Is this the future of photography?

I like the moving image and I like the still image ... the convergence theory for the future I'm not so keen on!

Interesting read and I predict that it's premise will be howled down here!
 
Blah, Blah, Blah. Who knows? A reasonably intelligent man is reported to have said in the mid 1950's tha tthe US would only need about a dozen computers. He was wrong.
 
Editing down the hours of moving images that Id take on any given day walking around to get the couple interesting frames sounds like a complete NIGHTMARE!
 
Yeah. We'll be struggling to get our keeper rate above 0.1%. And the increased heat from all that storage and backup will be taxed and it will be cheaper and easier to return to film, for those who left.
 
Richard G said:
Yeah. We'll be struggling to get our keeper rate above 0.1%. And the increased heat from all that storage and backup will be taxed and it will be cheaper and easier to return to film, for those who left.
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Just think how many images you can tell the bride she will get. The emerging HD will be doing 48 frames a second so for a 4 hour wedding gig that'll be 4*60*60*48 = 691200 images you have to post process and produce proofs of. That'll impress your clients.
 
I think the thinking in the interview is that a pro will have little choice but to embrace the technology. If there are $5,000 cameras that can shoot 96fps in RAW at a 14MP resolution for each frame, to be competitive you will have little choice but to use them. He was being very careful with his wording, but that's basically what he was saying.
 
The one thing that’s going to make me miss or succeed as a photographer is capturing “the” moment, because that involves anticipation and predicting the future. It involves a lot of skill, a lot of guess work, and experience. And I think ultimately knowing when to press that shutter is one of the greatest skills you can develop as a still photographer.


there is something important in there
 
Guy talking reminds me of that Zappa record, "Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar". What he's describing sounds more like surveillance than photography to me. Guy should shoot more, talk less, then maybe he wouldn't be so fascinated by poking around looking for a good frame.
 
Not having to "wait" for the decisive moment? Maybe. But who is going to wade through 96-120frames/sec of images to "find" it. This is automation, not "photography". As Ranchu notes, it's "surveillance" video..not photography.

Somebody, somewhere and sometime in the future will find a way to extract the art and "humanity" out of this technology (or not), but I doubt it will be anyone typing on this thread....
 
Even if they can successfully remove the element of timing, which I think will be difficult, how will they resolve the issues of angle, lighting, and most importantly, juxtaposition, which is what gives our best decisive moment street photographs their status.

Sounds like a good way to sell hard drives and memory.
 
However, to be cognizant of the guy predicting a only a handful of computers in the 50's, they have developed pretty good face and smile detection. The key will be the development of the software that you can use to scan the terabytes of data with your input parameters, which then pulls the decisive moment out for you.

That's the really scary, but perhaps interesting future.

Let's see, today I want the little man jumping over the puddle lined up with the ballet poster just this way, followed by just the right reflections off the puddle, and the sky has to be somewhat gray...

searching...

(for me) FILE NOT FOUND

or perhaps, "We're sorry, we have found that this moment has already been captured and copyrighted by another entity. Your files are being deleted to avoid possible infringment lawsuit damages.
:bang::bang::bang:
 
I think this article was a very good promo for the subject. To his credit, he hedged a lot of what he was saying.
The old saying "men plan, fate laughs" comes to mind...the future of imagery will be shaped by needs that we likely can't forecast until they are almost upon us.
There will always be a place for still imagery, for still photography. Whether it's hobbyists, craftspeople, or whatever...it will always be here. That is all I feel comfortable predicting.
 
Colin Corneau said:
I think this article was a very good promo for the subject.
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Yes, that's really what it looked like to me too. Every so often there's some random blog that tries this line, it seems to me it's usually a non shooter (writer) getting hopeful, looking to sell him/herself. Bleh. Amused me when he started talking about how the shooter would 'need to' have an editor to handle the files. So spray and pray, and sort it out later?

Colin Corneau said:
There will always be a place for still imagery, for still photography. Whether it's hobbyists, craftspeople, or whatever...
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Photographers.
 
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In his own realms, this guy is almost certainly correct. You could see this coming for the last three years at least. And twas ever thus, that every new stage of technological development is greeted with the same horror and opprobrium. No matter. Most of us on this site are shooting film in a digital age already, not, as this interview takes for granted about its main audience, because we're advertising pros responding to what's commercially viable, but because it is artistically, aesthetically, or in terms of craft, deeply satisfying. You might as well show the interview to a sculptor or a seamstress as show it to us..... except we're particularly interested in the fringes of our world, where some, but not all, commercial photography lies. Keep in mind many "photographers" who are already deep into digital are doing "video portraits" now -- ever seen one? They're weird. They're different. They capture something and it's not what a still captures. Still photography has always been about the past: here's something as it was: look. Moving images are about creating an alternative present: step inside this artificial time frame and see what is happening, in the present progressive tense. So if the still comes from a set of moving images, it will still be rendering the past, whereas the moving version will continue to be alternative version of time: in which things change. In the still, you are outside of time: nothing changes. Pinhole camera to Epic Red: all the same.
 
Doesn't it sounds like wearing diapers all the time in case "decisive moment" happens in the moment you aren't ready for it?
 
Old news, we were discussing this a couple of years back. I had a fantastic conversation with a couple of shooters who'd just come back from Haiti for a week before heading back. They shot video, but delivered stills also, from the same camera. That's normal, I use Red hear and do the same thing. It's a tool.

However, what I didn't like was the headset with the man in London telling them where to point the camera - in real time.
 
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