What Magazine Photography is Supposed to Look Like

In editorial photography there are dozens of different types of photographers. There are news, feature, sports, color, black & white, architectural, lifestyle, portrait, political, combat, adventure, underwater... the list goes on. However, you can get a pretty good idea of how a photographer approaches their subject by what kind of media outlet they work for.

Wire photographers need to make good pictures and get them out fast. Their work should have a certain "wire" style so that it will fit comfortably on the pages of the different publications they serve. Speed is important, but also is making concise, straight-forward images that sum up the news event on which they are reporting. Both traditionally and today, editors count on seeing the work they produce fast.

Newspaper photographers are members of the community on which they report. That said, they usually have a deeper understanding, better contacts and produce more insightful images from that community. They understand the needs and style of their paper, so they can afford to produce work that has more "personality" than what a wire photographer would produce in the same situation.

Magazine photographers are the hardest group to summarize.  They are almost all specialists. A wire photographer will be shooting pretty much everything that comes their way. A big newspaper might have one or two specialist that shoot mainly sports or portraits, but magazines usually assign someone who only does that one thing they're looking for. Regardless, of what that thing is, magazines want images that look different from what readers have already seen in their local papers. That's why magazines are always looking for exclusive situations and special access.

In the past, magazines were also willing to spend a little more time and money to produce special images that would separate them from every other publication. Of course, most of this has changed now.

Wire photographers are just as likely to see their work printed in a magazine as in a newspaper, or on the websites of both, while filing images before, during and after the event they're reporting.

Newspaper photographers don't have the same luxury of time the use to enjoy. Not only are they under pressure to deliver work as quick as the wires, they are often times expected to shoot video and record sound as well as make great images.

The modern magazine photographer, created in large part to shoot color film when everyone else was shooting Tri-X, is facing problems as well. Gone are the days of spending weeks on the road to produce images that are a bit different. Many magazines, because of their current financial situation have made a conscious decision that good enough is...good enough. Editors can't make the easy argument between color and black & white, or ektachrome versus kodachrome. It's all the same now, whether you're shooting for a magazine, a newspaper, a wire, or just happen to be in the right place with your "happy snap".

At least that's what I've been hearing a lot of lately.

Personally, I really think magazines are destroying themselves faster than the technology they are struggling against.

I'm not talking about every magazine. There are still a few that really know and own what they do. Their readers aren't going anywhere. Thank goodness for them.

I'm however really concerned about one magazine, the one I've been shooting for my entire career. The one that OK, admittedly has never actually existed, but a few times I thought we were getting close.

Every time I go out to shoot I always pretend that I'm doing a twenty page piece for the best magazine in the world. That's the name, BEST MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD. Not very catchy I know. Anyway, that's what I do.

Feel free to try it yourself.

The problem is, although now and then, with the right mix of people, attitude, money and something else that I'm not sure of, I had the feeling I was getting close. Even when I wasn't getting close I could kind of piece the magazine together from stuff that was published here and there and pretend it all was in the same place at the same time.

Sadly, the goal has gotten further away in the past few years. Sadder still, I'm not sure there are too many others still playing the game with me.

Of course, the thing to remember is that Henry Luce, didn't hire photographers to fill the pages of LIFE because they could shoot color film, or that they were in the right place at the right time, or that they used different gear than everybody else, or that they were cheap, or the event they were going to cover worked with their deadline.

He hired them to show people the ordinary world in an extraordinary way. Which is the real model of what magazine photography is suppose to be about.

This is what it is supposed to look like.

After all of the homogenized internet, newspaper, and magazine coverage you've seen over the last month, does this still have value to you, the viewer?

Comments

[Jon T]

Yes indeed it does have value. I feel like for every photo that moves me and makes me say wow there are mountains more that do not. And I think it isn't me.

Those Beijing photo's of yours showed some things that we never ever see - the flaws and the pain that those guys have to go through to get where they are. "Normal" coverage is like seeing a film where every minute blemish has been removed.

Great post. Thanks.

[Paul Gero]

That is an amazing collection of unique images from the Olympics...great seeing and thanks for sharing..pg

[rascal]

Point well made. One problem with publications today that most of us forget is that they're owned by corporations. Big companies, no less. It didn't take me long to figure out that my world around me was flawed, then I decided to photograph those flaws or oddities with a passion for the subject. Thinking I'd enlighten the world. I thought that my work would stand out as I revealed truths not told. But losing out to celebs, other public figures, and cyclical news items caused my work to go unpublished. After a couple of times it dawned on me. Immediacy is really what our business is about. Your photographs of the Olympics are wonderful, they provide a nice summary to the whole event, as a body they should be published, but as individual images they don't mean much to the places that are most likely to embody them. For many editors they might simply be seen as:

Feet
Torso
Feet
Foot
Wide Shot
Wide Shot
Wider Shot
Wide Shot
Wider Shot
Wide Shot
Wider Shot
Wide Shot
Arm
Body Shot
Head
Head
Head
Head
Wide Shot
Head
Wide Shot
Torso
Torso
Head
Torso
Torso
Body Shot
Body Shot
Wide Shot
Shoulder
Wide Shot
Body Shot
Feet & Hand
3/4 Body Shot
Torso
Torso
Wide Blur
Close-up
Close-up
Wide Shot
3/4 Body Shot
Wide Shot
Head
Head
Head
Feet
Feet
Torso
Torso/Butt
Torso/Butt
Close-up
Hands
Wide Shot
Head
Head

One thing that I find encouraging is that as magazine photographers go, they are always "seeing". Looking for something. Sure, they may take it and not think about it until later when they're editing, but the gems they behold are there. It's like a roll-playing-game. You're wondering around collecting, collecting, hoping you have the right items, often times collected in the right context to slay the dragon in the end. Maybe, that's it, maybe there's not enough dragons to slay anymore? Maybe, they're all but dead now..?

Thanks for sharing. My advice, do another book.

[John Boal]

wonderful set of images. glad to have seen them.

[Jaap Arriens]

Excellent piece and even better photo's! These are the images that will stand the test of time. They might not make it to publication know (i.e. the choice of editors) but the symbolism they carry will be even more important in they future!

[Lester]

"If it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it isn't" -- Lester "Crimes and Misdemeanors"

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0809/oly.beijing.paralympics/content.1.html

[a viewer]

Great photos! Thanks for sharing your introspection on the world and the business of photojournalism. I had no idea that so much is involved in presenting images to the public, which often takes them for granted. I agree with your frustrations/disillusionment with how commercialism has tainted photography in recent years, but I don't always blame the photographer. In many cases, the photo simply reflects the reality--that is, the world can be greedy, superficial, and unjust. Weltschmerz! Is it the photographer's responsibility to digest and interpret the reality for the viewer or to simply capture the reality as it is? What about the saying that "beauty [or meaning or sense of value] is in the eye of the beholder"? In the end, I think the best a photographer or any artist can do is to be true to him/herself in how he/she views the world, irregardless of the value an editor, a viewer, or a bystander places on the work. Originality is priceless.

I really like your photo of the Chinese people taking photos of themselves. That's one aspect of the Olympic that I really would like to see more photos of--how the lives of the Chinese people have been changed by the Games and their reactions to the foreigners.

[Kenneth Jarecke]

Thank you all for the great comments. I can see that a lot of thought went into them, which is helpful and encouraging.

I wish that I had spent more time photographing people walking around enjoying the festivities, but you get caught-up in shooting the action and then you forget about making the real images that might have some relevance outside of the games ten years from now.

Yeah, I can imagine the mental check-list being clicked off as an editor goes through these frames, foot, bandage, eye, water, ouch, torso, umm, where's the picture of the pretty girl who's selling Ovaltine now?

[rascal]

Oh la la, look at these:

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0809/laforet-bp.html