If you're in the photo/video space or if you've ever been interested in it, you've probably seen PDN at your local newsstand. Yesterday I learned that PDN is no more.
I think this right here, this moment in time, is a really important thing to just stop and take a look at because you know it's been said time and time again that, "Photography in general as a career is in decline." We've seen numerous studies with this. Everybody has an iPhone or an Android and is capable of making solid and stunning photos. And I think the closure of PDN is just another example of that. I think it is just another moment in time that says, photography as we know it commercially may not have as much value as it used to. And I think that has been the trend for quite some time. I don't think there's any debate of that, but it just seems that in general photography has no value.
Yesterday many of us who are in the photo and video space learned that PDN is stopping production, sounds like the website's going to be shut down. The only thing that's really going to remain of PDN as an organization is their trade expos, WPPI, and PhotoPlus.
I'm relatively new to photography and trying to pursue more of it in my life. I loved going and picking up PDN at my local newsstand, getting inspired by what some of the professionals in the industry are currently doing and just really trying to stay up to date on how I can be a better business person.
This really sucks because I don't know what resources are out there right now. I read Fstoppers and I look at other publications that are out there, but PDN was great because it had a lot of depth to what was discussed. They really went into a lot of detail about how to make a living at this, how to bid, how to put together a website, how to do motion and still projects. I'm personally going to miss PDN. I'm going to miss the ability to just be inspired by what others are doing and the great images, but not just the great images, but the business knowledge that comes along with it and the marketing knowledge that comes along with it. So those are some of the things I'm going to be missing most about PDN.
I'm glad to see the expos, WPPI, and PhotoPlus are still going to be around, but for a lot of us, I know traveling to Vegas or New York each year is just not a viable option. As much as this sucks, we can learn from this, we can learn to adapt and we can learn to grow. I think if we take anything away from this moment right now, I think we have to learn how to rise above this. We can either wring our hands and be frustrated or we can get to work. So those are our two options at the end of the day.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments on the fall of PDN. What are other resources out there that I could be looking at and what this community in general could be looking at? I think it's important to have this conversation now since we're going to lose PDN. I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions of what I should be looking at, what I should be reading, and what I should be thinking about in 2020 and going forward.
-RJL