photojunkie

Originally uploaded by sean.

The following are my notes that I wrote for a panel discussion that took place on Tuesday night at the AGO. The discussion was part of a Blogger Preview of the Two Photographers. Two Visions Ansel Adams | Alfred Eisenstaedt exhibit which is opening on Saturday November 18th (more on that tomorrow).

The panel consisted of Louie Palu (G&M Photojournalist), John Reeves (Pro Photographer) and myself , representing photoblogging and new media. The notes below represent what I was supposed to present at the event, but the discussion sort of spun into a completely different direction.

Hi My name is Rannie Turingan from the site photojunkie.ca

I don’t think I really need an introduction especially in this room full of my peers. But I am a photographer, a blogger. and many other things.

I’ll be talking about my experiences with photography, from growing up to present as well as bring up some theories which I have for the future. And how technology has changed the way we see and capture the world. Hopefully it will be a starting point for discussion as to what we can expect in the future.

Growing up with Photography

There’s this photograph of me at 6 months old, I’m sitting up on some sort of wicker chair, the photo a pleasant shade of sepia. It was taken at a place called Smile Studio and I’ve been told that my grandmother took me there to have my photo taken. It’s the oldest photo that I have seen of myself.

The next image of me is from the same studio at the age of 1 and then possible a third photo at the age of 2 or 3 before my family moved from the Phillipines to Canada. It was quite amusing to see that same wicker chair, with me growing bigger and bigger in it. The series represents my first exposure to photography. It’s a series of growth and change.

In Grade 4 or 5 I was allowed to bring a Vivitar 110 camera with me on a day long trip to the Niagara Region. I think I shot maybe one cassette with the camera, which captured horrible unfocused shots. Some of that was my own fault, but I think most of the blame lies with the camera. Of all the shots, I distinctly remember one shot taken from the bus on the highway as we crossed over the Welland Canal. It was dark outside and I used a flash. Big Mistake. Regardless, when I got the pictures I was excited and overjoyed.

By the time I was in grade 8, I was shooting with a automatic point and shoot 35mm camera by Canon. It wasn’t quite an SLR yet, but is hot beautiful images. I shot pictures of my neighbours and class mates. I didn’t see anything wrong with what I was doing, but I did notice that I was pretty much the only kid with a camera.

In Grade 10 or 11, I purchased my first 35mm SLR camera. It was the Canon EOS Rebel S which was being marketted through television commercial by Andre Agassi. I was on the highschool yearbook and also contributed to the school newspaper and I quickly became the kid that people would jump in front of in the hallways at highschool, hoping that I would have my camera to take pictures of them for the yearbook. Social importance at the time, was the number of times you would appear in the yearbook. And I was holding all the cards.

Two occasions in highschool really stick out for me regarding my photography.

The first was a music trip to Boston for some Highschool Music Festival. I don’t remember how many rolls of film I packed with me, but it was quite a number. I was shooting pictures of everything and everyone. On our way back from Boston, finally a fellow student a year older than I, finally snapped and questioned why I was taking so many picture. Up until then, I didn’t see anything wrong in what I was doing. A teacher however quickly spoke up and said that he should appreciate my efforts, cause otherwise their would be no pictures to go into the school yearbook from that trip. It was true, but it really got me questioning.

The second incident which stood out for me was in grade 12. The teachers were on a Work to Rule and a contingent from our highschool decided to go down to the school board to protest. I shot the afternoon with black and white film that day and remember snapping a picture of our student body president, rallying her fellow students marching up and down the sidewalk. If you look at the picture today, the passion is still there in her eye. It was one of the first photos I was ever really proud of, especially in the photojournalistic sense. I thought it captured the feeling among the frustrated students.

I lost to her in the student body election earlier in the year and frankly, I have to wonder if I would have had the leadership that she had if I was in her shoes. Let me say, I’m glad I was behind the lens on that day. It was the first time it really seemed like my images were important. I had captured something of significance and was able to translate it into one shot that carried the emotion of that event.

- Growing up, photography was not as accessible as it is now. It was reserved for special occasions or vacations
- During that time… it was rare for a child or teen to be carrying around a camera
- Especially since film was the medium at the time and it cost money to both buy and process it.
- I was fortunate growing up in a family where photography was embraced. My dad had a Canon A1 which was one of the top cameras at the time. And as I grew older, my mother actually worked at Black’s Photography.

Originally uploaded by John.

I think there are two things that prompted the popularization of modern day photography.
– a) The development of digital technology (hardware)
– b) The opportunity to share in this web 2.0 framework (software)

Digital Medium – Renewed interests
I remember 10 years ago, I was visiting a friend in Seattle. He had just purchased a digital camera. Looking back, the picture quality and resolution were poor and the equipment was very costly, but at the time we thought it was amazing. I can’t quite remember how much he paid for it, but it must have been at least somewhere between $500- $1000 with simple VGA images. I was still shooting strictly with film and had my Rebel with me, but the thought of taking pictures and instantly getting the results sounded appealing. My pictures were still better than his though, I just had to wait longer to actually see them.

Over the years since then, resolution and picture quality have increased tremendously. The cameras are becoming more compact and most importantly, the equipment is much more affordable.

Digital changed it all… made photography accessible to the masses

If I ask now… how many people in the room have a digital camera I bet most would raise their hand (of course the demographic here is biased). But if I ask how many of your were shooting photos on a daily to regular basis 10 years ago. The number of hands would drop significantly.

Web 2.0 – Share, Contribute

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, etc — that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O’Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences and since 2004 it has become a popular (though ill-defined and often criticized) buzzword amongst certain technical and marketing communities.

Every year, more and more people are becoming aware of what blogs are. Most media outlets, celebrities, TV shows, insititions have their own blog, but really, when it started it was about individuals who were sharing their content with other likeminded people.

With the popularization of digital cameras, photo-based blogs quickly found a niche of their own. And now we have sites such as flickr which allow us to post and share our photos with a international audience instantly.

You don’t need to look at LIFE Magazine or National Geographic to view pictures of far off and remote places. You just have to hop online and with a quick search you can find whatever you want and most likely someone have recently taken a picture of it.

So you ask what is so special here? Sure people can say there is a lot of crap out there, but it is also easier to find the photographic gems, from the luxury of your own home.

I think is was the marriage between the advances in equipment tied to a medium which is easily accessible to the masses, both in consumption and participation.

How has my life changed ?

a) Quicker Learning Curve, you can instantly see your mistakes and fix and learn from them
b) the benefit of being able to share images almost instantly, I took many many many photos before owning a digital camera. Most of which have only been since by a handful of people.
c) having an international audience without the overhead of actual printing in a magazine or paper

What does the Future Hold?

I guess the only question that remains really is.. where do I see it going in the future…. will the bubble eventually burst?

a) a resurgence of film buffs…. Not everyone is a digital user and I think as people get more and more serious about their craft, you will see a resurgence of film users. It’s happening already and over the years, I have seen people go from digital to film, because of their growing interest

b) seeing more and more individuals going pro through this route as opposed to the usual art school route

I also think part of the future is yet unknown, especially with the quickness in advances in technology, new niches can quickly open up which we never imagined possible

I mean, it’s really online a matter of time before we start seeing cameras with some sort of wifi or some other sort of connectivity where once we take the shot, we can instantly upload it from where ever we are to the internet.

We are already seeing it with camera phones, but the quality is not there yet and of course we need to see a change in the data infrastructure and pricing. Right now, especially in Canada it is not cheap to send data through the network…. wirelessly. But once company’s like Rogers put that sort of infrasturture in place and once the cost of such a service drops… then a floodgate will open.

If you think it is hard to keep up with your flickr contacts now, just imagine what it would be like once we have the ability to wirelessly upload images from any location to the web for a reasonable price. It would be so easy, that it would become almost pointless. That is the wonderful thing about “web 2.0″ it has made everyone their own publisher… we just need the resources to cut down the time between taking the picture, and going home to upload them. Sure not everyone is gonna use and abuse this system, but you can bet that some people would jump on the bandwagon and flood the web with their content… And like all things on the web, the quality sites and quality content providers will rise to the top

But it’s not unfathomable now, but if you go back 10 years… and I told you everyone would be uploading their pictures online for all the world to see, you probably would have laughed.

Of course, some would criticize that there will be an overabundance of photos and other media, so that it’s all diluted and harder to sift through.

well ya.. there is tons of proverbial garbage online, as well as tons of mundane, family photos…. pictures of pets… there always has been….

But I think the great thing about the web now, is that it has become easier for someone with talent to rise above and get noticed, without having to hit the pavement dropping off expensive portfolios from place to place.

Also it’s just amazing to imagine what kind of history we are saving. Never before have so many pictures been taken in such a short period of time. Capturing life, death, emotions, events everything. Just imagine how many pictures have been taken in the time it took me to present this. In the big picture it is mind blowing.

You will have to excuse the mix of sentences and point form, hopefully I have caught all the spelling errors.