Day two Pro Photo Summit: Still vs. Video

I remember when the only people using digital cameras were the photojournalists. Once again, they're at the forefront of the next big technological and business revolution. In five years, photographers who shoot only with a still camera may be as rare as one who only use film today.

The Still vs Video panel was weighted with journalists, who don't think of themselves as photographers anymore. People like Colin Fletcher at Fox, William Snyder at Dallas Morning News, Robin Hood from MSNBC. They in the "storytelling business" now. Chuck Westfall from Canon supported this: " The technology is moving forward. The demand for convergence type device is growing. If you've been watching us, within the last year we've brought CMOS into HD video. This is a major step toward the kind of device that can do a high quality still and video at the same time. "

Robin Hood commiserated with those of us in the audience who feel threatened by this: "I completely understand people's emotional investment thinking of themselves as a still photographer. I used to be about the picture. That level of emotional and intellectual investment allows us to confuse video with television news. And I've been out there, I've seen how it's made. Its sausage making, you don't want to see it. "

The future transition could be brutal. This from Colin:
"What is going to happen is that Robert Murdoch is going to buy the LA Times. He is going to replace the still photographers with video guys. That will happen."

Dennis Brack from the White House News Association was in the audience, with another scary perspective:  "You're going to be shooting video because there's going to be another guy coming to your client shooting video and still. We have no rate struture for this. "Shoot a little video". It's on their website. Who has the resale rights? We all have to get together about  what were going to charge for this. We thought PS and editing was time consuming. Try this one. We're going to have to find something very quickly. Within a couple of years, your clients are going to come to you and say, hey, we need this for our website, can you do it?"

It will be someone a lot younger than you too. "For the last several decades photographers have owned the creative space. The problem is, there's a lot of people for the last 20 years who think of themselves as a photographer, not a creative. These people coming up in the new era don't distinguish between photo and video. They won't be one or the other."

Comments

[Steve Boyko]

When I go shoot trains, I shoot both video and stills, depending on my mood (mostly). I can say that in the past year I have shifted from shooting mostly video to shooting mostly stills.

I find that stills convey the message I want better, when presented on the Internet. However, the video section of my web site is far more popular than my still photo section, which supports the quotes you presented.

It all comes down to "what I want to do" versus "give the people what they want".

[Samantha]

Well written article.