Doesn't Nat Geo do a lot of wildlife work though? Anyone who's ever tried taking a photo of a sodding insect/bird/animal in action will know that sometimes you just have to stick on auto-tracking AF and sit on the shutter button. I could easily imagine going through several hundred frames just trying to get that perfect shot.
That's one concrete benefit of digital I guess - there's nothing like the machine-gun fire of a 35mm autodrive to make you the least popular person in the hide...
(I've never really read NatGeo - I always rather assumed it was just a porn mag for the middle classes, since anytime I have flicked through it half the photo spreads seemed to be of the "look at the natives who coincidentally don't have any clothes" variety.)
__________________ Another day goes under; a little bourbon will take the strain...
Back in 1984-1985 I had a NG photographer come and talk with my High school photo class. As I recall he said it was not uncommon for a photographer to shoot 5000-20000 photos for one article. Mind you this was in the film days---not the machine gun digital approach. I remember the photographer shot slides with Nikon---not that it matters. To me it is what it is----I personally love NG have always loved the photos, don't buy into the political side just the artistic side. And hey wouldn't love to get paid to travel the world and shoot a camera even if it is digital---you still have to take the picture no matter which camera it is.
Well, Durer, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Leonardo working together as a team will not make it.
Do they touch up in photoshop a lot?
Who? we, Nooooo.
Doesn't Nat Geo do a lot of wildlife work though? Anyone who's ever tried taking a photo of a sodding insect/bird/animal in action will know that sometimes you just have to stick on auto-tracking AF and sit on the shutter button. I could easily imagine going through several hundred frames just trying to get that perfect shot.
That's one concrete benefit of digital I guess - there's nothing like the machine-gun fire of a 35mm autodrive to make you the least popular person in the hide...
Hey Tim, is it job for photo-camera or movie camera? I think you better seat in the shade and use even and remote. From that your stuff only stupid benefit in the way to show his stupidity.
I'm happy to see there are so many shooters here that will be taking away all those
overpaid jobs at Geographic. I'll follow your careers with interest.
Well, I can't believe that anyone seriously expects NG photographers to cover a story for 3-6 months and shoot only just enough film to get a dozen acceptable photos. NG is after the best image possible, and their photographers aren't shooting in studios. It's 99% in the field, and they have to cover the nuances of changing light, weather, seasons, facial expression, composition, and motion. You can't edit down to the final 12 before you hit the shutter while shooting during that kind of assignment. You have to shoot a lot to get the best you can, and NG wouldn't pay you to be in the field that long with a return of only a few dozen images to choose from. That would be a serious waste of time, effort, and money. I'm sure that there's a pretty broad range of output quantity from different photographers and different assignments, but to assume that high output is an assurance of mediocrity is absurd.
Break down those 50,000 exposures to a 12 hour working day over 6 months, and that's a frame every 2.75 minutes. Of course the shots are more tightly bunched than that, and I'm certain some days are longer than 12 hours, but it's certainly not 6 fps in the indiscriminate fashion that the OP implies.
As I said earlier, you also have to shoot a lot to get your "seeing" to its peak level. If random "monkey shots" are all you expect or get from your own shooting, that's fine. The few NG photographers I've known have been much more adept at using their equipment and their eyes, and know when to hit the shutter, motor drive or not.
Lee
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I'm happy to see there are so many shooters here that will be taking away all those
overpaid jobs at Geographic. I'll follow your careers with interest.
Don,
Careers doing 6 posts/second to APUG?
Maybe if we stuck a load of monkeys in a chem lab long enough they'd come up with something better than Xtol, or Rodinal, or Pyrocat HD, or perhaps replicate APUG.
I posted here earlier about the number of shots taken per job, especially with wildlife. I guess I'm one of the few who knows a number of NG photogs. Grant took loads of film to the Galapagos for his article and also took a lot to the Falklands where he was bitten by a penguin BTW. In the latter shoot, the article was not published AFAIK. For his re-creation of Ansel Adam's Grand Teton series, his stroke interrupted his submission, and I have the hundred sheet boxes of Ektachrome in my freezer for him.
I have watched these guys shoot at Cape Canaveral as if the film was free (which it was to them) and they took hundreds of shots each and there probably were over a dozen of them there. They also set up remote cameras, as I mentioned that would shoot a whole roll of 70mm film. So, the number of shots was quite high as were the numbers of photographers.
In addition, back in the "old days" of Kodachrome, we at Kodak used to make whole master rolls of Kodachrome available to NG! In fact, just at the Cape, I used to have a refrigerated freight car of Kodak materials delivered to the back of the Technical Labs for our photo people there.
So, with big photo products, that figure is completely normal to me and I didn't blink!
The more I read this thread, the more I think the cult of photographer as artist is reading the wrong magazine. If how the photographer takes pictures is so important to you, why look at the pictures at all? Why not just read the story of how the photographer went and carefully, slowly composed and ruminated over every picture. He used his 35mm (most likely DSLR) like a view camera and worried what people on forums with too much time on their hands and not a little jealousy thought about how he did his job. I can guarantee that the reason they shoot so much, and have shot so much over the years, is because that is the approach needed to get their employer what they want.
If you want to obsess about how a photographer works as opposed to the pictures that are produced, stop looking at Natgeo. This so called "trend' that many "blame" on digital really started with 35mm. If I remember correctly, most people I talked to were in awe of the NatGeo photographers that blew through thousands of rolls of film, it's what they had to do to get those "incredible" shots. Now that they are using digital cameras, the quality of the pictures isn't of any concern, they're shooting more pictures! They must be talentless hacks (not that that actually matters mind you, they deliver the shots). If it makes you feel better, instead of looking at them like Ansel Adams, think Jerry Ulseman. Most importantly, I think you'll live a lot longer if stop worrying about how a magazine (a magazine for God's sake!) gets it's pictures.
Sorry, rant over. I am just exasperated at the attitude that it requires an artist to make a decent picture. It can't hurt certainly, but just keep in mind that in many situations (not all) a motion picture camera with a competent operator can indeed replicate what an "artist" does. Don't hold a magazine to your own, personal artistic "integrity."
Isaac
__________________
See my adventures in Yemen here: www.isaharr.com
If film had been as easy to carry and use as CF cards, the same thing would have happened when they were using film. We are really talking about human discipline here, not the medium of capture. There is not much to say, except that people are people. They walk on tight ropes and stretch things to the max with wretched excess as long as they can get away with it. Digital, being materially cheaper, makes it easier to make an argument as to why one should get away with this.
If I was on a half-year assignment and had only to carry CF cards, and not film, I would probably shoot more than average. I would be surrounded by interesting and unfamiliar things, people, and situations, so would likely be clicking away. It is really up to the editors to control their shooters in the end. I would venture to guess that this can be difficult from half a world away.
Do I agree that journalistic photographers are largely hacks nowadays? Absolutely. However, in the end, you need to just pick up the magazine, sit down, and enjoy it. How Joe Photographer works is up to him and his editors. If you don't like it, become a NG editor.
Quite honestly, I am more concerned about how their style of writing has become more informal and subjective in the past 10-20 years, and how the air of elitism is gone from the magazine. The magazine was one of the last quality formal documentary publications, and they have just cheapened it with stylistic and other changes, such as offering it in newsstands instead of by membership only. They had to diversify their audience to stay alive, and this, of course, led to content changes. I still like it, but it is much more of a McMagazine then it ever has been, IMO.
...and I am still upset about the NY Times printing in color as well.
BTW, NG is largely contributor based. Why don't you put together an expedition and submit? No one is stopping you.
Well, actually some of the NG photographers had assistants to carry film and equipment so that was never really a problem AFAIK. Grant's wife helped him at the Galapagos, and his daughter helped him at the Grand Tetons.
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