The lines that separate the amateur and the professional photographer seem to continue to creep closer and closer with the growth and adoption of digital photography among consumers. And Getty Images, one of the many photo agencies that provides photography for use on AOL throughout our many areas of programming, recently announced that they acquired Scoopt. The vision of Scoopt is to make "citizen journalism more accessible to the mainstream media."
If amateur photographers find themselves in the right place at the right time, it's possible for them to submit their photos to Scoopt and have them available for use by media outlets across the world. Take, for example, this photo of a raging fire at the historic National Hotel in the Fremantle area of Perth, Australia, captured by Adrian Cheng and submitted to Scoopt:
It was a "citizen photojournalist" who captured compelling images from the crash of an Air France jet in Canada in 2005. The same was true during the London subway bombing, when citizen photojournalists captured scenes inside the tunnels in the aftermath. AOL also has its own area for citizen photojournalists to upload their photos: Submit Your Photos, and to participate in, AOL Citizen News Photoblog.
So the next time you think of leaving home without your camera, think again. It's just possible you might be in the right spot at the right time and make a photograph that could be seen around the world.
1 comment:
It's about time that the people take a role in covering the news and not limiting that ability to the hands of a few. Everyone had a camera now that makes us all capable of being news photographers, even camera phones. Having a company like Scoopt around to collect these pictures is a great step towards making news photography a participatory process.
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