How is your local newspaper doing these days?

This is the one and only photo published in the Monterey Herald on line edition of the Monterey Greek Festival, a photo rich event. Data shows it was taken with a Canon 5D Mk III, so you can't blame the equipment. The Monterey Peninsula has a long, rich photographic history. Fine art photography was literally invented here.

Mayor's son? ;)

 

Fine art photographers ... maybe not so much at a street festival. Head to Point Lobos and the rest of the shoreline and I'll be you run into some.

Fine art photography was literally invented here.

 

dubious. :cool:

 

The very inventors of photography in France and Britain were fine art creators. It's a lot earlier than Steichen and Adams

 

As for the local paper : No one that I know subscribes to the local paper any more

My local paper is the only one in the country (New Zealand) which pays its way. Most of the other papers have been swallowed up by 2 big (for New Zealand) media groups, which are struggling financially.

My local newspaper, the "Sun Sentinel," is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, Florida. Until a few years ago, it covered local, national, and international news. Several years ago, it started covering news for Palm Beach County also, which makes the papers somewhat useless to me. My experience, past and present, is that its published photos are documentary only. Yet, It may still sponsor a reader's contest, and submissions may be considered fine art.

I read the local paper regularly, - while in the break room at work. It is a popular publication in the break room and probably lots of break rooms, but I don't know how many people subscribe personally anymore.

 

We have subscribed at times in the past but what ends up happening is that we have a lot of unread newspaper to recycle.

 

In terms of the photography within either the print or on-line version don't have much of an opinion honestly. Generally the on-line version has a lot more photographs and I can't say I've found it lacking.

I subscribe to the local "large" paper because I like to read it with breakfast and it has comics on Sunday. The cost has become outrageous and the paper itself has shrunk to almost a flyer. The local town paper hasn't got comics on Sunday and I couldn't afford both. Plus, the coverage is often duplicate. If the price goes up again I'll probably drop the one I do get. I think they print a lot of "no effort" stuff. The local reporting is OK, but there isn't much depth.

I've been addicted to newsprint since a child, starting with the 'Grey Lady', the NYT's before it published any color photos. It's still an irreplaceable newspaper, yet has diminished itself greatly in the mad rush for money and social relevance - read market.

I had the great fortune to be stationed in Monterey from '64-'65, at the Defense Language Institute, and read the daily daily, a fine paper and a real help for close readers from far away.

Craigslist gutted the classifieds, hence their income, and the decline of local news papers, like a small post office, is a tragedy.

What is this "newspaper" of which you speak?

I'm curious why newspapers have been mentioned in this forum. I thought this was the "photo conversations" forum. Can we really post non photographic topics here?

Wow, that photo from the Monterey Herald is awful. How could anyone take a blurry photo in bright sunlight with a pro DSLR? I suspect the paper laid off all the real photographers and handed the heavy camera to someone unfamiliar with it.

 

My local paper (San Francisco Chronicle) maintains high quality in reporting, writing, photography, graphics, layout, and typography, and I read the paper edition every day. But it's expensive, unless you subscribe digital-only. I subscribe to the print edition because it's faster and more enjoyable to read in hand than on screen. Most U.S. newspapers are dying, though, starved of advertising by the Internet. I still see some good newspapers when I travel abroad. I love newspapers.

I spent quite a few years covering the three M’s, murder mischief and mayhem. Sports too but that’s kind of the same way thing. I did some of my best work in that field, most of it whatever I found along the way and picked up more than a few awards. I had a blast. Nowadays the work I see is boring, uninspired work that simply fills space. Something good shows up now and then but clearly someone jut picked up the closest camera most often. Sad to see.

 

Rick H.

Wow, that photo from the Monterey Herald is awful. How could anyone take a blurry photo in bright sunlight with a pro DSLR? I suspect the paper laid off all the real photographers and handed the heavy camera to someone unfamiliar with it.

 

My local paper (San Francisco Chronicle) maintains high quality in reporting, writing, photography, graphics, layout, and typography, and I read the paper edition every day. But it's expensive, unless you subscribe digital-only. I subscribe to the print edition because it's faster and more enjoyable to read in hand than on screen. Most U.S. newspapers are dying, though, starved of advertising by the Internet. I still see some good newspapers when I travel abroad. I love newspapers.

 

I might be in the minority but I kind of like that picture. Not sure it was intentional but all that's sharp is one hand, a section of pipe and part of the apron that reads "Go Greek". The picture conveys the scale of the food prep operation, the hard work, and the heat. The guy is blurry because he's in motion, - working.

 

Again, not sure that that's what the photographer was trying to achieve or if it just caught someone's eye out of the 40 pictures they had to choose from. That picture would not be typical of what you'd get if you let the camera do all the thinking.

Dunno what to say; I don't buy / borrow mine. I recall them winning flower pots in the past for their 4c printing and for one staffer's photography. - I think we still have 2 local papers here.

Not sure what yours intends with it's online edition. Problem(s) I see: Pictures eat bandwidth, so it might be better to use them sparsely? - The less people you depict recognizably, the less trouble you are facing?

Aren't online editions meant to be just an appetizer for the real thing, reminding people what they are missing by not subscribing? - I might be off; I've seen donations begging counterparts, published by British papers.

 

I agree with Tom above: The picture discussed here does the job.

I'm curious why newspapers have been mentioned in this forum. I thought this was the "photo conversations" forum. Can we really post non photographic topics here?

 

Newspapers are definitely a photographic topic. As a teenager my big thrill was to get my photos in the paper. That was the outlet for almost all news photography and a lot of public interest stuff. Newspapers had a huge influence on photographic styles. Ever hear of Weegee? Every paper had a good darkroom for the photos and a big repro camera and support for that. They provided a lot of special equipment that was beyond individual photographer's means.

For the record, that photo was taken seasoned professional news photographer.

I worked my way through college in the sports department of the Clarion-Ledger/Jackson Daily News. The JDN died while I was there, and then the C-L, which won Pulitzer prizes and was a powerful voice documenting the addressing of past wrongs in Mississippi's civil rights movement era, was bought up by Gannett. When hard times hit the industry, they bought out their best writers--they had some very fine wordsmiths indeed on staff--giving them early retirement, and eventually got rid of nearly all of the photography department, which was highly skilled as well.

 

Man, I used to love, when I didn't have anything pressing to do, going through the multiple file cabinets filled with sports photos--both images downloaded from the wire, and prints made by the C-L/JDN photography staff. There was some amazing stuff in there.

 

Newspapers were really a wonderful and necessary thing (and are, in the few that are healthy and the greater numbers that are just hanging on). I spent some of the best times of my young life working there--I still consider that the best job I've ever had--and we *need* someone to hold to account the jackasses that our craven populism has thrown into office these days. There have *always* been jackasses in politics and public life, it's just a bit worse now that as a people we've become unable to take the time and exert the effort to read and process information that actually has editorial standards and a responsibility to try to convey the honest facts--not simply make up "alternate" facts.

 

I hate to sound all nostalgic, but I really do miss the aroma that greeted me every time I walked through the employees' entrance--it was a powerful and equal mixture of oil-based ink and photographic fixer. To me it smelled like...truth.

I disagree. The major newspapers offer far better coverage than any of the cable news channels. To cite just one example from a few years ago, cable news became obsessed with the ebola outbreak and covered it relentlessly for weeks in a near panic. Commentators squawked that the U.S. government was helpless in the face of this terrible epidemic. But not one American contracted the disease in this country, and some of the few who caught it elsewhere and were brought here for treatment survived without spreading it further. The difference between TV coverage and newspaper coverage is often stark.

 

When I talk to people who don't read newspapers, their knowledge of current events seems limited to celebrity news (Taylor Swift's latest boyfriend) and to the cable-news fixation of the week. They also seem to be missing vital information about business, personal investing, and retirement planning. A few years ago someone asked me, "I just turned 55 and need to start saving for retirement. What's a mutual fund?"

 

I keep hearing that newspapers are obsolete, but maybe it seems that way because we're getting dumber.

seasoned professional news photographer

Aperture: f22. At such f numbers the picture suffers from strongest diffraction. Even not edited. Poor colors. Really meh. In my place of living, poor quality of photography in local newspaper is a norm. :( They use the cheapest DSLR with 18-55 kit zoom. :( What should we want? It is not Vogue.