OEIL PUBLIC, END OF A STORY
| Dear friends, Oeil Public photographers have made a decision to end the 15 years old agency's story. We thank you all for your faithful support. Oeil Public was a team of independant photographers, united through their involvment. And a tool adapting to its members' practices to fight for their independance, their points of view, their freedom. From its very first stories, Oeil Public photographers asserted their involvment to understand the world after a strong editorial line. They investigated for the press, giving priority to an in-depth approach over simple illustration. Its photographers have permanently explored the ways of story-telling in documentary journalism. They such made Oeil Public a research lab and a united undertaking. The press economic crisis has now made production of photo-stories impossible. Photojournalism practices have to be thought hard today. Oeil Public is no longer fitted. Oeil Public closes eyes today, to allow its members to keep theirs wide open. See you soon... Oeil Public |
Very sad story for such a great collective agency. This is what has been happening for the last 10 years gradually and more dramatically in the last 5 years. I managed to meet them in Paris a year ago at their headquarters. They liked my work but they were already very concerned. One photographer member I met was very honest and told me that their future was very bleak. More or less 10 years ago the Press stopped commissioning freelancers. The new policy was to bring stories on a silver plate at your own expenses. In the last few years they stopped paying photographers or would pay very little. I had the same experience with Editing agency as they went bankrupt 5 years ago. That what happens to Opale agency too, with whom I am apparently still part of despite not having any order for the last 3 years. Even the most prestigious Magnum is suffering. Most agencies disappear one after the other. Most people don't know about those things.
We have to understand this crisis from different angles. The reasons are multiple but they all converge towards the same goal and the effects are visible in various ways.
Main reason is Digital. In the past photographers would use films. Meaning they had to learn a great deal about all the aspects of Photography. The bulk of knowledge involved meant you had to be really passionate about it and spend not only a lot of time but also a lot of your money. You had therefore a natural selection which would gratify the most persistent and talented. Because of the time, knowledge and assets provided the common people could identify someone's work as valuable. Because of digital it has all disappeared within few years.
People do not regard Photography as a skill because nowadays everybody can take a picture. You don't even need a camera. A mobile phone is enough apparently. People accumulate materials on their desktop but do not really judge or compare, they only consume. I am really astounded when I hear people's comments on their own pictures taken from their mobile. This phenomenon has been experienced every single time I do a wedding in the last couple of years. I even get pushed away by guests as they see themselves more photographers than me. The quality is going down and the expectations follow accordingly.
We have reached that bottom where Photography doesn't really mean anything anymore to the masses. Before, prints, presentation, skills were a sign of experience and people would spend more time reading the images. Consequently they would interact and understand more the value that represents a picture. To be honest a photograph ( print) has never cost much unless you are using traditional methods. But nowadays prints seem not to be needed too.
What really makes a photograph valuable is not the product really but what is behind. The photographer's skills, the emotion captured, the story telling, the honesty and quantity make a photographic assignment valuable. A photograph is to generate emotion and is produced to last for future generations. We all want to understand and see where we are from. Our parents' wedding, the face of an unknown uncle, memories of grand-parents. That is what photography is about. Well today it looks like it is not relevant anymore. We produce, accumulate, consume masses of datas which will disappear quickly. Our generation will be erased from collective memory.
Slow growing expected recession is an other reason for this drama. It works alongside digital. People overspent or spent with no assets. 5 years ago people would find an average price tag of £1500 for a quality photographer. Today I hear people expecting me to cover a wedding for £500. How can you financially do a wedding for so little ? It is simply impossible.
Photography is a very vast field where specialization is often required. I trained a lot of assistants in the last 10 years. I also proposed a lot of others to sponsor them. And most of them would refuse because doing weddings "isn't cool". I said to myself there is not point in trying to convince them that they have to start somewhere. Most networks are almost impossible to get in as the economies slowly shrank. Most of them do something completely different now or are just surviving. The wedding photography network was still professional then.
Because of the recession most areas have been shut down. Therefore one of the few left is wedding photography. So all the young photographers jump on the opportunity without any experience, skills, understanding and they charge very low. What is then the consequence ? Obviously very poor results. Couples get upset and see all wedding photographers as amateurs who do not deserved to be assigned. We have reached this bottom where people follow the Press' policy - we do not need photographers anymore !
I regularly check websites from various sources and lately I came across a directory of American newspapers where each would present a selection of the best pictures of 2009. Bare in mind that this selection is done by the picture editor. I was appalled by most of them. How can you then blame people for not being able to judge quality if papers have lost it !
Photography is the most democratic media and especially today, but to produce quality and understanding requires professional skills. This evidence is found everywhere, in all trades and will remain this way. This one human fundamental.
Do we want quality or do we aspire to vast amounts of nothingness ? This is the delicate dilemna we did put ourselves in. It's up to you, it's up to us to decide which way we are going.
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