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According To Annie Leibovitz The Future of Photography Is Stronger And Better Than Ever

via The Guardian

The Most Important People To Photograph Are Those Without A Voice

Perhaps the most important people that I should photograph are the people who don’t have a voice. And I think that that’s the message of the day. That’s the most honorable thing to aspire to. To be able to give someone the chance to express themselves, to tell their story on a platform that they would never normally get. And in doing so, that platform shifts how we see the times that we are living in. So that really is my mission.

via A Conversation with Platon | New Republic.

Now’s Best Time to Buy Art - The market for masterpieces and trophies couldn’t be stronger

“After you’ve bought three homes, two yachts and a plane, the most visible manifestation of affluence is what’s hanging on your walls -- particularly if your friends know what’s there,” he said. “Bragging rights are important.”

via Now’s Best Time to Buy Art, Collector Rachofsky Says - Bloomberg.

Retailers have a moral obligation to ban the airbrush

The airbrush backlash is now well underway as Debenhams announces a ban on all retouched lingerie model shots.

The high-street department store puts and end to such images as they 'want to help customers feel confident about their figures without bombarding them with unattainable body images'.

via Mail Online.

Beyoncé photos spark press-PR feud

Since Buzzfeed published shots of the star that her publicist didn’t like, her PR squad stopped issuing press passes to photojournalists to tour dates, and instead has required news organizations to register with them for access to pictures taken by the tour’s official photographer. They’ve also contacted media outlets like Buzzfeed to request that certain photos be removed.

The strategy hasn’t worked too well for Beyoncé; news outlets, frustrated about the limitations on their photographers, have used the original offending photos, from Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime show, in lieu of the provided photos.

via Poynter..

The Photographers Who Reach Out To Me On A Regular Basis Get The Jobs

My whole philosophy on hiring people is: I need to meet you. I need to know what type of person you are (even if it is just for 5 minutes). I may already know what you shoot and your work, but as soon as I meet you/we make a connection, you get added to my consideration list.  Some photographers I’ve met share recent projects with me and others just check in with me every once in awhile. Either way, I know that person is going to follow through on a lot of things and that is important to me when I hire a photographer.

via Sasha Carillo, Creative Planner and Art Producer at Davis Elen advertising in Los Angeles.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin have become the first duo to win the Deutsche Börse photography prize

Broomberg and Chanarin were praised for their book War Primer 2, originally published in a small edition by Mack Books, which reworks Bertolt Brecht's original War Primer publication from 1955 using internet screengrabs and mobile phone snaps to comment on the role of photography in the so-called "war on terror".

via The Guardian.

Is it insulting to be replaced by iPhones?

A camera is just a tool. A carpenter using a hammer and me using a hammer are going to get different results. I can use a hammer but I don’t know how to make a table. For me it’s not about the camera, it’s about the skill and the storytelling ability.

I heard from a reporter yesterday who shot two features with her phone and she marveled at how much time it took to shoot the photos, choose the ones she wanted, edit the photos, upload the photos—she just had no idea how much time it took. The product of the reporting and the photography is going to suffer.

via The Daily Dot - A talk with Rob Hart, the photographer behind "Laid Off From the Sun-Times".

Put Out Solid Work, Stay Fresh And True To Your Ideas, And You Will Have A Successful Career

people think that it’s going to be this “new up and coming” person who is going to take over, and I don’t think that that is necessarily the rule. I think as long as you are putting out solid work, good work, staying fresh and true to your ideas, and evolving with time, then you can have an extremely successful career. And I like to see that versus “trend.”

via One Art Producers Point of View: Photography Portfolio Review Events. Part I | Heather Elder Represents Blog.

It Doesn't Get Any Easier With More Experience

Well I must say that it doesn’t get any easier because as you get more experienced and as you go further you're trying to work with more complexity, and take more complexity and create more simplicity. Because you're older and hopefully experienced you see things as a larger whole so your job then becomes more difficult because you've got to synthesise all these many different points into a single reality - a photograph. So the job doesn't get any easier it gets more challenging. It's very important that the job is challenging because if it isn't you shouldn't be taking the picture.

via Ten questions for photographer Roger Ballen - Phaidon.