I went on a 10 day junket for Samsung Cameras in Berlin. In 2013. That was the last time I accepted an offer to junket-ize my blog content for a camera maker.
It was Fall of 2013. I was busy. Very busy. I was doing three different learning videos for Craftsy.com up in Denver, keeping up with all my local and regional clients, and negotiating to be a speaker for a camera company that year in NYC; at Photo Expo. Oh, and that was the year I finally finished my novel and published it. Samsung called, or rather their public relations company did. They wanted to invite me to an event in Berlin which would also coincide with the gigantic IFA show that's held there. Think CES only bigger. They would send me a Galaxy NX GN camera and some lenses, all of which I would be welcome to keep forever. They would pay for my plane fare, my ground transportation, my hotel and my meals, as well as travel around Germany and entrance fees to the big trade shows. It sounded pretty cool.
The idea was that a small, international group of photographers would tour around the city together for four or five days shooting test shots with the new 24 megapixel, APS-C cameras and then we'd post some stuff from the road and post some more photos when we got back home. We were encouraged to write reviews as well. Sounds like a junket to me.
But here's what every camera maker seems to get wrong. The group think. The idea that they will derive more and better content by completely controlling the access to things for the group. Everything is pre-curated. And when you go in a tight group, all traveling in the same big Sprinter van, at a certain point all the photographs start to look and feel the same. The group thing might appeal to social drinkers, the lonely YouTuber sitting mostly alone at home, the people who fear solo travel, etc. it's almost certain death for content creators who prize their independence and unique creativity above all else. You know, the kind of people whose work you actually like.... There is also an undercurrent of implied but unstated control. You feel almost duty bound to find something you like about the camera they're introducing...
I tried my best to comply but the manipulation started the evening of my arrival. A gift bag with a shirt and a jacket immodestly emblazoned with Samsung logos everywhere. And I was asked to wear the shirt or the jacket when out photographing with the group. I declined. I apologized but told my hosts that our "corporation didn't allow us to wear apparel with other companies' logos on them". I was "worried there may be reprecussions."
Every day the group of photographers was assembled in our hotel lobby and then escorted to a big van which drove us around to "places of interest." Interest to whom? Nothing I was interested in. I wanted to take their camera and wander the streets of Berlin and look for the kinds of photographs I liked taking. A homogeneous travel log of Berlin? Nope. Not likely. This was the recurring cycle. We shied away from anything big and interesting, like the famous Berlin Wall that separated East Germany from West Germany in the cold war. No group tour of the Brandenburg Gate. No visits to museums. Mostly markets, castles, parks and river cruises.
By the fifth day I was bored and restless. I told my hosts that I was "under the weather" and needed to take a day off to rest in my hotel room. The minute the group was out of sight I was gone. Out shooting in the streets by myself. From morning till late night.
Amazing, isn't it. When I saw the social media photos and blog posts from the Leica launch of the SL2 nearly every photographer showed the same basic shots. It was like Groundhog Day had come to YouTube. Every channel you clicked on had images of the older dude with the big beard. It was deja vu with every click of the mouse. Diversity actually might work better to show off the range of an imaging product. It's why we don't just depend on stock photography for everything...
Just once I would love to see a camera maker ask photographers what they would like to photograph to illustrate a new product launch, and then make it happen. Wanna go to Patagonia and photograph? Here's our new camera (sorry, we had to black out the logo), here's a plane ticket. Here's a per diem. Knock yourself out. Wanna go to Hanoi? Say "Hi" to Justin Mott for us. Here's your plane ticket. Here's a per diem. Show us what you can do.
But to be spoon fed like a child with a hovering group of mothers and nannies seems the quickest way to squash all creativity and individuality. Might as well make product launches a "pool" activity where one person goes out to shoot and then shares the photographs with all the other influencers. Who can then post the same images all over the web. Like they tend to do right now...
I got a few more invitations to shill but mostly because I'd written so extensively about micro four thirds on the original blog. Now if someone wanted to shove me into a van, hand me a camera and force march me in a line with ten other photographers to make near identical photos at tourist spots you'd have to pay me. A lot. An awful lot. I don't get out of bed to review cameras for less than $10,000 a day ( not really. I was making a joke and referencing Linda Evangelista who said that about super models. Here's background.
The vast majority of images below are from time spent on my own in Berlin. Which I enjoyed immensely. What a great city.
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Not part of our group. Leipzig.
Not part of our group. Berlin.
Not a set up shot for our photographic pleasure. Berlin
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In a few years this scene will seem so archaic. Printed newspapers? Really...
billboard overlooking the Berlin Wall.
Group lunch. The high point of every group shooting day.
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Steve. At our last group dinner in Berlin.
with pre-production cameras one would sometimes get split up frames.
They were weird. I kept a folder full.
everyone seems happy to wear t-shirts with logos on them.
I thought we could do better. At least sartorially.
the city was awash in branding for IFA
Samsung had about 100,000 square feet of exhibit space.
Everything from washing machines to 110 inch, curved TVs.
In the end Samsung listened to honest advice from knowledgeable photographers and discontinued
the camera we were beta testing. Then they dropped dedicated cameras altogether in 2014.
My appreciation for Berlin endures.
I shudder at some of the pictures I see tourists shooting at the Holocaust Memorial. Folks, read the room!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't count out print media in Germany yet. Even after the pandemic, Berlin still has some massive newspaper/magazine stores, especially in the S-Bahn/U-Bahn stations like Zoo.
I really like these images. They seem so different from the type you frequently post of Austin.
ReplyDeleteI wonder whether it was the novelty of the subject matter available that led to different types of images, or if you had a different mindset or objective when taking them.
When I was working it was considered unprofessional to accept ANYTHING from a supplier. I realize the tubers don't receive product for resale but they do peddle "influence". I find the junkets distasteful. The one or two things they "find wrong" with the product being reviewed, after accepting what could be construed as payola, is rather pathetic.
ReplyDeleteEric
Hi Chuck, I was appalled at the two women photographing themselves ON THE MEMORIAL. My photo was intended to be a statement of how wrong their action was. I just forgot, or was unable to come up with a caption that vilified the act without vilifying the perps.
ReplyDeleteKirk, to be sure, my comment was directed at the women posing on the memorial, not at you. I had the same reaction you did when you took the photo.
ReplyDeleteHi Chuck, I thought that was your intention. But thanks for clarifying. I also have a photo somewhere of a man touching the breast of a statue of a woman at the Louvre from decades ago. I was amazed that someone would step over the velvet rope and do something he plainly knew was wrong. In public. In a museum. People can be weird and inappropriate. Mostly without warning.
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