I’ve graduated, what’s next?
Piece of paper or piece of the future?
Exactly a week ago, in a brief ceremony not extending around 15 minutes, Batch 4 of the Diploma in Photojournalism at the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism – Ateneo de Manila University, 6 of us strutted, stood, smiled at the small crowd, shook hands and stepped down. Out of the 10 original students, three fell through the cracks while another wasn’t able to come as he went back to Australia where he’s based right now. After one year of assignments, online chats, writing papers and shooting projects, it’s finally done.
One question that has been in our mouths and minds and what some of our instructors threw at us was this: What’s next? Most of us Batch 4 are already working professionals and, except for one, all are not working photojournalists whose main bread and butter is chasing news. We have our own professions.
In my case, I want to be a full time documentary photographer but, realistically speaking, it’s a hard thing to do in a country that has lots of stories to tell but as a profession, there is not much support or local opportunities for this kind of work. Unless, I have to find assignments and work for NGOs, foreign publications/media. I think that is the most viable thing but for the meantime, I have to do commercial or non-documentary photography related work.
Of course, I will need to continue with my own personal documentary portfolio that I can later on offer as content both for print and online of which, one major work that I am planning right now is a multimedia piece. Ambitious? It might look like that but in these times of multimedia and the internet, it is a must and any photojournalist who wants to succeed should be able to do it. There’s no choice at all.
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Glen Benitez
25 May 2009Sir stan, i read an artcle bout u in inquirer 2 wkends ago. 1 page ha bongga! Congrats 2 another big achievemnt!ü
estan
25 May 2009Thanx Glen
Sidney
25 May 2009Congrats…!!!!
It is a bad time for the newspapers, the magazines all over the world… advertisement income is going down, readership is going down due to the competition of the internet… and (photo)journalists feel the pinch…
I don’t think it is a job with a great future… we will always need people to cover the news… but for instance most of the pictures of the Bombay terrorist attacks were done by people who were just passing by or who were locals and not by photojournalists…
estan
25 May 2009Sidney, it’s a known fact that most newspapers and magazines in many developed countries are encountering economic difficulties. In Asia, its a different story where readership is picking up. However, for a photojournalist to survive, its not only enough to be doing still images anymore. One should know the skills to handle multimedia. It’s the trend and the future.
As for citizen journalists, I agree with you. However, this will only apply to news photojournalism. When it comes to issues and in depth stories, the documentary photographer/photojournalist doing these kinds of work will still be of use.