stephen j edgar photoblog

Who wasn’t absolutely BLOWN AWAY by this past week’s events?  Wow.  Hey, I’m a Proud Canadian and the explosion of self-lovin’ from south of our border had ME feeling misty!  Truly a beautiful thing.  All the jawing I give my American friends and relatives about their Prez and their policies and their war-mongering ways can be stuffed…for now anyway.

This story continues and will be talked about, well, for-EVER.  As it should be.  More and more I am amazed at how this all came to be.  Obama surely is an incredible guy with an AMAZING team behind him.  Brrrrr…  That was me shivering with the recollection of THE MAN’s beautiful timbre and usage of the english languge even while under attack…Brrrrrr, that’s me shivering again just thinking about how this web technology was utilised for the greater good!  As the Adrianna Huffington rightly proclaimed HERE even before the day was done, the winner in this campaign:  the internet!  Listen to what Al Gore says!  and I believe him.  In fact, it’s what he said here that kicked my ass to start blogging again (so you can blame him).  But I’m actually going to go a little further than Adrianna and Al and get a little more pin-pointy on this.  I think the day belonged to the PHOTOGRAPHERS.  Yes, CNN and all those dudes covered him in the news, but look deeper.  Barack’s PR team went to town!  His face was everywhere!  Kudos to Barack’s team.  They did such incredible job with image management on this one -what a coup.  There were just so many wonderful photographs out there for us to drink in.  I can’t remember seeing any bad ones!  The other guy….hmm.  Well let’s just say, another ball dropped (and I’m not even gonna get into his running mate or, more to the point, her godawful media team).    Well photographed, well managed, and VERY well distributed images such as this captured the hearts and imaginations of many across the globe.  This was a major ingredient for Obama’s win.

wow

This shout out to brothers and sisters in my profession is SO NECESSARY at this point in tech history.  With all the access to digital and info technology these days, it is said anyone can be a photographer -hell, I’ve said it more than once!  It’s amazing the wonderful work I see everywhere coming from enthusiests around the globe.  Unfortunately however, the double edge sword here is that people like me who have shed blood sweat and tears to earn the title PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER are being driven out of the biz.  The availability of all this great technology has cheapened our services to the point where it is extremely tough to survive.  And not to pick on anyone in particular but the culprits consistently seem to be PR people and Art Directors….sorry guys, but it’s true!  and I hate to say it but your photos SUCK!  I’m kidding, I’m kidding…kind of.  Here is a much more eloquently communicated article on the matter as it pertains to the publishing industry.  and by the way, this blog is SO good.  All professional photographers should bookmark this guy and read him regularly.

So the moral of the story is:  No one interested in marketing their services or products can say that great, professional, dynamic images are too expensive.  Expect to go cheap, and bad image management will sink you and your product.  Let’s fix this marketplace with baby steps.  In the marketing and communications biz hire someone that knows what he/she is doing and -here’s a novel concept- PAY THEM WELL FOR THEIR EXPERTISE!  It will come back on you and you will reap the dividends.  Photographers out there:  STOP undervaluing your services.  You know who you are… By doing so you hurt not only yourself but your brothers and sisters!  This is quite an oversimplification of an ongoing and complex issue I’ll admit.  For those of you working in Canada, go to THIS SITE, and read read read.  It’s dry, but you won’t regret looking it over.

Thank you Barack for so many things, but especially for supporting the point I have been trying to make for so long.