Last week, with the help of photographer Adam Jackson, I posted a photoset from the Ultra Music Festival in Miami. UMF was a sellout event, but only a few photographers seemed to capture it. Adam voiced his frustration that for such a huge event like UMF, only a relatively small amount of decent media makes it to Flickr and YouTube. In his entertaining rant, Capturing The Moment—Making It Count, he encourages citizen journalists to step up the quality and provides tips for YouTube Generation photographers.
UMF is a younger audience of ‘technology-carrying youth’ so where are all of the videos and photos? This year I saw a staggering amount of people with their cameras and video cameras in the air. People were recording entire DJ sets on their Blackberrys and someone had an iPhone just taking photo after photo which meant I didn’t even see the entire Swedish House Mafia set due to his phone being in front of my face the whole time. Where did his photos go? Why didn’t he post them? Because I saw the photos and they fucking sucked. There’s a reason why old media will be around for a long time. Very few new media people or ‘citizen journalists’ produce any content worth looking at, much less, paying for. Capturing The Moment—Making It Count | adam-jackson.net
This got me to thinking—I definitely agree there were slim pickings of decent UMF photos, and a lot of them had embedding disabled or obnoxious watermarks. For Flickr’s sake people, use tags, and allow embedding and all-sizes viewability. For the love the Internet, use a Creative Commons license. Here’s where you can set this: Flickr » You » Your Account » Privacy & Permissions » Defaults for new uploads » What license will your content have? I also wish Flickr’s advanced search had more filtering options—like most favorited and most comments for a start.
Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams at Orlando’s House of Blues in 2009. Photo: flickr/apartmentlife
Snapping outstanding amateur music photos takes a lot of effort. Sometimes by concentrating on taking photos/videos, one misses much of the actual experience. On the flip side, I think many people snap photos for the sake of the memory, and not the photo itself. Even a dark, blurry photo will trigger the memory of the concert for years down the road. There’s a sentimental value to it. It may depend on the person and their motivation for taking the photo. People also might take photos to help them tell a story or have a way to share their experience with their friends or family—whether it be in person or via MMS, Facebook, etc. One obvious advantage to digital photos is that you can take millions of them without buying film. But the 5’1″ chick behind the dude with his iPhone in the air all night might tell you otherwise. Me, being 6’1″, I’m pretty much in the way of most people in a concert situation like that—even without a camera. I tend to be pretty conscious about who I’m standing in front of because I don’t want to block anyone’s view. A little consideration for the people around you can go a long way. As far as the amount of quality citizen journalism, the sheer volume of online content is humbling, and there is plenty of quality out there, but many of us are missing it because we don’t always know where or how to look. Now, I ask:
