I very interesting piece by Tom Griggs on how photography is funded:

"I do believe that these new models and trends in photography – particularly in distribution - have reduced our medium. They have had a homogenizing effect, limiting participation and putting a premium on access to the limited number of faces at the gates of entry and to publishing and exhibiting. These trends have eliminated views from photographers not able to surpass the equipment gap, get an MFA, survive post-graduation, and pay for networking. They have had the result of a more simplified collective vision: less can make work, a narrower range of work is distributed, and I think an argument could be made that it also affects HOW work is made. If the stakes are high, less adventurous work will be made to ensure some degree of reception to it once the necessary payments have been made for access to the right eyes."

Tom Griggs may be coming from a very different arena of photography than the work shown on this site but I understand the underlying truth of this - there is a lot of really fucking boring work by established photographers in established publications; the most interesting work is so often produced by young artists, doing the work they love with no regard for it's commercial viability.

We should really be looking at how we are going to support them rather than the status quo.