess Diana on the front, in case you're interested.
My father is who I learned all of my photography skills and interests from. My boyfriend also used to be a professional photographer, but like these other newspaper employees, was laid off from a paper in North Carolina. To me photography is a way to let everyone else to see what you are seeing. So many times I have wished that I even had a camera in my eyeball - which sounds very strange I know - just to take a picture or capture an image or a scene for an instant that I caught from something in nature or a cultural experience that I can't even get with a camera lens.
Certainly the quality of photography that will come from cell phone photographers or cell phone video or whatever tablet with a built in camera - even though the mega pixels are slowly getting up there, and yes for the medium that it is a cell phone or a tablet it is taking a really nice pictures - however, with all of the types of lenses or settings you can put and use on your camera and the zoom and the macro and all other kinds of focus speed and lighting, etc. you will never get the quality a photograph as you could from an actual camera. I still have my cameras, my sister-in-law collects old cameras, and my dad has a few, too. It's sad that it's a dying art. Everything is about cutting cost these days but it's also cutting the beauty and the eye of the beholder and the whole art form out of everything. Everything is getting cheaper and cheaper and less and less valuable to us as a society and I find it quite depressing.
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