Is Photography going to change?

[Ducky]

The OP asked if photography will change. Maybe the technology will change but will the subjects change.
I just finished flipping through "The Family of Man". a beautiful work by many photographers.
Will the photogs of the future, assuming there are any, be shooting people still? Will pretty girls, babys, working men (and women), life and death all still be of interest?
Cats, flowers and sunsets of course, but will there be any emotion left in photographers and viewers alike to support the idea of a "Family of Man" 2010 - 2020?
I am already beginning to doubt there will be that kind of emotion.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Message from 2060: "What's a camera?"

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Reply from 1860. A device used to record an image.

Reply From Kiu. Has NIKON written on the nameplate...

 

[michalski]

"All you need to do is capture a moment you imagined or saw, lets say via a revolutionary new image copying device that captures such images, directly from your eyes or even better, your brain!"

Geez I'm still waiting for the flying cars that are only fifty years late. Sure pictures by blinking your eyes that's into the future none of us will see....

"Man Installs Video Camera in Eye Socket"

 

[Al Kaplan]

I don't see all that much difference between the images I was making in the 1960's or now in the 2000's, and my mentors were the product of the geat depression's Farm Security Administration, the photographers covering WW-II and Korea for Life Magazine and the wire services.

The technology has changed but good journalism is good journalism whether written on a laptop or pounded out on a manual Underwood. That's just as true with good images.

 

[splitimageview]

Reply from Brian: it's a light-tight box with a Carl Zeiss optic in a Russian lens barrel.

Reply from 1860. A device used to record an image.

Reply From Kiu. Has NIKON written on the nameplate...

 

[jonmanjiro]

Reply from Robert: it's a black painted light-tight box with a Carl Zeiss optic in a Russian lens barrel. 😀

 

[splitimageview]

Reply from Jon: it's a Nikon SP re-issue with a Millenium Nikkor. 🙂

 

[sanmich]

I don't see all that much difference between the images I was making in the 1960's or now in the 2000's, and my mentors were the product of the geat depression's Farm Security Administration, the photographers covering WW-II and Korea for Life Magazine and the wire services.

The technology has changed but good journalism is good journalism whether written on a laptop or pounded out on a manual Underwood. That's just as true with good images.

I would love to think that, Al, but I hear that PJ's have a hell of a hard time these days. the market has shrunk because fo the electronic medium, and the magazines spend less and sell more by covering the adventures of the last teen star-for-a-month than by sending a photographer to Afganistan. They are apparently doing the maths very well.
I think we can see a very different relation of most people to "the image" in much less than 50 years.
Look at the kind of revolution HCB and his contemporary has introduced in photography....
How would Nadar feel seeing the work of Araki? revolution or not??

I would guess that the cultural impact of the digital revolution / camera in phones is that images may become much more "disposable". You took a picture, send it to your friends on phone / email / tweeter whatever, and that's it, you don't keep it. Who will miss the stability of kodachrome in 50 years from now??

 

[wgerrard]

Michael, the conclusion I draw from Al's comment and your comment is that good journalism always runs behind simple-minded entertainment. It's natural to look back at Life and other great examples of journalism of the recent past and lament the current profusion of tabloid journalism. Media are extremely intrusive these days -- mainly TV and the net -- but I'm not sure the ratio of "good" to "bad" has changed all that much since the heyday of Life. (Although we have seen some traditional purveyors of "good" journalism go over to the Dark Side.)

In other words, a large part of media has always been crud. Today there's just an order of magnitude more media, making the crud that much more apparent.

 

[Al Kaplan]

The very fact that so few new images are archived these days just makes the ones that remain retrievable all the more valuable. My files from the 60's through at least the eighties have been a growing source of income, not because they were the greatest pictures of a person, place, or event, but because they often turn up on a google search or are posted elsewhere. The Miami Pops Festival which happened just before Woodstock and had the same promoter and line-up of artists, Miccosukee and Seminole Indians from that window of time between their moving onto reservations and becoming wealthy from tax free cigarettes and casinos. Janet Reno as a young fresh out of law school attorney, a FEMALE attorney, getting appointed states attorney for Dade County, FL. Last week I ran into the new director of development for Barry University in nearby Miami Shores. When I told him that not only had I been the school's photographer for about 25 years but still had all the negatives, contact sheets, and transparencies, he got really excited! And there are notes scribbled on the backs of those contacts. Most newspapers and magazines purge their files on a regular basis. Down the drain! Gone!

All those millions of digital images people are shooting with their point and shoots and camera phones? I'm not worried about the competition. It's only competition if it's accessable. A photo of Janis Joplin has been my biggest money producer. There must have been 25 other photographers shooting her that night. Where are their images?

 

[Pickett Wilson]

But Al, when all of us '60 model hippies are dead, nobody will care about any of these things. The 20th century will be ancient history. I'm glad you are getting income from your images now. But they have a definite shelf life. Images from today will have an even shorter life because of the media attention everything gets in real time these days, far beyond anything that existed when you and I were dinosaurs roaming the earth with cameras. 🙂

 

[Keith]

I think there'll be less interest or emphasis on the still image ... especially in the arts area!

Newspapers are all but dead compared to where they were and the internet is now obviously IT!

People don't seem to be interested in looking at static images along side print that they actually have to read any more ... the whole world will be reduced to thirty second video 'grabs' as society increasingly lacks the attention span to deal with anything more cerebrally challenging!

 

[DougFord]

Dude, the whole thing goes catawampus next year, with the introduction of consumer P&S digital 3D cameras, monitors and displays.
Adding a third dimension is some pretty heavy stuff, vis-à-vis the future of photography thing.
3D, static images can be mesmerizing. Well, to me anyway.
3D street photography will be AMAZING. 😀

 

[Freakscene]

When I can get a USB port grafted into my head, wired to my brain, I'll be able to transfer anything I see to computer and print it. The brain is a very fine image processing system - our eyes are remarkable, but in a lot of ways very simple optical systems. After I've made my magnum opus this way i'll upload myself into the web and leave my body to rot.

Marty

 

[Al Kaplan]

Pickett, most of my files aren't pictures of sexy girls, rock stars, pastoral landscapes, or hippies. The photos also encompass lots of local and national political figures and business leaders. The important thing is that you can locate the original negative or slide. My point was that almost none of the images, either from the 60's or 20001, even exists anymore. No print, no negative, no electronic file.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

When I can get a USB port grafted into my head, wired to my brain, I'll be able to transfer anything I see to computer and print it. The brain is a very fine image processing system - our eyes are remarkable, but in a lot of ways very simple optical systems. After I've made my magnum opus this way i'll upload myself into the web and leave my body to rot.

Marty

Ringworld. Larry Niven. Wireheads. You'll get addicted to virtual reality games. Don't do it.

http://wireheading.com/wirehead.html

 

[drivel]

When did photography stop changing?

 

[edodo]

Photography today has changed enormously. Think about it, 2 billions potential photographers on the earth (including phone's camera, digicompacts etc...)
Then what is the point in taking pictures?

My answer is that the mind comes first. There is absolutely NO ART without ideas.

Ok there are billions of potentiel photographers but only a few with something extraordinary in their minds that they want to share... my 2 cents.

Diane Arbus we miss you...

 

[NIKON KIU]

When did photography stop changing?

Good point.

I believe we are at the cross-roads now, more than ever.
Soon there will be wireless transmiters in the shape of disposable contact lenses:

Powered by your Brain's electrical currents!

The use of the lens in capturing images as we know it today will be obsolete.


Kiu