Images from the 2011 GalesburgSports.com sporting seasons will be disappearing very soon. Think of the memories that you’ll be wishing you had years from now.
A notice that images from the 2011 will soon be disappearing. It’s time to clean and make room for future work. So, to all the parents that told me they wanted images of their child in action and haven’t placed an order…you better hurry. There will be no free reposting of images. A restsocking fee of $5 for any image that you want to see will be accessed.
After seeing some of the behavior of student athletes while on the sidelines the past year, I thought this father’s post hit the mark.
At about the 2 min mark is when the “P”rofessional comes out in the video below. This is the current state of photography. Picture takers that believe they’re photographers and worse yet is family and friends that don’t care enough to tell them the truth. I think of the 99% of the American Idol contestants that sound like a cat in heat but start crying cause the judges can’t see/hear what friends and family have been lying to them about for years. But I guess when you have the print media facilitating that false talent and allowing substandard images to be used in a mass produced product, the public has just come to see mundane as spectacular.
I now just nod my head and say “Wow interesting!” when asked about an image or someone’s portfolio. Before that I cared enough to be truthful and made comments that I thought was beneficial. But, all that did was piss people off and create an air of misgivings (especially in Galesburg).
Sport photography is no different.
Client: ”You charge for this?” ” Well Carl is only charging a dollar!” “Well I don’t care if it’s not in focus or all that other mumble jumble stuff….I can tell it’s my kid in the picture!” “Well as soon as he gets off work from his job I’ll order his then.”
Carl: “How do you get the background to look like that?” “I can’t seem to get the stop action shots like that.” “What do you suggest I use to get my pictures to not look so yellow?” “Why do you have insurance?” “I wish I could become a full time photographer like you but I don’t make enough money to quit my job to do it.” “Hey did you see the newspaper used my picture! I got my name mentioned for them using it!” And what’s sad is these same Carl’s do senior/family photography and our studio has had to redo a few of their sessions now because the parents weren’t happy with what they got.
Newspapersaurus
Remember when Gatehouse Media (owner of the local papers-Galesburg Register Mail/Monmouth Review Atlas/Peoria Journal Star/McDonough Voice/Kewanee Star Courier) was $20 a share just a short 5 years ago? Guess what, that same $20 that use to get you a full share, will now get you 285.7 shares (closed at 7 cents a share 1/30/12)! I wonder what will happen next year when their $1 BILLION debt is due? Bankruptcy? That seems to be the popular way to get out of contracts and stupid debt decisions made years before.
Is the writing on the wall (even if that is also outsourced)? Will closing and selling buildings make a difference? Will consolidating departments that will be hundreds of miles away from the actual customer change the future? Will we eventually have someone in India writing the city council news after watching the meetings on the internet? Imagine local sport reporting being done from China by merely using the box scores. Ads can be placed and designed over the internet. With the advent of everyone having a camera on hand and the bastardization of what a quality photo is, there’ll be plenty of pictures to place without the need to pay or have anyone on staff to provide the real world visual stimulation to correspond with the words of an article.
Is the physical paper a dinosaur? Eventually it is, and with today’s technology, soon. As quick as the baby boomers and generation x are no longer the demographics needed to base a product on, print media will be dropped faster than Miami’s QB Matt Moore carrying a football. I shutter at what the new technology in the coming 5-10 years will be like and just how many nails that’ll put in the closing lid of the print media coffin.
This trend will continue as long as the product has no apparent value. So, as long as one has the public providing articles, blogs, images, etc and using Face Book to get ideas from, you will be perceived as being a public service. One might even suggest you start planning your telethons, pan handling and filling out your federal grant applications now to slow your demise. However, don’t anyone make a negative comment, criticize or provide any contradictory observation, they (print media) only want to hear that all is good and they’re the best at what they do. All we need now is some free ad space saying “Get it in Galesburg” along with a grainy incorrect white balanced photo.
“The company announced Tuesday that it does NOT plan to attempt to outsource or consolidate the Journal Star copy desk in Peoria for the term of management’s proposed contract to the Guild (18 months).
This is according to our Newspaper Guild representative, who received a message from the company’s attorney.
Why? We are not sure. Possibly GateHouse wants to implement the change in phases, and Peoria is not part of its first phase. Remember, any such change is subject to collective bargaining: What GateHouse wants and what it gets are two different things.
However, the threat of job elimination remains: We have no indication of any plan for GateHouse to modify its intent to outsource outside circulation. These are 36 Guild jobs.
Employees at The State Journal-Register in Springfield and The Register-Mail in Galesburg received notification Tuesday afternoon that they’ll consolidate their layout operations by June 2012. While the SJ-R only held several verbal meetings Tuesday afternoon, the R-M sent this memo out to staff:
Gatehouse is moving toward central design desks for all of its newspapers. The desks will be in Chicago and Boston.
Central desk, what it means
What that means to us is that by June, we will not be laying out The R-M or related special sections in Galesburg. The design work will be done by a central desk in Chicago. We’ll copy edit stories and cutlines and prepare the content for each page. The central desk will proof pages and send them to our prepress.How about the staff?
I expect staff reductions. Corporate will let me know the extent of those reductions by mid February.Common pages start soon
Our first step toward a central desk is to start using “common pages” designed by the central desk. Starting Monday, Jan. 23, we’ll use the following common pages:
* Nation/World (either full or half-page)
* National sports page (either full or half-page)
* National sports agate (four columns, full page or 6 columns half-page)
We also have an option for a business page (full or half).Accessing common pages
The pages will be made available to us via the GateHouse News Service website in PDF format. They won’t have page toppers or folios.Page size changes slightly
Using the common pages means we’ll adjust our image size of our pages a little. We’ll go from a width of 10.125 to 10 inches and we’ll go from a 21.25 length to 21.5 inches.New styles sheets, updating libraries
It also means our fonts will change to match the common pages. Ken is working on new style sheets. We’ll also have to update our libraries.”Gatehouse Media is the owner of the Galesburg Register Mail
