National Geographic gone mad?

[Marco B]

Hi all,

A few months ago I saw an article in a Dutch newspaper with an interview with some of the staff of National Geographic magazine. While reading the article, I noticed a number of facts that, well, more or less made me laugh (or should I say cry...)

I have always thought of NG as being one of the last strongholds of serious reportage photography. It was one of the last magazines accepting and embracing digital photography, and is one of the last still spending significant amounts of money on reportage sometimes lasting months.

Well, at least part of that (and common sense) seems to have gone down the drain at NG... :rolleyes:

I was struck by a number of small facts listed in the article. For example, they more or less "proudly" remarked that now in the "digital age", the photographers they enlist regularly end up shooting something like a fifty thousand(!) photo's in a few months.

50.000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How on earth are you properly going to sort out a 50.000 photo's for a single feature article??? Let alone for all articles in a single magazine combined (Maybe >100.000?) :confused:

Just imagine, with 100.000 photo's for a single magazine edition:

- if you would go through a digital slide show of all of these images, and each image was displayed for 5 seconds, it would take 138 hours to view them all!
- if all the images were printed on ordinary (analog) contact sheet size, with 40 images on A4 size, they would need a table of 156 m2 (or 10x15m) to lay them all out!
- if each image was printed on 10x15 cm and laid out on a table, it would be 1500 square meter...
- and with 50.000 shots / reportage, and a reportage costing maybe 100.000 dollar, that is just $2 dollars / photo. I could possibly make more money shooting passport photos all day...

And than:

What photographer can honestly say that he manages to make good and inspired photos if you end up shooting 500 a day??? (50.000 / 100 days = 500 photo's). I certainly would be completely stumped after just one day... and with 500(!) photo's a day, you might as well take your digital still video camera with you, instead of an SLR. :rolleyes: It would be one photo each minute of the day, based on an 8 hour working day...

The thing that made me laugh out most, was the fact that the editor remarked that it was "difficult to find a good cover photo" because "photographers don't like to shoot vertical" and that was needed for the cover. Among this diarrhoea of images, only a "few shots were vertical".

Well, I don't know what professional photographers they enlist, but personally, I have a strong preference for vertical (about 75% of all my images I guess), maybe I should try to get a job at NG??? :confused:

And looking here on APUG, I don't think I am the only one with a preference for vertical shots... (join me )

Finally, the thing that almost really made me puke, was reading that, due to the limited amount of vertical shots, they even recently had needed to go as far as significantly "tweaking the contrast" of a particular image to make it "more romantic and adventurous" for the cover... because there was nothing better among 50.000 shots????!

Bwaaaaa... they certainly have gone mad at NG, or is it just me :confused:

 

[simulatordan]

Hi Marco,

I agree with you, I shoot about 80% in portrait ( vertical ) format too. As regards 50,000 shots, sound like a bit of an exageration to me.

Regards Daniel

 

[bdial]

A sign of the times, I think. A friend who has a studio predicted that in the next few years, still cameras as we know them, won't exist. The cameras will mostly be used in video mode and still photos will be frames from the video stream. Perhaps more likely, composites of several frames.

I too like verticals

 

[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

 

[jmolligo]

Well, that's another magazine I won't be needing a subscription to.

I worked for a time as a photojournalist until they closed down the division I worked for.
Although I was issued digital equipment - I still shot as though I used film (carefully and selectively).

I would just wince at other photojournalists who literally keep their fingers pressed down on the shutter to get a shot - pumping away, I don't know, 25-50-100 shots. They might as well, as you suggested, bring a digital video camera and just select a frame from their mini movies.

I remember one assigment when the mayor of a local town was presented with a Christmas Tree ornament. We all had to wait in line to get a shot of it. I sat there and watched this lady from the main paper in town
whirring away with her Nikon Digital taking scores and scores of (what must have been) basically the same photo.

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.

I wonder what the old time photojournalists, who use to lug around Speed Graphics, would think.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, Grant Haist who did articles for NG shot a hundred or so 4x5 sheets of film for one article alone. Sometimes they shoot with MP cameras using ECN stock. This gives them hundreds of frames, and often for wildlife they will use a Hulcher camera with 70mm stock to capture just the perfect picture.

PE

 

[benjiboy]

Hi, Marco, It seems to me that if the magazine needs 50,000shots a month to select a couple of hundred images for publication they're wasting their money employing expensive photographers and paying their expenses,they could employ monkeys, and pay them in bananas and would still get enough good shots from 50,000 to fill their magazine, there used to be saying in Britain that "If you gave enough monkeys typewriters and enough time, one of them would eventually write Shakespeare"

 

[Alex Hawley]

For many years now, NG has cared more about their agenda (generally of the "activist" bent) than they have cared about objective reporting. I think this is showing through even with the photographers that work for them. Once in a while, they do run an objective article that is excellent. Once in a while they do have an excellent photography article. But most of the time, agenda is most valued.

 

[keithwms]

I don't think this information is surprising at all. NG is a magazine dominated by photojournalistic, small-format work and they have a huge pool of material to draw from. It's not a matter of generating filler; why hire "monkeys" when they already have such talent on demand. I once spoke with someone there about doing a project and the response was (I paraphrase), "look, we've got fifty zillion projects and fifty zillion photographers, we already have way more material than we need..."

Whether digital or traditional, and notwithstanding whatever agenda they may have, I think NG is still a very fine and inspiring publication and I love the research that goes into their articles, not to mention the imagery. I wouldn't read too much into the number of photographers and the number of shots they take. If you get your most effective work done by taking one shot a month or 10,000 shots a day, whatever works for you. If I were on assignment, heck yeah I wouldn't be sparing with my film.

 

[cdholden]

50k exposures?

You could easily divide this number by 3 just by bracketing one or one half stop +/-.
That's still a lot of photos to sort through.

 

[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/

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

 

[tim_walls]

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.)

 

[23mjm]

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.

 

[DanielOB]

500 photos a day per photog

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.

Daniel OB
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

 

[df cardwell]

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.

 

[Lee L]

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