Relaxing on holiday is a marvellous luxury, especially when I happened to be in the Maldives in August and was able to absorb my PDN magazine from cover to cover and really take note of the advice given in some of the articles.
Of worthy note was an article on the survival of photojournalism within the modern world, and in particular a focus by Edgar Allen Beem called Towards a New Language of Photojournalism. It looked at new ways of shooting documentary images without 'the pain and horror of personal tragedy [that] has been the traditional subject of humanistic documentary photography for decades'. He quotes Martin Parr in saying 'I shoot interesting subject matter, but disguise it as entertainment, but still leave a message and some poignancy. That's what people want in magazines'.
The articles further discuss new ways of getting imagery 'out there', including using the web and the 'art world'. For my own photography, I think I am keen to look at as many ways as possible to get my images known. However, I need to stay true to myself and what I enjoy doing. There are so many ways to take (and make) images that it can become a minefield unless one remains focused. If clients come my way because of the work that I do, then I'm happy with that - but of course the clients need to see the work in the first place - that's the challenge.
