In the past few years newsrooms across the country have felt and heard the valid complaints of the women and blacks in the business. If it helps, look on us photographers as another minoritybut do listen. We live in an environment that is rapidly changingnot only our towns, but also our people. I feel it is vitally important to document and record these changes, to see where we are, where we have come from, and in which direction we are headed. Images should be edited with a light-reading eye to integrate their importance fully into the product.
Pictures speak a universal language.
I have a feeling that if you took Eddie Adams' great photograph of South Vietnamese Colonel Loan shooting the Viet- cong on that Saigon street and showed it, without caption, to as wide a spectrum of viewers as you could reach, the same emotions would be engendered. The outward manifestations would probably vary, due to cultural and political mindsets, but down deep, where the real guy lives, the stirrings would be the same. At a time when many changes in technology are upon us, this might be a good moment to sit down and take stock. Offset offers superb reproduction and the future will undoubtedly hold a photographic system, most likely using magnetic impulses, that is computer compatible, thus freeing photographers from their cross of silver. But far more serious than any of this is the simple lack of concern shown on too many papers.