Friday, August 28, 2009

Planned Obsolecense

One of my passions is photography, and as such I go to a few sites to get information on how I can improve.  My favorite is Scott Kelby's site.  He had a contest recently where people could submit their best sports shots and get a chance to shoot on the sidelines of a Florida State Seminoles football game with one of his colleagues.  The winner won, life was good, and then professional photographers decided that having him on the sidelines was wrong.  My question is why the outcry (and there has been a lot...check out some of the posts here and here), anger, and vitriol slung at the contest winner and sponsors.  They did something nice for somebody, regardless of the reason and all you can do is denigrate them and what they do to make you feel better.  I wish that they had been more constructive with their criticisms, because they might have had valid points.  The problem here is that they've walked into a gunfight with a knife.  Kelby's stuff is far more widely read than this group of photographers are (although perhaps they're more seen) and as a result, he can level them in one blog post and that makes them look like a bunch of whiny, spoiled dinosaurs who are trying to protect their turf rather than innovate.  You could call that breed of sports photographers GM - instead of innovating against Toyota, they circled the wagons and didn't listen to what people were saying.  They went from over 70% market share to under 30% in 40 years and if these photographers don't watch out, they'll do the same.  If they want to be replaced by amateurs with D90s, all they have to do is keep their heads in the sand instead of innovate.

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