Reportage

Reportage is shifting focus. It used to be that photojournalists got reasonably well paid for their work, at least paid something that enabled them to keep doing what they do. However most will now agree those days are gone. It is becoming increasingly difficult to make a living as a traditional photojournalist, someone who spends time immersed in the subject and as a result produces a worthwhile body of work which tells the story in a way that hurriedly produced work, constrained by a deadline and a minuscule budget can never do. Yet we all know that there are important subjects out there and projects that should be worked on that no newspaper or magazine these days is going to pay for.

So Reportage, in an effort to address this is shortly to offer photographers a platform to seek funding for their projects. Most people are familiar with the concept of crowd funding, a few may have seen or even used any of the crowd funding sites springing up all over the internet. However we do not know of one which concentrates purely on photography or film making projects within the photojournalistic genre, which is what we intend to focus on. Whether anyone will actually fund the projects is yet to be seen, and of course it will largely be down to the strength of the idea, the passion and commitment of the photographer or film maker and the way he or she can convey the idea to potential investors. We think there are enough people out there that are interested enough to keep this medium alive and will happily contribute, be it a small or larger amount towards the cost of a worthwhile project.

So at the end of February 2012 Reportage will cease to be purely a photography showcase site and play its part in keeping great photographers and film makers doing what they do best.

If you have a project in mind, that will only happen if you can raise the finance for it then let us know. Use the project funding application form to let us have the basic idea and then we will ask for more information as things progress. Then sometime during February 2012 the site will publish all the projects, in conjunction with an aggressive marketing campaign to bring investors in to fund those projects.