Heres my take. I actually agree that there has been a decrease in average quality of photos that grace the public sphere. Heres why: before the social media boom, the primary places to see skate photos were magazines. These magazines had limited space to publish photos. This led to more competition between photographers and overall higher average quality of photos being submitted. Nowadays, all you have to do is snap a photo and hop on to instagram and post it with a bunch of hashtags. Now tons of people can see you photo. Theres no real quality control anymore. The only thing we have to base the reception of our photos is the number of likes. It doesn’t help that peoples standards of success vary. One person could be satisfies with 20 likes another with 2000. Before, the mag had to like your photo. So you had a somewhat consistent basis of judgement. Now on social media you can post photos with terrible composition, lighting, angles and nobody is going to tell you so you think your photos are awesome theres no drive to improve or grow anymore. At least not from an external source
Back in the day the photographer reigned supreme. The filmer was supposed to stay out of the photographer's shot. Lately though, kids don't care about photos at all. It's all about video to them, and the quality of that doesn't matter either. Kids just pick up their cell phone and hold it at eye level while skating 20 feet back of the skater. Kills me deep inside because I used to be a filmer back in the day, and now I'm a photographer so I'm always on the wrong side of things. Blows my mind how little kids are interested in photos. Several times I've offered to shoot legit professional quality photos of them and they are completely indifferent. I think the early 2000s was the worst era for photography. It was the days of stair counting. Almost every photo had a big set of stairs in it and it all looked the same. Personally I like the late 80s early 90s photos the best because they often were very close up and concentrated on the skater themselves as opposed to how long the handrail was or whatever. I will always prefer photos to video because you can't stare at a video. You don't see the scratches on the board in a video, or the wear marks on the shoes etc. There's detail in a photo that a video just can't capture. And quality of photograph isn't a focus anymore. Look at major newspapers. Many of them got rid of their entire photography crew and tell the reporters to use their cell phones. Play for some reason people on the hall don't care about the quality of them nearly as much as they used to.
Skateboarding used to be a lifestyle, now it's more of a sport. Been Skateboarding for 36 years. Today we look at images for a few seconds back when we bought magazine we used to stare at them for hours after cutting them out and putting them into our wall.
Great job. I've been shooting skateboarding for a while. This will help me as an aid for a workshop I will be presenting soon on how to shoot skateboarding
Great content. The guy referred in the video probably was just sad/afraid cause shooting photos became more accessible to the average person, so his work as a professional could easily be surpassed by a 'nobody'. It's clear you made a video about something you genuinely care about. Even though I'm 2 years late, your point is still very much valid & I think people will resonate with your video, in the near future. If you let your passion be judged by somebody else who does not understand the evolution of mediums, then let them be. Keep it alive! 🤙
Great video. Print can’t complete with digital and the key to print skate photography flourishing is to not try and complete with digital. How times change…. It’s 2022 and film photography in skating is as popular as ever. Film is popular because it’s not trying to compete with digital capture and that’s the way forward for print 👍
Definitely agree, I think like how many mediums have had to adapt to their digital counterparts, the secret is to develop a new reason for print to be used then to try to be the same thing that a digital version has taken over. Thanks for your thoughts!
I think what’s unclear here is the question: Do you think skate photography as a profession has a future? There is a world of difference between the art of skate photography and the ability to earn enough money to make a living doing skate photography. The art won’t go away, but I’m curious to hear what you think the existing opportunities are vs the potential ones (speculating) for actually earning a living.
@@slam_machine @Loose Trucks you know here in my country skateboarding is one a new trend and growing so much wich is good, along with it there are so many new people want to gain a name by capture skateboarding, some of them don't even skate and come out as they labeled themself as a "professional skate photographer" wich is for me kinda weird. In the need of content most of skate photographer tend to update what ever photo they have at the moment so they keep exist and provide something to their audience but sadly the quality of that picture start to drop. Honestly sometimes i do that too subconciusly and realize that photo isn't good enough to post. In the modern era of photography it's really easy to take a picture and really cheap to get a picture, i think 99% of picture that photographers take is actually a shit and only 1% of it is the masterpiece, so i think the job of the photographer right now is to screen that 1% that is decent enough to post in our social media but sometimes we forget about that because the need of the content. It's different than the film era where everything is limited so you need to really think of it before taking a picture, also you need to nail every single shot you take, with digital era now? It's easy just delete it take a new one then everything's done. So yeah with this social media/influencer phenomenon the standart of quality of taking a skate picture is going down and the quality start to drop, sadly there are more people that's not a skater gaining more name and fame also job by taking a skate photo in skateboarding scene here rather than the actual skate photograoher that real skateboarder who put love and passion into their picture. How can i say this, i've been taking a photo sinced i was 13 and mostly extreme sport that i'm doing that time. I started skating 5 years ago and taking skate photo ever since. I have one local favourite skate photographer but sadly right now i feel like the quality of his work start to drop, maybe because the need of the content itself so he need to post every weeks whatever it takes for his audience
Money is the reason , and the internet rules for revenue , you earned your money back in the day , , Nowdays if the monkey can push the button , the money gets the shot , for a picture on web page that last for 2 days before it go's stale ,.... pencil , pen , type writer , keyboard , Siri , Consumers consuming making thing obsolete before thee time ....,
Good video made some great points and I agree with all apart from that photography has gotten better - the real creativity has gone due to people copying each other on insta (in all genres) and lets face it photography is so easy now due to digital technology you dont even have to be skilled at focusing or lighting anymore. I think you are misunderstanding what Grant Brittain and Skin mean, I think they are really saying (apart from print being dead which is true from a commercial sense due to no advertiser willing to put ads in the magazines anymore as they get free and way more effective advertising on insta) the days of getting paid as a pro skate photographer are gone (and the talented are no longer valued) due to social media and companies wanting and getting free or cheap content. Too many young photographers and videographers are giving content away for nothing to get likes - likes aren't gonna pay for your next camera think about that as you finish your 8hr amazon delivery shift.
Thanks for the input. I do disagree with you though on most of those points. I think you're equating greater saturation in the market to a drop in creativity. That's the point I was making in the video originally. As you said, photography is easier now, so more people do it. If you know about photographic history, every big advancement in camera technology has brought with it a larger number of people that take photographs which resulted in resentment from the older photographers who felt that they had to work much harder to take images because of the older technology they learned on. This is true, but I would much rather live in a world where camera technology allows me to take tons of images easily than for it to take me 10 minutes to set up a camera on a tripod and insert a slide and set my lens and many more steps just to take one photo. This does result in more photographers by ratio that know less about some of the more technical skills in photography or are able to develop their own creative ideas, but it doesn't mean that people aren't still focused on that. And photographers have copied each other for over a century. I'm sure most skate photographers in the 80's wanted to shoot like Grant. You can see most photographers in the current generation shoot like Jake Darwen, and even some are trying to shoot like Matt Price. I agree with you in the idea that young or inexperienced media creators are willing to give things away for free to gain exposure, but I would argue that that issue has been prevalent in skating since media started getting produced. But this does result in some media creators being able to get published legitimately, and part of them getting there may have been putting out work for free. I've experienced this first hand working with skateboarders, an industry that notoriously is bad at paying media producers fairly or even not at all. I've had my work be used for free, but I've also been paid fairly for my work when it's been published in an advertisement or in an editorial piece. Unfortunately that's a systemic problem, it's no fault of the person who is just trying to get their work seen. It's a problem of predatory tactics used by companies to pressure creators into giving away their work for free or for little money for the chance at maybe reaching their goal of working in skateboarding later down the road. And finally, I don't think I'm misunderstanding what Grant or Skin meant. I agreed with Skin, following his quote with offering examples of how he was right, and how the skate media publications that have been able to succeed in the last few years have been more mature, less angled towards young kids and more willing to tackle topics that media producers weren't ready to do for decades. With Grant, I just think it was unfair and maybe even irresponsible for him to answer that question the way he did. All skateboarding photographers are in some way influenced by Grant Brittain whether they know it or not, and skate photographers are still getting paid by companies, but his answer made it seem like there was no way to reach that. The whole video was my way of offering up ideas about why he may have said those things and why I think he was wrong in his statement. I've been paid for my work and I know several other media producers that are getting paid for work they do. It's just a different landscape than when Grant was always working in skating, so I think his answer came off as out of touch with what is really happening in the industry. Again thanks for the input, conversation is the reason why I make these videos.
@@slam_machine Thanks for the reply love your content - agree with what your saying, to be honest I dont know much about todays skate industry I only know the industry from a sponsored skaters perspective way back in the mid 90s and how it was back then, as regards to photography (I know a bit about it I have a degree in it dating back to 1999) I was speaking generally on photography as a whole not skate photography, I come from same bitter old film photographer camp as Grant but I only know the surf industry as a photographer and believe me those big money jobs with brands are long gone due to instagram and free content - its just a shame for those young (not gonna call them content creators as that makes my skin crawl) creatives dont have the same opportunity to forge a great career as a well paid photographer (surf skate snow) anymore. Keep up the good work
@@pierswoo76 Definitely see where you're coming from. The inspiration for this piece was to try to counter that feeling of photo being less accessible for people to work in, but no doubt that it's a much different space from just a few decades ago, whether that be skate photography or photography in general. Thanks again for leaving some thoughts and I really appreciate the love on the content. I've also been making these kinds of videos for Jenkem Magazine if you're interested in seeing those.
Heres my take. I actually agree that there has been a decrease in average quality of photos that grace the public sphere. Heres why: before the social media boom, the primary places to see skate photos were magazines. These magazines had limited space to publish photos. This led to more competition between photographers and overall higher average quality of photos being submitted. Nowadays, all you have to do is snap a photo and hop on to instagram and post it with a bunch of hashtags. Now tons of people can see you photo. Theres no real quality control anymore. The only thing we have to base the reception of our photos is the number of likes. It doesn’t help that peoples standards of success vary. One person could be satisfies with 20 likes another with 2000. Before, the mag had to like your photo. So you had a somewhat consistent basis of judgement. Now on social media you can post photos with terrible composition, lighting, angles and nobody is going to tell you so you think your photos are awesome theres no drive to improve or grow anymore. At least not from an external source
I just discovered this video randomly and this deserves way more views!
Thank you! Seems like some of these vids are going to be more slow burn type productions haha
The subscriber count doesn't do justice to the quality of content and analysis.
Thank you! Hopefully RUclips starts to think the same thing at some point!
Back in the day the photographer reigned supreme. The filmer was supposed to stay out of the photographer's shot. Lately though, kids don't care about photos at all. It's all about video to them, and the quality of that doesn't matter either. Kids just pick up their cell phone and hold it at eye level while skating 20 feet back of the skater. Kills me deep inside because I used to be a filmer back in the day, and now I'm a photographer so I'm always on the wrong side of things. Blows my mind how little kids are interested in photos. Several times I've offered to shoot legit professional quality photos of them and they are completely indifferent.
I think the early 2000s was the worst era for photography. It was the days of stair counting. Almost every photo had a big set of stairs in it and it all looked the same. Personally I like the late 80s early 90s photos the best because they often were very close up and concentrated on the skater themselves as opposed to how long the handrail was or whatever.
I will always prefer photos to video because you can't stare at a video. You don't see the scratches on the board in a video, or the wear marks on the shoes etc. There's detail in a photo that a video just can't capture. And quality of photograph isn't a focus anymore. Look at major newspapers. Many of them got rid of their entire photography crew and tell the reporters to use their cell phones. Play for some reason people on the hall don't care about the quality of them nearly as much as they used to.
amazing video with a very important perspective. def sharing with my friends. can't wait to see what you talk about next!
Very appreciated, glad you liked it and thanks for sharing! Can’t wait to release the next essay!
This is rad, love this video. Makes me even more excited to keep shooting.
Hell yeah, that's rad!
Great video dude, inspired me to keep shooting my friends no matter how apethetic they are towards the "old medium". They'll thank me someday haha
I’m still using a vx1000 over 15 years it died came back many of times now it’s like a grail keep doing you it will pay off I promise you !
Skateboarding used to be a lifestyle, now it's more of a sport. Been Skateboarding for 36 years. Today we look at images for a few seconds back when we bought magazine we used to stare at them for hours after cutting them out and putting them into our wall.
So. Damn. Good. Dude, every aspect of this rips. You are a genius.
Much appreciated Monico, can't wait to get the next one out!
Great job. I've been shooting skateboarding for a while. This will help me as an aid for a workshop I will be presenting soon on how to shoot skateboarding
Where are you from? Was just curious where the workshop is
@@knowbuddy0 I'm from Nicaragua
@@knowbuddy0 the workshop was yesterday
the man has spoken !
Incredible video dude
Thank you! Glad you liked it.
great video.
Great content. The guy referred in the video probably was just sad/afraid cause shooting photos became more accessible to the average person, so his work as a professional could easily be surpassed by a 'nobody'.
It's clear you made a video about something you genuinely care about. Even though I'm 2 years late, your point is still very much valid & I think people will resonate with your video, in the near future.
If you let your passion be judged by somebody else who does not understand the evolution of mediums, then let them be.
Keep it alive! 🤙
"Seriously engaging and thought provoking insights into skate culture 10/10".
That sound's like a book review, but I'm just being honest.
Sick vid g 🔥
Great video. Print can’t complete with digital and the key to print skate photography flourishing is to not try and complete with digital.
How times change…. It’s 2022 and film photography in skating is as popular as ever. Film is popular because it’s not trying to compete with digital capture and that’s the way forward for print 👍
Definitely agree, I think like how many mediums have had to adapt to their digital counterparts, the secret is to develop a new reason for print to be used then to try to be the same thing that a digital version has taken over. Thanks for your thoughts!
I think what’s unclear here is the question: Do you think skate photography as a profession has a future? There is a world of difference between the art of skate photography and the ability to earn enough money to make a living doing skate photography. The art won’t go away, but I’m curious to hear what you think the existing opportunities are vs the potential ones (speculating) for actually earning a living.
danm what a vid!
Thank you!
Totally agree with him
Any reasoning behind that? Haha
@@slam_machine @Loose Trucks you know here in my country skateboarding is one a new trend and growing so much wich is good, along with it there are so many new people want to gain a name by capture skateboarding, some of them don't even skate and come out as they labeled themself as a "professional skate photographer" wich is for me kinda weird. In the need of content most of skate photographer tend to update what ever photo they have at the moment so they keep exist and provide something to their audience but sadly the quality of that picture start to drop. Honestly sometimes i do that too subconciusly and realize that photo isn't good enough to post. In the modern era of photography it's really easy to take a picture and really cheap to get a picture, i think 99% of picture that photographers take is actually a shit and only 1% of it is the masterpiece, so i think the job of the photographer right now is to screen that 1% that is decent enough to post in our social media but sometimes we forget about that because the need of the content. It's different than the film era where everything is limited so you need to really think of it before taking a picture, also you need to nail every single shot you take, with digital era now? It's easy just delete it take a new one then everything's done. So yeah with this social media/influencer phenomenon the standart of quality of taking a skate picture is going down and the quality start to drop, sadly there are more people that's not a skater gaining more name and fame also job by taking a skate photo in skateboarding scene here rather than the actual skate photograoher that real skateboarder who put love and passion into their picture.
How can i say this, i've been taking a photo sinced i was 13 and mostly extreme sport that i'm doing that time. I started skating 5 years ago and taking skate photo ever since. I have one local favourite skate photographer but sadly right now i feel like the quality of his work start to drop, maybe because the need of the content itself so he need to post every weeks whatever it takes for his audience
Money is the reason , and the internet rules for revenue , you earned your money back in the day , , Nowdays if the monkey can push the button , the money gets the shot , for a picture on web page that last for 2 days before it go's stale ,.... pencil , pen , type writer , keyboard , Siri , Consumers consuming making thing obsolete before thee time ....,
Good video made some great points and I agree with all apart from that photography has gotten better - the real creativity has gone due to people copying each other on insta (in all genres) and lets face it photography is so easy now due to digital technology you dont even have to be skilled at focusing or lighting anymore. I think you are misunderstanding what Grant Brittain and Skin mean, I think they are really saying (apart from print being dead which is true from a commercial sense due to no advertiser willing to put ads in the magazines anymore as they get free and way more effective advertising on insta) the days of getting paid as a pro skate photographer are gone (and the talented are no longer valued) due to social media and companies wanting and getting free or cheap content. Too many young photographers and videographers are giving content away for nothing to get likes - likes aren't gonna pay for your next camera think about that as you finish your 8hr amazon delivery shift.
Thanks for the input. I do disagree with you though on most of those points. I think you're equating greater saturation in the market to a drop in creativity. That's the point I was making in the video originally. As you said, photography is easier now, so more people do it. If you know about photographic history, every big advancement in camera technology has brought with it a larger number of people that take photographs which resulted in resentment from the older photographers who felt that they had to work much harder to take images because of the older technology they learned on. This is true, but I would much rather live in a world where camera technology allows me to take tons of images easily than for it to take me 10 minutes to set up a camera on a tripod and insert a slide and set my lens and many more steps just to take one photo. This does result in more photographers by ratio that know less about some of the more technical skills in photography or are able to develop their own creative ideas, but it doesn't mean that people aren't still focused on that. And photographers have copied each other for over a century. I'm sure most skate photographers in the 80's wanted to shoot like Grant. You can see most photographers in the current generation shoot like Jake Darwen, and even some are trying to shoot like Matt Price. I agree with you in the idea that young or inexperienced media creators are willing to give things away for free to gain exposure, but I would argue that that issue has been prevalent in skating since media started getting produced. But this does result in some media creators being able to get published legitimately, and part of them getting there may have been putting out work for free. I've experienced this first hand working with skateboarders, an industry that notoriously is bad at paying media producers fairly or even not at all. I've had my work be used for free, but I've also been paid fairly for my work when it's been published in an advertisement or in an editorial piece. Unfortunately that's a systemic problem, it's no fault of the person who is just trying to get their work seen. It's a problem of predatory tactics used by companies to pressure creators into giving away their work for free or for little money for the chance at maybe reaching their goal of working in skateboarding later down the road. And finally, I don't think I'm misunderstanding what Grant or Skin meant. I agreed with Skin, following his quote with offering examples of how he was right, and how the skate media publications that have been able to succeed in the last few years have been more mature, less angled towards young kids and more willing to tackle topics that media producers weren't ready to do for decades. With Grant, I just think it was unfair and maybe even irresponsible for him to answer that question the way he did. All skateboarding photographers are in some way influenced by Grant Brittain whether they know it or not, and skate photographers are still getting paid by companies, but his answer made it seem like there was no way to reach that. The whole video was my way of offering up ideas about why he may have said those things and why I think he was wrong in his statement. I've been paid for my work and I know several other media producers that are getting paid for work they do. It's just a different landscape than when Grant was always working in skating, so I think his answer came off as out of touch with what is really happening in the industry. Again thanks for the input, conversation is the reason why I make these videos.
@@slam_machine Thanks for the reply love your content - agree with what your saying, to be honest I dont know much about todays skate industry I only know the industry from a sponsored skaters perspective way back in the mid 90s and how it was back then, as regards to photography (I know a bit about it I have a degree in it dating back to 1999) I was speaking generally on photography as a whole not skate photography, I come from same bitter old film photographer camp as Grant but I only know the surf industry as a photographer and believe me those big money jobs with brands are long gone due to instagram and free content - its just a shame for those young (not gonna call them content creators as that makes my skin crawl) creatives dont have the same opportunity to forge a great career as a well paid photographer (surf skate snow) anymore. Keep up the good work
@@pierswoo76 Definitely see where you're coming from. The inspiration for this piece was to try to counter that feeling of photo being less accessible for people to work in, but no doubt that it's a much different space from just a few decades ago, whether that be skate photography or photography in general. Thanks again for leaving some thoughts and I really appreciate the love on the content. I've also been making these kinds of videos for Jenkem Magazine if you're interested in seeing those.
If you enjoy shooting, shoot....if you need validation.....buy likes.