Interesting thoughts by a prominent Photographers' Rep

Julian Richards is a prominent photographers' rep...basically the guy who pounds the pavement to get the big jobs for his stable of photographers. He recently walked away from the business and I thought his perspective on how digital photography has changed the medium is very interesting. An excerpt from pdnonline.com. :

 

"Digital changed the landscape. Before the pixel, craft was still an elemental component of the narrative. A process that involved trusting strips of cellulose in a mysterious dark box was replaced by instant, impeccable rendering, in situ on vast monitors. The photographer’s role as sorcerer and custodian of the vision was diminished: The question "have we got it?" became redundant. Now it was the photographer asking the art director asking the client. Which is a big deal. Because the previous dialectic was that you engaged people who brought something to the party you couldn't provide yourself. Like Magi, the "creatives" brought creativity; photographers, vision. By abdicating those responsibilities to the guy who's paying, you're undergoing a sort of self-inflicted castration. A culture of fear and sycophancy develops. Self-worth diminishes, because nobody really likes being a eunuch, even a well-paid one. There’s less currency in having a viewpoint. The answer to the question "What have you got to say?" drifts towards "What do you want me to say?" There’s reward in being generic, keeping one’s vision in one’s pocket. Trouble is, when your vision has spent too long in your pocket, sometimes you reach for it and it's not there any more. Something Pavlovian sets in: the bell rings when it's kibble-time and you drool on cue. Suddenly many jobs can be done by many people, photographers become more interchangeable, the question of "Why him over her?" shifts to ancillary aspects of the process; personality, speed, stamina, flexibility. And there’s profit in mutability; being able to gather several photographers under a single umbrella with a shared mandate makes you more flexible and attractive. But the corrosive byproduct is that the unique sniper's eye of a Greg Miller, Chris Buck, James Smolka, Sian Kennedy becomes not only less relevant, but actually an obstacle. In shifting ground to garner a larger share of the mainstream, you risk losing identity, licking the hand that feeds you."

- See more at:

http://www.pdnonline.com/news/Photographers-Rep-J-12033.shtml