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Nikon PR nightmares


Andrew Reid
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Just a Nikon NPS rep advertising the brand...

nikon-pr.jpg

(Censored the account name as he would lose his job... hope he deletes it)

More stupidity...

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41266234

Yes it made the BBC!

The sexism row also made the blog and RSS feed of one of the most influential tech & Apple bloggers in the world

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2017/09/15/nikon-women

Well done Nikon!

 

Translation of the Instagram death plunge post:

Nikon rep says:
Friends, The Falling Man is the title of a photograph (Chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 most influential photographs in history) taken by Richard Drew, Nikon photographer for the AP, during the attacks of September 11, 2001 against the twin towers of the World Trade Center, at 9:41:15 in the morning. In the image you can see a man fall from the North Tower of the World Trade Center, who surely chose to jump into the void to avoid dying scorched by the flames.
Richard Drew says: "When I went up the steps of the subway station, I looked up and saw that the two towers were on fire, I immediately started photographing people, I had a perfect view of both buildings and I thought it was where I could cover my task.I had a Nikon DCS-620 (Nikon F5 body) and was using a zoom of 70-200mm. And I fulfilled my mission.I was like, 'Whoa' It's my moment! "The policeman pointed up and said: Oh my God, look! "And that's when we realized that people were jumping out of the building.We do not know if they were triggered by flames or smoke.I was photographing several people falling from the building and I have a sequence of The camera captured the picture in a sequence, as it had a motor in it. Can you imagine how fast people are falling? They are falling very fast, and while you are photographing this you have to go with them as well I chose this guy in my visor, put his finger on the button and kept taking pictures while he fell..."

Good week start Nikonista.
#nikonphotography #nikonperu #nikon#nikonworld #nikonusa #nikkor #nikontop#nikonphoto #photooftheday #photo#photography #camera #blessed #lima#happy #nikonteam #reflex #nikonclub#like4like #iamnikon #foto #fotografia#dslr #blessed #nikonlover #follow4follow#madeinjapan #tb

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So Nikon did invite female photographers but none of them accepted. How is this sexism, again? Even if Nikon did have some female photographers for the D850, would people complain that there weren't enough of them? Would Nikon have to have an equal amount of female and male photographers for people not to complain? Would they need to have more females than males? Why does it even matter? I think attributing to Nikon that "they think it's too much for women to handle" is incredibly dishonest. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Identity politics is a zero-sum game. Don't play it.

Now in the future Nikon will feel forced to include female photographers for the sake of not being chastised. What if they choose female photographers that don't have as good of work as some male photographers that they wanted originally but they feel the need to choose them just because they're female? 

Why didn't Nikon have any non binary, transgender, or genderqueer photographers? I'm offended!

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38 minutes ago, iamoui said:

So Nikon did invite female photographers but none of them accepted. How is this sexism, again? Even if Nikon did have some female photographers for the D850, would people complain that there weren't enough of them? Would Nikon have to have an equal amount of female and male photographers for people not to complain? Would they need to have more females than males? Why does it even matter? I think attributing to Nikon that "they think it's too much for women to handle" is incredibly dishonest. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Identity politics is a zero-sum game. Don't play it.

Now in the future Nikon will feel forced to include female photographers for the sake of not being chastised. What if they choose female photographers that don't have as good of work as some male photographers that they wanted originally but they feel the need to choose them just because they're female? 

Why didn't Nikon have any non binary, transgender, or genderqueer photographers? I'm offended!

Yikes. 

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2 hours ago, iamoui said:

So Nikon did invite female photographers but none of them accepted. How is this sexism, again? Even if Nikon did have some female photographers for the D850, would people complain that there weren't enough of them? Would Nikon have to have an equal amount of female and male photographers for people not to complain? Would they need to have more females than males? Why does it even matter? I think attributing to Nikon that "they think it's too much for women to handle" is incredibly dishonest. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Identity politics is a zero-sum game. Don't play it.

Now in the future Nikon will feel forced to include female photographers for the sake of not being chastised. What if they choose female photographers that don't have as good of work as some male photographers that they wanted originally but they feel the need to choose them just because they're female? 

Why didn't Nikon have any non binary, transgender, or genderqueer photographers? I'm offended!

You are right about the queer thing.  Women are the majority of the US population and these guys couldn't find one.  They should just become gay and stop looking.  They are terrible at it.

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640px-Global_Gender_Gap_Report.svg.png.243cd3ed230d1ae35c2355d69d332f97.png

Sexism in Japan is a known problem. And not just there... Fuji (UK nonetheless) had a similar issue few months ago when had a topless female model in a demonstration of GFX 50s. To their credit, I was surprised to see so many female photographers during the X-E3 promotion. And probably they were just 50% so imagine how biased we are that when genders are represented accurately, it pops up like burned highlights. 

There are plenty of scientific papers showing strong gender bias. Its implicit nature makes it harder for us to perceive it but it is there. Try this test :

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/user/agg/blindspot/indexgc.htm

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I don't know what's worse, that they didn't notice that there weren't any women on the list, or that they came up with the weak sauce excuse of "well we invited them but they all* declined". 

* I wonder how many female photographers they invited vs male photographers? I'm going to guess the invited list wasn't 50/50.

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The photographer's comments about "people falling" are so cold that is disgusting. He seems really excited about seeing people falling from a scorched building. Completely lost the connection between his subjects and real human emotions. I am not against the photo taken (of course it is history), but the comment on such photos can not be completely technical, the real emotions have to be mentioned and discussed.

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It's not about being politically correct or about gender politics. There was just absolutely no reason for Nikon to end up with this shitstorm in the media, from being stupid at marketing. Anybody can find female photographers. They're everywhere. Nikon should get to know some!

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Nikon does have a bit of a track record of trying to deal with the concept of there only being photographers rather than male and female photographers unfortunately.

Ranging from the well meaning to the full on face palm WTF moments.

The first Nikon that I owned (which was 36 years ago now by the way :astonished:) was the EM.

The EM - and the accompanying E series lenses which I still use a couple of today - was actually designed by Nikon as a system for female photographers who, Nikon reasoned, had been put off switching to SLRs because of the cost, the size and the complexity of something like the F2 compared to the compact cameras they were using.

It backfired and the EM wasn't a great success as men were offended by it being dumbed down in terms of features and build quality and women were offended by it being dumbed down full stop.

Ironically, during the lead up to the announcement of the D850 (still being called the D820 at that point), it seems the same thinking is still at play nearly 40 years later with the President of Nikon talking about making a dSLR that 'women would find easier to use'.

https://www.nikonrumors.co/new-nikon-mirrorless-camera-confirmed-again-in-an-interview-with-nikon-president/

Whether this is a deliberately sexist culture or just some cringe Alan Partridge/David Brent style attempts to do the right thing I don't know.

They do have some form for some inexcusable ads that make it hard to make a case for the defence though.

370253599_381bb95636.jpg.92215464625230ac13afd3cee27ceed0.jpg

priyanka-chopras-photoshoot-for-nikon-june-2013-37726.jpg.a574f7483fb7810425f8fd279a297a17.jpg

 

As for this last one, if thats how they illustrate 3mp then Lord alone knows what they'd do to represent the 47mp D850.

nikonsexism.jpg.abb901f8f56fee9462d56af37d517313.jpg 

24 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

It's not about being politically correct or about gender politics. There was just absolutely no reason for Nikon to end up with this shitstorm in the media, from being stupid at marketing. Anybody can find female photographers. They're everywhere. Nikon should get to know some!

And if we are to believe Nikon's response about them not being available then this shows that not only are there plenty of them but that they are also too busy actually being out there and doing it to take time out to have their egos stroked at PR events ;)

 

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Look at all those heavy lenses, poor ladies.

Someone get them a Nikon J1

All these men buying D850s with 42MPs better watch out they don't grow bigger breasts

On a related topic...

Isn't it time Canon and Nikon put their 80 year old male management in a retirement home?

Or would that be agist? :)

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14 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

 

nikon-pr.jpg

 

".....I chose this guy in my visor, put his finger on the button and kept taking pictures while he fell..."

 

Its quite apt that the translation used the word 'visor' instead of 'viewfinder' as it does actually speak very accurately to the detachment of photojournalism when it seems that you are viewing the world through this protective barrier that it does separate you from it.

This is in no way condoning the triumphant tone of his description but in that moment I would say that the he was viewing those falling bodies with the same detachment as he would have if it was the falling debris. Behind his 'visor' he would have been seeing objects to be framed and tracked with no differentiation between human and non-human form. His response is that of a technical and artistic job done well and that is something that is unfortunately to me is both deeply troubling yet also very relatable.

It is a really difficult issue and one made totally abhorrent by his triumphalism but at the same time its quite a fascinating if troubling and disturbing phenomenon of this detachment that happens when you raise that camera to your eye.

It actually troubles me to the extent that I've just took out a couple of paragraphs of this response with some of my personal experiences of this because its an issue that is maybe too nuanced to try and go into in this thread. It definitely would end up being happy hour at Pete & Bernie's Philosophical Steakhouse.

The bottom line is I understand where the photographer was coming from but the zeal with which it was relayed and then used as a promotion by the Nikon guy was utterly out of order.

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1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

All these men buying D850s with 42MPs better watch out they don't grow bigger breasts

I'll spare you the photo ;)  But we already have the bigger breasts, we just need a camera to cover them!  Score another point for the D850!  Also, I watched one of those videos about how Canon cameras are made.  Everyone is in what looks like to me striped prison suits.  Cracks me up to no end!  No wonder Japan is having a dating problem.  

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