{"id":597,"date":"2011-10-07T12:44:41","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T16:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=597"},"modified":"2011-10-07T12:44:41","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T16:44:41","slug":"goksin-sipahioglu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=597","title":{"rendered":"Goksin Sipahioglu"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong>Perhaps lost in the wake of the passing of Steve Jobs was the loss of Goskin Siphhioglu.\u00a0 Our guess is that his name is known to 1% of maybe 1% of the American public…maybe.<\/p>\n

A noted photojournalist in his own right, he went on to found Sipa Press.\u00a0 Sipa was one of a handful of other stock photography agencies that covered world news events when to do so meant that photojournalists had to possess an almost mystical recipe of talent, work ethic, knowledge of place and people, the ability to BS their way into a war zone or out of a jail, a willingness to risk life and limb to get a picture and a hefty helping of flat out insanity.\u00a0 Dramatic imagery that became<\/em> the pages of Life, Look, Time and the other magazines were the lifeblood of the news and imagery to America. The world was their canvass and their work was often legendary.<\/p>\n

Photo access to war zones or even to streets seething with discontent in far off lands, was restricted.\u00a0 There was an Iron Curtain of censorship and bullets flying in Europe, in the deserts of the Middle East and in the jungles of Viet Nam. Back then there were no cell phones, iPads,\u00a0digital nor camcorders in the possession of millions of wanna-be photographers or just plain citizens making instant world-wide access to imagery both routine and “free”.\u00a0 There was no Facebook, twitter or e-mails.\u00a0 And absolutely no – if you can imagine it – Internet.\u00a0 If you care about either photography or reportage, Goksin Sipahioglu\u2019s passing is depressing for reasons both obvious and subtle.<\/p>\n

It is a sad fact of life that the public could not care less about photojournalists who daily risk their lives or liberty to capture breaking stories.\u00a0 Amateurs both domestically and abroad, now shoot imagery that instantly appears on screens of all sizes and shapes and passes for news photography.\u00a0 Other than Danial Pearl, it is not likely than many Americans can name a single journalist or photojournalist who has been killed in action.\u00a0 (Perhaps if Angelina Jolie had passed on the movie, the American public may have by now, forgotten even Mr. Pearl\u2019s name).<\/p>\n

Sipahioglu\u2019s death is a sad and obvious reminder of an era past but also a subtle reminder that professional photojournalists are no longer considered to be an essential cog in the dissemination of events and news to a waiting world.\u00a0 A pro with twenty years experience of shooting and living in say, Libya, has been easily replaced by a 17-year-old native with an iPhone who “works for free”.<\/p>\n

“All that matters is the image and what fee it can command in the market place”.<\/p>\n

Just ask any twenty something who works for any of the big name stock agencies and that’s what they believe and that’s what they have been told to believe by their superiors.\u00a0 Few if any, have ever even heard of “Sipa”. Mores the pity.<\/p>\n

Some will say, “It’s all just progress…what’s the big deal”.\u00a0 We think its a very big deal<\/em>. \u00a0It is emblematic of the near extinction of professional photojournalism as a viable profession.\u00a0Society is diminished yet again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps lost in the wake of the passing of Steve Jobs was the loss of Goskin Siphhioglu.\u00a0 Our guess is that his name is known to 1% of maybe 1% of the American public…maybe. A noted photojournalist in his own right, he went on to found Sipa Press.\u00a0 Sipa was one of a handful of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright-info"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}