Sharing Content
Sunday, January 29, 2017
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| The Sacrament of the Last Supper, Salvador Dalí, 1955 - at the National Gallery Washington DC |
As this century progresses, I notice less and less content
in all our local newspapers. Previously, content came from paid reports (who
had generous benefits and dental plans) who would have studied at Carleton and graduated
with a degree in journalism. We are now living the era of citizen journalism
where anybody (and they do) can weigh in with an opinion.
In my years as not only a magazine photographer but as a
writer for newspapers and magazines there was nothing more daunting than to be
phoned by the fact checkers of Reader’s Digest. Some may have perceived the
magazine as being a lightweight (and perhaps it was) but it was steadfast in
publishing the truth (as they saw it).
This idea of content has been on my mind now for a some
years because short of citing my daily delivered NY Times I see very little
of it.
I keep myself sane (delivering my own content) with my blog.
The writing may be spotty and unedited. My friend Les Wiseman, a real
journalist, says I bend the truth or remember incorrectly my facts. But I do
believe that thanks to my own photographs my blog does have some content.
In previous years whoever followed my blog did so by using
my RSS feed. People now do not use or know what a feed is. After I blog I then
link it in Facebook and Twitter. Many believe that if I do not do this I have
not written a blog at all. What it means is that access to a blog (a product
that is now of questionable importance) is through social media. Thus when I
link my blog in Facebook accompanied by a photograph I am sharing.
It is this word, sharing, that I believe is losing its coinage
to overuse. In Spanish we have the word compartir
(from the Latin compartīri) which means to break or split with. But for me it alludes
to Christ breaking bread with the apostles, even with the one who was to betray
Him. I like the meaning. I like the word. It has not yet lost its value as a
beautiful verb.
Also in Spanish we have a saying (often used by my Spanish
grandmother): “Saludar con sombrero ajeno,”
or to greet someone with someone else’s hat.
It is so easy to go to the web and find an article or a
photograph and then share it on to social media. You do not even need to
explain why you are sharing it or why you find it memorable. The idea is to
share. Many times these shares are lovely photographs. Many times I recognize
the photographer (usually a long dead one from the 19th or 20th
century). Many times these photographs are not given proper credit.
We decry the loss of content in our newspapers or the
lack of quality of the content of some magazines and yet we are content to
shuffle stuff from here to there and call it sharing. It may be content but lightweight it is.
Just out of curiousity I went to my files to see if I had anything under share. I did. For the Winter Olympics in Canada in 1988 photographers were dispatched the days that the Olympic torch was being run from one side of Canada to the other to photograph events chosen by the editors of the book Share the Flame. One of my shots involved this couple dancing who were also torch bearers.
Just out of curiousity I went to my files to see if I had anything under share. I did. For the Winter Olympics in Canada in 1988 photographers were dispatched the days that the Olympic torch was being run from one side of Canada to the other to photograph events chosen by the editors of the book Share the Flame. One of my shots involved this couple dancing who were also torch bearers.
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| Dale & Mandy Crump |
