I can't believe we are already thinking about and planning for SXSW. It's only August!
I dug through the SXSWi Panel Picker and found some interesting photo-related panel proposals. Remember to vote for the ones you'd like to attend so they make it into the program.
There are also many magazine publishing, content, social media marketing, content marketing, storytelling and advertising panel proposals that will be of interest to those of you trying to get your head around who is going to pay for the photos you make. Which we should all be interested in right?
Know of any others that I missed? Please comment.
A Glimpse into the 21st Century Photo Shoot
- Scott Dadich – Condé Nast
- Susan White – Vanity Fair
Today’s editorial shoot doesn’t just end with a photo on the page in print. These days, editorial photographers need to think about how to transition an image to a number of different platforms, including online, smartphone, or tablet, in additional to print. Condé Nast’s VP of Digital Magazine Development and Vanity Fair’s Photography Director Susan White will review the evolution of the editorial photo shoot and what it takes to ensure the best shot in an expansive media landscape.
Is Our Photo-Madness Creating Mediocrity or Magic?
- Kevin Systrom – Instagram
- Sasha Frere-Jones – The New Yorker
- Richard Koci Hernandez – Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
- Verna Curtis – Library of Congress
Description Over 100 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day. There are 3.5 billion cameraphones in use around the world. Instagram reached 5 million users in just nine months. We are nearing the end of what Philip Gourevitch of The New Yorker called “the decade in which the world went camera-mad...the decade where everything is depicted, and every picture must be shared.” This panel will address the many ways in which the rise of mobile photography is affecting how we express our creativity, and how we connect and communicate every day. BONUS: We'll conclude with @Koci explaining how he builds his images and sharing a recipe toolkit for audience members to build their own.
Creative Business Models Beyond Copyright
Many small creative businesses - digital artists, photographers, musicians, technology developers - operate on a business models of "negotiate, protect, and sue" regarding intellectual property. It seems obvious - that's how the major studios and conglomerates operate. Some well known - and already established - creative acts like Radiohead and Cory Doctorow have bucked that system and experimented with totally new business models. But what about the small businesses that still need to pay the rent every month? This panel will explore alternative business models for smaller creative outlets that explore new approaches to intellectual property and copyright management.
- How can my business survive without traditional intellectual property protection?
- What are some actually working alternative business models for small businesses beyond standard copyright protection?
- Won't giving my creative intellectual property away lead to financial destruction?
- I still need to pay the rent every month - I'm not some famous creator who can afford to experiment. How can I survive without protecting my intellectual property?
- What about a hybrid approach of partial strict management of intellectual property combined with some looser, alternative approaches?
iPhone/Mobile Photography: Who Gives a Fuck?
How has having an audience transformed photography in the last few years? Social photography, started on sites like Flickr, has been compressed and amplified through mobile applications, such as Instagram, and is approaching addictive behavior. This panel will explore the rise of mobile photography as seen through the popularity of Instagram and the addition of Path, Color, Facebook photos and any other mobile applications that may enter into the game before March 2012. This is not going to be a love-fest for Instagram and/or mobile photography, we plan on having a debate about the merits as well as the limitations of mobile photography. Some of the best mobile phone/Instagram photographers will attempt to answer the question “who cares?” while sharing tips to their success, checking out different camera apps that help us achieve a style, and orchestrating interactive mobile photography exercises where every single audience member can participate using hashtags on Twitter, Instagram, and Flickr (lolz) with live judging and jelly doughnuts for the winners. Because, really, who wants to go to a panel *without* jelly doughnut incentives?! We aren't only interested in discussions and plan on spending just as much time discussing and debating as we will having the audience taking pictures and participating.
A pretty meta-data picture
n the digital age, a photo is more than just the image on the screen. Behind the pixels are hidden details such as date, time, location, camera settings and other information that capture a precise moment in time and provide a rich context for each image. Beyond the device-generated EXIF data, the addition of user-generated content such as titles, descriptions, subject and people tags becomes core to the photo. As a photo gains momentum and is shared on Tumblr, re-tweeted on Twitter or tagged, each additional interaction adds another layer of context and dimension that can take story telling to a whole other level. With metadata, photos have evolved from a personal shoebox of memories to a powerful collective database of information on the internet with endless applications and possibilties. At Flickr we are developing ways to extract and understand information from photos to build out even better ways to share your photos. This session will introduce you into the potential data a photo is generating and the possibilities to use this data in order to create full and rich stories around a single or a collection of images.
Being Analog in a Digital World
Being analog in this increasingly digital world is rough. This panel explores how everything from meetups, sewing, music, film photography and crafting has found their way in a digital realm.
- How do I bridge the gap between the offline and online world?
- Why are analog “things” so successful online?
- What are some of the biggest road blocks in creating something tangible today?
- How can an offline product become an online success?
- Where do physical things (events, products, etc) fit into the very digital world?
Multiplatform Storytelling: Frontline War Stories
While the academics preach of the wonders and promise and “mechanics” of “transmedia” storytelling, there are pioneering producers on the ground really doing it. There are good days and bad. There is money and there is not. And then there are the fans. What does it take to pull off successful multiplatform storytelling? We are at the birth of a new industry, an inflection point, much like the history of film or radio or television or even the Internet where technology gives rise to a new means to tell stories. It is a time before the “institutionalization” of the multiplatform industry. And just like the history of film or TV the early pioneers are stepping out now and taking a lot of arrows. They are experimenting, learning what works and establishing best practices. They are master storytellers using and in some cases inventing new tools. They have failed and they have succeeded. And these are their stories.
