1. There was a few years in the first period, in which I will not say who lived well from this, but paid relatively well. When we started there were virtually no private television and advertising pie was to be distributed among the media, radio and little else. Worked chain “I sell because I am who buys and who advertises me, then I pay and I have envoys and buy reports”. That increasingly got worse.
2. The advent of the Internet was revolutionary, for better and for worse. On one side was the “all free”, which was a big mistake they made all the media at the beginning and what he meant for us, everyone could take a photo and use it without any shame and no I say pay, but not even sign it.
But it also brought good things, communication is changed, the speed is changed from negative to the scanner, the scanner to digital cameras, can be transmitted in situ at any time, which is how we are now, you’re going to a party football and five minutes has already begun war to see which agency put a picture first.
3. There has been a generational and technological advantages and disadvantages change and I think we are no exception to any other profession that. You can not go against the technology, because it would go back. They will always be romantic and classic, I love that they exist, but in our lives reporterismo or photojournalists pure and tough we are, has no place. To compete with an agency or a national or international environment that is unthinkable.
4. When I started playing I send the reels for Iberia pilot from Cuba or give to a lady who was on a bus to Madrid to ALSA caught them my agency and then would anyone look with a little sign. It was revealed, copies were made and that is going to sell.
This has changed, suddenly, a man with his tablet or iphone has an app or a connection with any of the new social networks via Twitter, Facebook or whatever and then circulate the information and images. Then, in that we can not be left behind. Another thing is to pretend that an iPhone does everyone photographer.
5. Everyone who has a smartphone or a camera has also a wireless card. I now can not live without Wifi, can not eat, can have low light, but I can not be without Wifi, because it is what connects me to the world of Internet and media world.
6. The great invention of the agencies, newspapers and the media is not paying, take pictures of someone’s Twitter or Facebook even without asking permission, because the rules of these social networks do not make clear whether to hang a picture you lose rights over it. The media and major newspapers found the great bargain of his life, which is how to have pictures of something almost immediately without paying a penny, often at the expense of quality.
7. The citizen journalist will never replace the reporter or photojournalist, first because there is a fundamental thing, which is contrast. “If your mother says she’s your mother, contrast that” that one of the principles of our profession photojournalists. But on the other hand, everything is free “fucking” many colleagues. We are using many pens, as has happened in several American newspapers, which were among its workforce to four or five photographers, some of them with two Pulitzer prizes and a decided day it was better to buy an iphone for each editor and dismiss photographers . It’s a bit the snake’s tail or the breakthrough that has Internet bites.
8. People believed that because photography is posted on the Internet is worldwide. You’re not going to the Prado and go with Picasso underarm have paid for your ticket, that’s drawer. Neither you go to a concert with the guitar or bass playing because you paid the entrance. People confuse what is money intellectual property of the work or the copyright of who created the work. On the one hand we are hurting a lot, but otherwise social networks are a springboard where you can have 30,000 followers, which allow you to open more doors market.
9. Technology helps, but you have a guitar at home does not mean you’re a singer. You can play with friends and sing very well, but if you give concerts, edit your disks, raisins to be a professional track. I think it’s great that more and more democratized photography and increasingly has more images, but perhaps now is a supersaturation of images even in the media, because it is so fast and is so the number of pictures that can be done with any environment or any type of camera …
10. We can never go against technology because otherwise we astray.
There is a phrase Soriano Tino I really like saying “There’s a meteorite falls and” we “are the dinosaurs,” the last to know. It’s a way of announcing the death of photojournalism quotes. We need to know out of this story, which is costing us, because they may not know how to take that performance to mobile and technology.
Eloy Alonso
