Appreciation for interesting, first-rate photos

LETTERS

Appreciating and celebrating excellence is something we seem to do have relegated to the back pages of our newspapers and the furthest links of the various media channels that people increasingly scan with fervent inattention.

The “celebrity” awards shows are losing viewers despite the inordinate promotion by the academies involved. Apparently the editors of the world (or is it the media owners) all belong to the doom-andgloom set that think if something is negative, it is news and “is fit to print” — a generalization, I admit; while other things, negative or positive, are not newsworthy. And as a corollary, sensationalist items are treated as art (dead things or excrement in a bottle), goofy apparel is featured on runways as fashion, repetitive lyrics by artists who all sound alike is passed off as music, and blotchy, blurry, poorly composed, photographs are posted on many sharing sites and especially glaringly on professional news sites.

Why do photojournalism schools teach their students to photograph dignitaries, politicians, local citizens and almost everyone else so that the subjects look strange, disheveled, evil, out-of-focus, unrecognizable, or with flag poles and sundry other items sticking out of their heads?

So it is a pleasure to see that the Lethbridge Herald features interesting, well-composed images by Al Beeber. These are all consistently first-rate and of framable quality and could grace any office, home, or gallery wall. Kudos to Mr. Beeber and the paper!

Henry Komadowski

Lethbridge