Funding Photojournalism in the Future

Ansel Adams "The Teton and the Snake River"

The Digital Journalist has an editorial this month titled How to Start to Save Photojournalism. It was an interesting read that you could tell a lot thought went in to. The blunt end of the writer’s tale was to have philanthropists step up and fund photojournalism projects so that history can be visually recorded by growing number of unemployed or unemployed photojournalist. It’s not a bad idea. I had similar idea that I was researching when I found the article.

If you look back at the career of Ansel Adams and you are going to find there was time when the United States hired Adams to photograph the American landscape that would be used as murals in federal  buildings. In the book Ansel Adams: Letters and Images, 1916-1984 was where I found out that because of the U.S. commissioned the master photographer that America was the proud owner of the most acclaimed photographs of the 20^th century.

Coming back to today let’s start looking at all the Federal economic recovery projects. Imagine if there could be a trust funded by philanthropists, the Fed and/or corporate sponsors to document the projects. The body of work would priceless to future generations. There’s no guarantee that one the photographers will be the next Ansel Adams, but there no guarantee that there won’t be either.