The photo industry – no joke!

In this humble scribe’s experience, the photo industry has tended to take itself dreadfully seriously. There’s nothing amusing about about picture-taking, it would seem, and each new camera model and marketing promotion is a precious jewel which demands only quiet reverence and stunned admiration.

And as for taking the mickey out of the absurdly purple prose in what the product managers sign off as ‘press releases’, well it’s something only some kind of unhinged, subversive Bolshevik would countenance.

I recall an editorial I wrote something over a year ago in which I dared a fairly gentle satirical response when a leading camera company presented the world with the newly-discovered species of consumer they dubbed ‘The Playfessional’. While it may have seemed a good idea thrown up on butchers’ paper in Marketing Conference Rm 1, in the real world it was equal parts absurd and unpronounceable. While it was an amusing piece, if I say so myself (and a few readers even sent in emails to that effect) the Emperor was not at all amused to have his garments so described. Several frosty months later I was informed that what I had done was unforgiveably insulting. Geez!

– So it’s a welcome relief to have another Smart Alec in the village in the form of a website called New Camera News…’where every day is April and every article for fools!’

When you’re feeling blue because your suppliers are undercutting you online; the mass merchant 50 metres away loss-leads with 8 cent prints (with the connivance of your paper supplier), the landlord wants blood from a stone, and the punters are trying you on before buying offshore, New Camera News might be the tonic you need.

Among the current, um, stories:
– Scientist Determine Cause of Point-And-Shoot Collapse: New research proves the collapse of the compact camera market is directly related not to smartphones, but the current Beiber-inspired preference for skinny jeans over cargo pants;
– Nikon Introduces Invisible Camera;
– Canon Shows They Can Still Innovate: ‘Proving to the world that they are still a cutting edge, progressive company (and not a conservative, mainstream brand like Toyota), Canon has announced the innovative, superlative, white EOS100D.’ (the white version makes ‘the world’s smallest and lightest DSLR’ appear even smaller and lighter!);
– Leica T – Another Camera You’ll Read About But Won’t Buy: Blah blah Leica blah blah Leica T blah blah blah. Leica, blah blah, blah blah blah Panasonic. Blah blah blah? Leica T. Blah blah…
– Nikon Df Wins 1978 New Camera News Camera of the Year: ‘The lens supplied with the test sample was sharp and always in focus – as if it were focusing itself!’
– New Sigma Art Lens Can Resolve the Hair on a Gnat’s Backside;
– Calumet Dies, Photographers Eager to Pick on Still Warm Carcass;
– Nikon Releases D4S, Tells D300 Owners to ‘Man Up Already’;

Highly recommended. (Though maybe not for your more sumptuously-robed, thin-skinned camera company marketing execs.)