The PJ Circle Jerk
The PJ Circle Jerk is not a punk band or a new dance craze. It’s what happens when a group of people decide to join forces in order to satisfy their own needs.
Photojournalism is costly. I takes time to produce and you need a talented person behind the camera. Time and talent costs money. Photojournalism isn’t like most editorial photography. It might take a week to witness what you’re trying to capture. It might take a month. News happens on it’s own schedule, not yours. When everything comes together it’s magic. There’s no better way to communicate to a world-wide audience. Of course, this kind of magic is rare, that’s why we (as an industry) reward the best of it.
The PJ world takes contests seriously. Careers are jumpstarted, unseen work is exposed to a wider audience, editors are validated, publications are honored, and publishers are less likely to fire the people who spent the money needed to produce the award winning content in the first place.
Remove the money and you lose the time and the talent. This is precisely what has create the crisis in photojournalism today It’s that simple. You don’t need a pseudo intellectual to explain it to you.
Although the money has dried up, there’s still advertising to sell and editors with mortgages to pay. Which means they need somebody to work the camera, risk their lives, and ruin all…
