PDN's 46 Reasons To Love Photography

The May 2008 issue of Photo District News magazine landed in my mailbox with a thud. The magazine has 264 pages so it's quite heavy...and it has a number of interesting articles including the Photo Annual 2008. But the one that immediately caught my eye is the "46 Reasons To Love Photography Now"; a compilation by the magazine's editors and writers of things that make photography as rewarding and exciting as ever. Most of the 46 reasons are predictable to some degree, many are sensible and some are quirky.

I won't list all the 46 reasons here, but those I liked are:

#4. National Geographic magazine. (Nobody else does what the National Geographic does, and after its impressive awards this year, no one can argue with that choice).

#6. The Multimedia Triumvirate: Soundslides, Final Cut Pro and Flash. (Tools that revolutionized documentary photojournalism. I'm an unabashed fan of Soundslides).

#15. You Don't Have To Wear A Necktie. (A long scarf or Kaffiyeh is considered a part of the uniform. I laud the values of having a Khmer scarf in a previous post).

#26. B&H Photo's Overhead Conveyors. (Anyone who shopped/visited at B&H knows how efficient -and futuristic- these overhead conveyors are).

#44. Online Photo Essays. (The Web made it possible for photographers to publish long form photo essays).