Beyond the obvious

Professional photography is competitive. If you ask a lot of professional photographers about their job they seem to have a love/hate relationship. They will often tell young photography students that photojournalism is dead, the profession as a photographer will not exist in a few years time because stills will be extracted from videos and you'll not be able to make a living as a professional photographer because everyone who has a digital camera these days thinks they're a gifted photographer. The same kind of thing has been said to creatives in all media for centuries. When photography first appeared on the scene, many said that painting was dead. But painters reinvented their art with surrealism, cubism and abstract painting, and now for many years there's even been a movement of artists who paint in a style of realism that mimics photography. The perception that excellent photography is important has been eroded from publishing, with ever lower professional fees, acce...