National Geographic gone mad?

[fschifano]

"I think it's sad that we live in the Walmart age - and I feel pretty soon no one is going to be able to differentiate quality from crap, much less produce something of genuine quality."

You don't think we are already there?

[isaacc7]

At the end of the day, the reader really doesn't care how the picture was made, they just want a pretty picture. Your complaint seems to be how the photographer works more than anything else, not really sure what that has to do with anything from NG's standpoint. Why do people care how a photographer gets a good image?

Isaac

[LF2007]

50.000 shots....what can I say, this is sick. If you're able to take at least 2-3 really good photographs on each roll you shoot, you would need abt. 4 rolls of film to fill a standard NG- article with 8 - 12 good pictures.

I always try to get at least 2-3 really good shots out of each roll and when I get back from holidays, I usually have about 20 - 25 photograpsh worthy to be enlarged in the darkroom. That's what I call fun and it actually makes sense. It's much more enjoyable then what many of my friends do : shooting 500+ pictures and try to sort the crap out on a computer screen only to find out that "it is really boring" and it lacks quality. I agree completely with the monkey statement.

[arigram]

Do they touch up in photoshop a lot?

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

Honestly talking , technical quality , colors , compositions are not the same as 15 years ago. Its possible to find corner aberrations at the pictures , or flat death colors , cyan cast , thats all I hated to see
everywhere especially at a magazine which made me an archeologist.
I think ink quality , paper quality , editor quality , film quality - fuji - went down. Where is famous tiffdruck rotogravure printing ?
To take 500 photographs in few hours You have to use fast working autofocus zoom cameras and this is not Leitz and Zeiss way but cheap japanese brands.
I saw at apug , very big percent of the photographers dont know the reason of using leitz lenses , they are matching them with sigma , nikon etc.
This is comparing a SR 71 to toyota , there is this difference.
One time , I bought a NG magazine and saw a photographer was using cheap sigma !
I think photograph magazines killed the photography , nobody knows what is the quailty as cinema died , music died and classical music , painting , opera died.
Polaroid died , kodak dying , .... thats too sad.
I am switching to science and I will take remote sensing photographs with false colors. This is new art , mixing scientific findings in to art. I m not talking about space hats of 1960s women This lack of creativity damaged everything.

[DannL]

I watched that show several times. Very interesting. It is my understanding he has since moved to digital. It makes economic sense.

http://www.pbs.org/atcloserange/

Originally Posted by Lee L

NG photographers went through huge quantities of film as well, perhaps close to the 50,000 mark for each story. I don't know the actual number off the top of my head. There was a PBS special not long ago about an NG photographer who still shoots film, and the numbers mentioned weren't that out of line with the digital numbers you quote. After shooting this way for a couple of decades, NG photographer Jim Brandenburg's personal project became exposing only one 35mm frame each day on his Minnesota property for 100 (I believe) days running, and intentional antidote to his practice with NG.

Shooting that much is one of the things that makes NG photographers so good, dusk to dawn for days, weeks, months. If you are concentrating on seeing while you're working and paying attention to what works, you're bound to become better. You also get the luxury of experimenting with the magazine picking up film and processing expenses.

The photographers edit with a photo editor assigned to their story, often one with whom they have established a good working relationship. You can edit relatively quickly with a number of similar shots on display on a computer screen or a light box. They don't just pick the best shots out of context, without regard for content, they decide what general kinds of shots need to be included to fit the story, then pick the best shot for each. They are headed in a specific direction, so editing is easier than just picking the 15-20 best shots, regardless of content.

The vertical/horizontal thing is likely as much a reflection of the way DSLR and 35mm cameras are built as it is photographers' habits. It's not all that natural or comfortable to hold one of these cameras vertical.

Lee

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

And old printer of the NG magazine left the NGS. They changed the printing house and these printers are no good. I think they print very fast , without checking from printer densiometer frequently. Colors are very synthetic and prints are muddy and flat . I think if they go like this , their sellings will be doomed.

[keithwms]

I don't agree with the idea that monkeys would do as well at NG; not at all.

You will find a variety of approaches used by the NG photographers, ranging from clickety click to very thoughtful and deliberate. People just do what works for them.

If you want something to lament, just look at the sideline sports photogs and their pocket wizards and the 10 fps photo/videography. I know people who set up cameras all over the place in an arena and remotely trigger them and expect maybe 0.001% of their captures to wind up in a paper or some site.... and only after touchups. NG is still a world away from that. There are actual stories behind their imagery. It's not just, you know, Michael Jordan sticks his tongue out while he dunks.

[Barry S]

None of this is new; NG photographers have traditionally spent a lot of time on location and shot a lot of images. Their working methods with photographers that shoot digital hasn't changed much. They're not just aiming for pretty pictures--they're looking for beautiful images that tell a story--images that encapsulate significant information about the subject with high technical and aesthetic values.

NG has been wildly successful by any measure and NG photographers have generally been very talented and well-respected. Any kind of revisionist history that suggests the photographers are "monkeys with cameras" is absurd, and disrespectful to a great institution and some of the best photographers.

[MattKing]

NG used to have, on site, one of the higher volume Kodachrome labs. All it processed was work for the magazine.

My dad had some contact with a few NG photographers over the years. They brought a lot of film into the Vancouver Kodak lab where he worked when they were shooting in the area.

I'm sure that the digital volumes are higher, but that may have as much to do with the ease of distributing and sharing the images as it does with other factors (e.g. it is easier to have your editor work with you when you are still on site).

Matt