Welcome to the 46th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rafat Ali as co-hosts. Rafat is celebrating his birthday, we’re not sure how old he is, but we know that he loves photography. So this week we are celebrating his birthday by doing a special show focused on photography in the digital age. Our roundtable includes crack professional photographer Gregor Halenda, photo and multimedia guru Brian Storm and social photographer extraordinaire Thomas Hawk in a wide-ranging discussion.
First is the debate over rights: Is it a good idea to post your photos on social media under a Creative Commons license? Or should you be more restrictive of your photos online? We also talk about the state of stock photography and the democratization of photography now that the tools are more accessible — and everyone has a potential global reach online. And what about the rise of amazing cameraphones, apps and filters? Now that Instagram has been bought by Facebook for $1 billion, what’s the implication about the future of photo-sharing and filters? Thomas Hawk also cites Google+ as being a hotbed of photography. How did it surpass Facebook?
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Intro and outro music by 3 Feet Up; mid-podcast music by Autumn Eyes via Mevio’s Music Alley.
Here are some highlighted topics from the show:
Intro
0:20: Happy birthday to Rafat!
2:15: Rafat got the photography bug in last two years
4:00: Pro photographers threatened by rise of amateurs
Creative Commons a good thing?
6:00: Special guests Thomas Hawk, Brian Storm and Gregor Halenda
8:30: Flickr has even started to innovate, along with newer players
10:20: Halenda: I won’t post on Flickr or under Creative Commons, I want to be paid
13:20: Hawk: There are examples of pro photogs making a business from posting online
What skills do photographers need now?
15:00: Storm: Schools are teaching kids everything — photography, video and multimedia
18:00: Halenda: Stock photography can’t support pros anymore
20:10: Storm: Everyone has tools and distribution so now it’s all about quality
22:10: Hawk: Google+ lets you share circles of photographers with all followers
Cameraphones get ever more powerful
25:30: High-end cameras are still selling well
27:30: Hawk likes Camera Awesome as one of his favorite photo apps
29:40: Halenda says knowing Photoshop is essential to pro photography
32:30: Storm helped start “The Week in Pictures” at MSNBC.com in 1998 as pioneer; had 100 million page views last month
More Reading
Photojournalists Scramble to Video. Is it Worth It? at MediaShift
Digital camera sales defy smartphone onslaught at the Globe and Mail
Zuckerberg announces Instagram purchase on Facebook
Camera Awesome app
Thomas Hawk on Google+
The Week in Pictures at MSNBC.com
The Big Picture at Boston.com
Lens blog at NY Times
Flickr Creative Commons images
Creative Commons + Flickr = 22 Million Sharable Photos at MediaShift
Weekly Poll
Don’t forget to vote in our weekly poll, this time about where you share photos:
Mark Glaser is executive editor of MediaShift and Idea Lab. He also writes the bi-weekly OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association. He lives in San Francisco with his son Julian. You can follow him on Twitter @mediatwit. and Circle him on Google+