Magnum Photos' new focus: online, online and online

Commoditisation

Images of visual and cultural value necessarily need to be available to everyone.
Magnum in taking this first step, may go some way towards respecting their subjects rather than continuously exploiting them (us) for financial gain.
But the operative word is "may" since a width of only 900 pixels is not big enough to appreciate any detail, whether the snap is downloadable or not, and so Flickr still gets my vote as being visually ricer, more varied and more representative of where imagery is at now.

In the future huge numbers of monochrome hack work will get thrown out as being as visually limited and monotonous as the genre tends to be, of itself, whether it is people shots or rocks and trees.

Hopefully the move will help to bring this about, as being able to see the photographs online at the size of a book illustration may shatter the idolatrous status of images the current crop of us find just too bourgeois and just too boring to buy in print form or put on our walls.

Magnum's archive is historical, yes, but the number of great photographs it contains is remarkably tiny, and their collective mutual resemblance somewhat depressing.

Now you can all look at them, you may at last begin to get the picture.

NLZFOL

Wrong move

I for one feel that the work Magnum is built on is just exceptional. Offering content on the net for free (even when limited to 900 pxel width) however, is a mistake.
Yes, people should definitely pay to look at these photographs as this is the only way to pay respect to the tremendous amount of work behind them.

Right move

From my perspective the worst thing Magnum can do is become reclusive. 1) The value of the work, culturally, is too significant. So there is a moral duty. And 2) it makes sense in this new business environmet. They are better off trying to solve the monetization puzzle with fans at their doorstep.

Since there are no new slam dunk revenue models, stay relevant!

GL

Blank

This whole article is kind of sad, and speaks volumes about the professional photography market in general. Basically, photographers, even those of Magnum calibre, have to give their work away for free now to the "young people." Comparing the work of HCB and Bruno Barbey, of Parr, and Glinn, to freaking MP3s?! There's a CEO now?! WTF.

open up

the idea tha magnum only belongs to magnum, with opening into facebook or the page, will only proof that there are more photographers out there than in magnum. the best thing would be for magnum to accept those photographer and the image of the day in their page and when need it, exploit them. specially covering hot news. can magnum really open up?